Tour of Roman archives

November 23, 2011 in General, News

roman_archives_01Damien Burke (Irish Jesuit Archives) and Margaret Doyle (Clongowes Wood College) attended the Catholic Archives Society study trip to Rome last October. Over a six-day period, twelve visits were arranged, which included the Propaganda Fide Archives, the Vatican Secret Archives and the Archives of St Peter’s Basilica. They also had an audience with the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta and with Cardinal Marchisano and Abbot Zielinski, Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church. Fr. Brian Mac Cuarta, SJ (Director, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu), who is pictured here (right) with Damien, made them very welcome at the Jesuit Archives and at his local ristorante. The trip highlighted the challenges faced by religious archives, especially in terms of accessibility to their historic collections.