Sanctuary of Manoppello

A town in the Abruzzi at the foot of the Maiella

Manoppello is a small commune in the province of Pescara, in the Abruzzi, backed against the Maiella massif, one of the great mountains of the central Apennines.^[2] The sanctuary does not stand in the town itself, but apart, on a wooded hill called Tarigni, a few kilometres from the historic centre — a typical arrangement for Capuchin friaries, whose rule called for them to be poor, withdrawn and close to nature.^[3]

This out-of-the-way setting partly explains the long discretion of the place. For nearly four centuries, the Volto Santo was a regional devotion, known to the people of the Abruzzi and to passing pilgrims, but ignored by the worldwide Catholic public. The sanctuary remained what it had been from the outset: a house of friars, not a great ecclesiastical centre. It is this very modesty that today strikes visitors who come from all over the world.

The arrival of the Capuchins (1616–1626)

The Capuchin Friars Minor, a reformed branch of the Franciscan family born in 1525, had spread throughout Italy in less than a century. At Manoppello, their coming was requested by the local community: tradition places their arrival around 1616, the building of the friary and church being completed around 1620, with a community fully established by about 1626.^[4] The church was then dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel and to the Most Holy Name of God.^[5]

Nothing in this new friary distinguished it then from the dozens of other Capuchin houses in the Abruzzi. What was to make the place a sanctuary came from outside: a veil, and a notary's decision to entrust it to the friars.

The veil and the notary De Fabritiis

The story of the veil's arrival at Manoppello is recorded in an early source, the Relatione historica written around 1640 by the Capuchin friar Donato da Bomba.^[6] According to this account, an unknown pilgrim is said to have brought the veil to Manoppello in 1506 and to have handed it to the physician Giacomo Antonio Leonelli, before disappearing.^[7] The cloth then remained in private hands for more than a century, within the Leonelli family and then by marriage.

The decisive moment for the sanctuary is the year 1638: a notable of Manoppello, the notary Donato Antonio De Fabritiis, who had acquired the veil, gave it by notarial deed to the Capuchins of the Tarigni hill.^[8] This gesture turned the veil from a family relic into a treasure of the Church, entrusted to a stable religious community: it is from this that the Capuchin keeping of the veil dates, exercised for nearly four centuries apart from the expulsions of the 19th century.^[9][10]

According to the sanctuary's tradition, the deed stipulated that the veil was handed over to the Capuchin Fathers of the friary of Manoppello so that it might be kept and venerated there in perpetuity.^[11]

The origin of the image: a question referred elsewhere

The ultimate origin of the veil, its exact nature and its possible identity with the veil of Veronica or with the Holy Shroud of Turin are the subject of a considerable literature, scientific and devotional, which goes beyond the scope of an article about the place. These questions touch on the discernment of the relics of the Passion — a field in which the Church carefully distinguishes authorised veneration from dogmatic definition (on this point, see Why venerate relics?).^[12] Only what matters for the sanctuary is retained here: around this veil, a friary became a place of pilgrimage.

The Napoleonic suppressions and the return (1811–1816)

Like almost all Italian friaries, Manoppello experienced the suppressions of the early 19th century. On 6 September 1811, the Capuchins were expelled by Napoleonic decree, when the laws of the Kingdom of Naples confiscated religious property.^[13] The friary was then entrusted to the Poor Clare nuns, to whom the veil was given into keeping; the friars returned to the sanctuary on 16 May 1816, after the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons.^[14]

Seminary, novitiate and house of studies (1848–1926)

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the friary became a genuine Franciscan formation centre. The church underwent works in 1848; a novitiate was opened there in 1858; from 1906 onwards the friars published a religious periodical there; and in 1926, the house became the seat of the Seraphic seminary of San Michele.^[15] Manoppello was therefore not only a sanctuary: it was a living house of the order, where men were formed, prayed and studied, in the shadow of the veil.

The great enlargement of the 1960s

The present appearance of the sanctuary therefore does not date from the 17th century, but from a vast campaign of works carried out in the 1960s to receive a growing number of pilgrims.^[17] The original narrow church was profoundly altered: the nave was widened and the façade entirely redone. This building site explains why, unlike a medieval sanctuary such as Lanciano, Manoppello presents a modern architecture inspired by the past — a 20th-century church that deliberately quotes the medieval art of the Abruzzi.

A façade in the manner of Collemaggio (1965)

The present façade, raised in 1965, is the most remarkable feature of the building. It openly imitates one of the masterpieces of Abruzzese art: the basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L'Aquila, famous for its two-colour facing.^[18] The walls are laid with small blocks of red and white stone, arranged in a geometric pattern of small crosses, which gives the whole the look of a tapestry of stone. At its centre opens a large rose window, likewise inspired by Collemaggio.^[19]

With its facing of pink and white stone sown with crosses, the façade announces, like a mantle thrown over the hill, the face it shelters.^[20]

The façade opens with three round-arched portals; the central portal is surmounted by a mosaic lunette depicting Christ.^[21] The bell tower, likewise rebuilt in the 1960s, rises in several stages of red brick heightened with white stone, in keeping with the façade.^[22]

The interior: from a single nave to three naves

Inside, the enlargement of the 1960s turned the original Baroque single nave into a vessel with three naves, able to receive crowds of pilgrims.^[23] The wooden coffered ceiling, Renaissance-inspired, and the Baroque decorative elements that were kept recall the earlier decorative campaigns.^[24] But everything in the arrangement of the space converges towards a single point: the high altar, where the veil is displayed.

The monstrance above the high altar

The veil is not kept in a side chapel nor in a closed reliquary: it is permanently displayed above the high altar, set between two panes of glass in a monstrance that dominates the sanctuary.^[25] This staging makes the sanctuary an architectural monstrance: the entire building is organised to show the face.

Visible from both sides

The distinctive feature of the Manoppello shrine is that the veil, half transparent, can be contemplated from both sides. A hidden staircase behind the altar allows pilgrims to climb up to the level of the monstrance and to see the face from the front as from the back — a detail that feeds the fascination of visitors, so identical does the image seem from either side.^[26] Where the sanctuary of Loreto enshrines a house and Lanciano displays flesh, Manoppello gives to be seen a face in transparency.

The museum of the Volto Santo

Adjoining the sanctuary, a small museum gathers popular ex-votos, objects of Capuchin life, documents and souvenirs connected with the devotion.^[27] It preserves the material memory of four centuries of pilgrimage: plaques of thanksgiving, old pictures, testimonies of graces — the accumulated trace of the trust of the faithful.

The Capuchins, guardians of the veil since 1638

Since 1638, the sanctuary has been the house of a single religious family: the Capuchin Friars Minor, today attached to the Seraphic Province of the Immaculate Conception.^[28] Their mission centres on two tasks: welcoming pilgrims and the ministry of reconciliation — confession. They also serve the parish of San Nicola di Bari in the historic centre of Manoppello and provide pastoral accompaniment in the region.^[29] This continuity — a single community guarding the veil for nearly four centuries, apart from the expulsions of the 19th century (1811–1816, then 1866–1867^[30]) — gives the place its spiritual stability.

Fra Domenico da Cese, apostle of the Volto Santo

The sanctuary owes its modern influence to one friar in particular: Fra Domenico da Cese (1905–1978), born Emidio Petracca at Cese, near Avezzano.^[31] Having entered the Capuchins in 1921, he was transferred to the sanctuary of Manoppello in 1966 and devoted himself there until his death to making the Volto Santo known and loved.^[32] Reputed for his life of prayer and his supernatural gifts, he was nicknamed the "Padre Pio of the Abruzzi".^[33]

He spent his last years at the feet of the Volto Santo, showing it to pilgrims and making it loved.^[34]

His very death is singular: having come to Turin for an exhibition devoted to the Holy Shroud, he was run over by a car there and died of his injuries on 17 September 1978 — as though his life, wholly turned towards the face of Christ, ended before the other great relic of the Holy Face.^[35] His cause for beatification was opened on 27 July 2013: he is today a Servant of God.^[36]

The two great feasts

Manoppello celebrates its treasure twice a year, according to a long-established tradition.^[37] The great feast takes place on the third Sunday of May: since 1750, the date was chosen so as not to coincide with the feast of Saint Justin, patron of neighbouring Chieti.^[38] It commemorates the handing of the veil to the physician Leonelli. The second feast, instituted around 1690, falls on 6 August, the day of the Transfiguration of the Lord — a deeply fitting choice, since it was on that day that the apostles saw the transfigured face of Christ.^[39]

The procession to the town

On the day of the great feast, the veil is carried in procession from the sanctuary to the historic centre of Manoppello. The inhabitants drape their balconies and windows with coloured hangings, and rose petals are thrown from the terraces as the Volto Santo passes.^[40] Once it has reached the church of San Nicola, the veil is watched over all night in song and prayer, before returning to its hill. This popular liturgy roots the sanctuary in the life of the whole town.

The visit of Benedict XVI (1 September 2006)

The decisive turning point in the modern history of the sanctuary was the visit of Pope Benedict XVI on 1 September 2006 — the first pope to come and venerate the Volto Santo in four centuries.^[41] Welcomed by the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto Bruno Forte, by the bishops of the Abruzzi-Molise region and by some 7,000 faithful, the pope prayed at length before the veil.^[42] His address gave the place its spiritual key:

"It is Thy face, O Lord, that I seek": seeking the face of Jesus must be the longing of all of us who are Christians; for we are indeed "the people" who, in this our time, seek the face of the Lord, the face of the "God of Jacob." — "Il tuo volto, Signore, io cerco": ricercare il volto di Gesù deve essere l'anelito di tutti noi cristiani…, Benedict XVI, sanctuary of the Volto Santo of Manoppello, 1 September 2006^[43]

Taking up the word of Christ — "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9) — and the psalm of "innocent hands and a pure heart", the theologian pope made Manoppello a lesson on the contemplation of the face of God, evoking little Thérèse of Lisieux and her prayer to the Holy Face.^[44]

Elevation to the rank of minor basilica (23 September 2006)

A few weeks after the papal visit, on 23 September 2006, the church of the Volto Santo was raised to the dignity of minor basilica.^[45] This title, granted by the Holy See, consecrated the new stature of a hitherto regional sanctuary, and officially recognised its role in the universal Church.

International influence

The 2006 visit turned an Abruzzese devotion into an international pilgrimage centre. The faithful from central Europe, the United States and elsewhere took up the habit of climbing the Tarigni hill; publications in several languages — foremost among them the works of the German Vatican journalist Paul Badde — made the veil known far beyond Italy.^[46] On the occasion of the Jubilee Years, Manoppello is now cited, alongside Rome, Loreto and Lanciano, among the stages of devotion to the Holy Face.^[47]

Manoppello is no great basilica of prestige: it is a friary of poor friars which has kept a face since 1638. Everything there is ordered to a single gesture: looking. The stone façade, the three naves, the hidden staircase behind the altar, the transparent monstrance — the whole architecture leads the pilgrim to raise his eyes towards the face of a man with open eyes.

"We all, as the Psalms say, 'seek the Face of the Lord.' And that is also the meaning of my visit." — Benedict XVI, Manoppello, 1 September 2006^[48]

That is what the Capuchins offer to those who climb the Tarigni hill: not a demonstration, but an encounter. The sanctuary does not settle the learned debates on the origin of the veil; it does what every church has done from the beginning — display, keep, and invite contemplation of the face of Him who, according to the Catholic faith, willed to make Himself visible. As the theologian pope summed it up a few days later, in his general audience: "if we truly wish to know the face of God, we have only to contemplate the face of Jesus!"^[49]

Related Ignispedia articles

• The Holy Shroud of Turin — the other great relic of the Holy Face, with which the Volto Santo is often compared.
• Sanctuary of Lanciano — another Abruzzese sanctuary built around a relic, kept by a Franciscan family.
• Sanctuary of Loreto — a shrine-sanctuary, a classic stage of Italian devotion.
• Why venerate relics? — the Catholic doctrine of veneration, and the distinction between authorised devotion and dogmatic definition.

Main sources

• Basilica del Volto Santo, it.wikipedia.org — history and architecture of the sanctuary.
• Volto Santo di Manoppello, it.wikipedia.org — visit of Benedict XVI, feasts, chronology.
• Seraphic Province of the Immaculate Conception, cappucciniimmacolata.it/manoppello — Capuchin community and keeping of the veil.
• Commune of Manoppello, comune.manoppello.pe.it — feasts of the Volto Santo and of Saint Pancras.
• Benedict XVI, Pellegrinaggio al Santuario del Volto Santo a Manoppello (1 September 2006), vatican.va.