Monday, October 04, 2004

Beatification of Anne Catherine Emmerich

A footnote to my Rome Travel Diary. One correspondent noted that it really was going a bit far in my appreciation of The Passion of the Christ to be in Rome at the same time as Anne Catherine Emmerich was getting beatified! The story of the beatification is here on Beliefnet:

Vatican Set to Beatify Gibson's Passionate Muse
By Kevin Eckstrom

It's not something I've blogged about before, but I have followed the story. I knew that it was coming up soon but was still taken aback when on Saturday I asked in St Peter's Square what was going on and people said that it was being prepared for a beatification on the following day. We all had to be given special passes to be allowed anywhere near. None of the members of the crew I was with knew who she was, "I think it's some 19th Century Austrian woman". One sidenote -- while in St Peter's Square, we were constantly harrassed by the police in spite of the fact that we had permission to film there. On Sunday itself, though, we were filming in the catacombs, so were not present for the actual event.

Update (19.06): coverage of the beatification is all over the news; here's a link from BBC News, which profiles Emmerich and Emperor Karl I, who was also beatified.

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