p. 112 | The Convents of Rome

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 18, 1873

The Convents of Rome.

The cable informs us that a royal decree was issued Monday whereby the Italian government takes formal possession of 16 convents in Rome. This action is in accordance with the letter of a recently adopted bill on the religious corporations of the Eternal City, the object of which is to extend the law on this subject already in force in the rest of Italy to the Roman convents and monasteries with certain specified exceptions. The number of institutions affected by the action of the government is very large. When the law went into effect, there were in the city of Rome 126 monasteries, with 2,375 inmates and $388,744 in gross revenue, and 92 convents, with 2,188 inmates and $287,265 in revenue. In the suburbs of Rome, there were 51 monasteries, 517 inmates, and 22 convents with 351 inmates, the joint revenues of the suburban institutions of both classes being $64,640. In the Romagna, there were 134 monasteries with 1,434 inmates, and 57 convents with 1,291 inmates, the revenue of all amounting to $217,529. In addition to the above, there were in Rome a number of ecclesiastical corporations, having a revenue of $359,878, and also benefices under secular patronage which amounted to $264,561. All this property is to be converted into government stock, the immovable property being sold by public auction and the proceeds inscribed in the name of the order to which the property belongs, the money so obtained to be appropriated in the first instance, to the payment of pensions to the members of the order, the pay of the priest being fixed at 600 francs a year, and that of a lay brother 300 francs. It is estimated that the sale of the whole will produce more than $1,600,000.