Cathedral Pastor Parks His Car in the Cathedral

Cathedral Pastor parks his car (For security or work reasons?) in the
Cathedral

(Rome) The Church crisis is often associated with the waning understanding of the sacred. After the priest and head of the Office for Family Pastoral of the Archdiocese of Palermo, who wants to raise one of the bitterest enemies of the Church to the altars and at the same time wishes for the death of Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, the Mediterranean island of Sicily provides another curious headline.

For "security reasons" a Sicilian cathedral minister parked his car in the cathedral of his diocese.

Curious pictures were published on Facebook. They show the car of the  Gaetano's Cathedral Pastor, Canal Ella, parked  in the nave of Santa Maria La Nova Cathedral of Caltanissetta. The car is indeed behind the main door, but in the central aisle of the nave.

"What sacrilege? It was necessary"

The canon finds nothing inappropriate about it. On this unusual method of parking, Meridio News . Interviewed Msgr Canal Ella yesterday who answered answer: "What sacrilege? That's for something that's actually banal."

The cathedral minister justified his parking practice then with the words: "What are we talking here? When you think in peace about it, there's nothing sacrilegious.  We had to repair the bells and needed special tools"  as to the question whether it would not have been possible to just carry the tools into the church, the priest replied: "No, that was not possible. "

Caltanissetta: Dom as Garage

Canon Canal Ellas needs security

In Caltanissetta, there is another explanation for the practice of  parking by the Cathedral Pastor which is considered credible. The monsignor has no garage. To park the car  on the street is considered too dangerous. Fearing car thieves (or the Mafia?), he therefore parks his car "safety's sake" in the cathedral.

Don Canal Ella was born in 1953. He was ordained a priest in 1980 to the diocese and appointed chaplain of His Holiness in 1999.  He belongs to the Council of Priests and the cathedral chapter of the diocese of Caltanissetta.

The present cathedral of the diocese was built 1570 over an older Marian church. The frescoes of the nave and the picture of the high altar were painted by the Flemish painter Wilhelm Borremans and his son, who worked mainly in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The church's patrons are the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael. Both were already patrons of older archparish Santa Maria La Vetere, which was built in the 11th century at the beginning of the Norman period, and later became the palace church of the Staufer Palatinate.

Early 17th century, the new St. Mary's Church was the main church of the city. After the establishment of the diocese of Caltanissetta, it was elevated to a cathedral. The older marian church was managed by the Franciscan Order since 1622.

When, after the unification of Italy by the new rulers in 1873 all religious orders were abolished, the older Marian church was profaned. It served as a hospital and military barracks until it was left to decay and in 1964 the roof collapsed. After some initial shoring work in the 1970s, it was partly restored in recent years.

Your future use is still unsettled.

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Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Picture: Facebook / Wikicommons (Screenshot)