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The President Hotel in Rome where the Hong Kong group stayed. Charlie Dittmeier stayed with them and traveled around Rome with his old friends. This hotel was extremely convenient because of its location next to the Manzoni Metro (subway) station. |
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On the platform in the subway, figuring out where we were going. |
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Our first stop for the day was again in St. Peter's Square, about six stops away from the Manzoni station on the Metro. It's about a half-mile walk from the Ottaviani Metro station to the square. |
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The front of St. Peter's Basilica is always imposing but especially in the warm morning light. |
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A room in St. Peter's that few tourists see: the main sacristy where priests presidiing at masses in the basilica come to get their vestments and the books and other things needed for the masses in the many different chapels in the basilica. |
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Our group of Catholic deaf people from all over the world used the Peter's Chair sanctuary area behind the main altar of St. Peter's. Here Archbishop Patrick Kelly of Liverpool, England begins the liturgy. On the right is Deacon Ralph Hinch from Chicago, one of the first deaf deacons in the world. |
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Our sanctuary area behind the main Bernini altar of St. Peter's. This area was large enough to hold all 1,200 of our group from about twenty countries around the world. The scale and massive size of St. Peter's Basilica is truly amazing. |
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When we were processing into the basilica for the liturgy, I saw Sr. Angela Garrivaglia, one of the Canossian Sisters who worked with the deaf people in Singapore. She founded the Canossa School for the Deaf there about 30 years ago. After the mass I had a chance to catch up with her for a few minutes. |
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Then we took the buses from St. Peter's back to the Divine Amore conference center outside of Rome, the same place where we started our gathering yesterday. The schedule was easy and relaxed, starting with a lunch that brought different groups together. At this table were people from Hong Kong, Kentucky, and Austria. |
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Fr. Min is the first deaf Korean priest to be ordained. He is a fine young man, very capable, very enthusiastic, and a bright light in the deaf Catholic church of the future. |
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The Divine Amore center has a huge chapel that easily accommodated our group. It's colorful design is not good for deaf people, though, because the brightly colored windows are behind the people doing sign language and silhouetting them and making their signs hard to read. |
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Another new and rising star in the Catholic deaf world is Fr. Peter from the Philippines who is a member of the Piccolo community that serves deaf people. He is now assigned to Rome for advanced studies in spirituality. |
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The entire Hong Kong Catholic deaf group that came to Rome, one of the few photos of all of us together. Fr. Lam (right) is the priest serving deaf people in Hong Kong now. His predecessor was Fr. Fernando, GM (white shirt) who followed me in the deaf ministry in Hong Kong. |