On the occasion of the 1st Centenary of the Patronage of Saint Joseph

by Gabriele Cantaluppi

In 1970, two first centenary anniversaries were celebrated in different contexts: in the ecclesiastical one the proclamation of Saint Joseph as Patron Saint of the universal Church on 8 December 1870, while the Italian State remembered the anniversary of the occupation of Rome on 20 September 1870 , with the consequent cessation of the temporal power of the Popes.

In these hundred years, in 1910, our Basilica of San Giuseppe was also built, commissioned by Saint Pius But there is a number, which only God knows, of simple believers who contributed to its construction and to the constant improvement, including building, of the structure.

Today San Giuseppe al Trionfale is the major temple in Rome dedicated to the Patron Saint of the Church, it is a destination for pilgrimages and the primary headquarters of the Pious Union of Transit, promoted for the salvation of the dying.

On the occasion of the celebration of the Octave of prayers for Christian unity, on 19 January 1970 a solemn function was celebrated in our church. Ordinarily the entire Octave was celebrated in the Church of Gesù, but starting from that year the Cardinal Vicar Monsignor Angelo Dell'Acqua decided that it should be celebrated every day in a different Roman church. it was significantly noted that the celebration took on a particular meaning: Saint Joseph is the universal Patron not "of the Churches", but of the one Church: he is therefore a truly ecumenical Saint.

In April 1970, the year of the Centenary, our church had the honor of being proclaimed a Basilica. This is how Pope Paul VI expresses himself in the Election Decree, after recalling the centrality of the cult of the Saint and the presence of the headquarters of the Pious Union of Transit linked to the church: «since our Venerable Brother Cardinal of SR Chiesa Angelo Dell'Acqua, Our Vicar General of the City has requested that this temple of Saint Joseph be awarded the title of Minor Basilica, we believe we must  agree to the request,  and in compliance with the decree of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship with our Apostolic Authority we elevate the above temple to the dignity of a minor Basilica, granting all liturgical rights and particularities".

Work on the expansion of the basilica also began in June 1970 and would end in March of the following year. They are linked above all to the creation of spaces in the cruise, to allow better movement of people. In fact, it happened that, especially on major holidays, when many faithful flocked to the church to venerate the Saint and receive the Sacraments, too many people crowded together near the confessionals and near the balustrades, creating obstacles to the regular carrying out of the functions.

From 29 November to 6 December of the same year, an International Symposium of Studies on Saint Joseph was held in Rome, at the Domus Mariae, organized by the Iberian-American Society of Josephology, the North American Society of Montreal and the Italian Study Center on Saint Joseph, under the presidency of Cardinal Gabriele Maria Garrone, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

Fifty-one scholars, coming from all over the world, in forty-seven reports and communications have dealt with various biblical, theological aspects, spirituality and writings on Saint Joseph in the first fifteen centuries of the Church.

Father Rolando Gauthier, president of the North American Society of Studies on Saint Joseph, specified the spiritual and scientific importance of the Conference: «Attempt an effort to return to the first sources, orienting the work towards the origins of the theology and cult of Saint Joseph ».

On 19 March 1969, Saint Paul VI presented Saint Joseph as generous in offering his existence to God «to the imponderable needs of the surprising coming of the Messiah». And the following year, in the homily of the Mass, he invited us to imitate him, to live «with a spontaneous theological reflection on the union of divine action with human action in the great economy of Redemption, in which the first, the divine one, is all sufficient in itself, but the second, the human one, ours, although capable of nothing (see John 15:5), is never dispensed from a humble, but conditional and ennobling collaboration".