Anastasios
The minor basilica of San Bartolomeo all’isola is a kind of singular church in Rome, for reasons that will soon be quite clear. The first reason is in the name, “in the island,” because the church is in Tiber Island, an ancient piece of land in the heart of Rome, where there was a hospital since very old times. Today this hospital is called San Giovanni Calibita-Fatebenefratelli, one of the most important hospitals in Rome.
The church was built around one thousand years ago to contain the mortal remains of the apostle Bartholomew. In an audience on October 4, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI had this to say about this apostle: “According to information handed down by Eusebius, the fourth-century historian, a certain Pantaenus is supposed to have discovered traces of Bartholomew’s presence even in India (cf. Hist. eccl. V, 10, 3). In later tradition, as from the Middle Ages, the account of his death by flaying became very popular. Only think of the famous scene of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel in which Michelangelo painted St Bartholomew, who is holding his own skin in his left hand, on which the artist left his self-portrait. St Bartholomew’s relics are venerated here in Rome in the Church dedicated to him on the Tiber Island, where they are said to have been brought by the German Emperor Otto III in the year 983. To conclude, we can say that despite the scarcity of information about him, St Bartholomew stands before us to tell us that attachment to Jesus can also be lived and witnessed without performing sensational deeds. Jesus himself, to whom each one of us is called to dedicate his or her own life and death, is and remains extraordinary.”
The church inside is quite elegant, with the remains of the apostle under the altar in the presbytery. Since the 90s the church was given to the Community of Sant’egidio, one of the most important new religious movements with groups spread all around the world. Here there is now a place to remember new martyrs, also the ones who succumbed under the regimes of Fascism, Nazism and Communism. This was done under the impulse of Saint John Paul II when establishing a commission for new martyrs on the occasion of the Great Jubilee in 2000. On April 22, 2017, Pope Francis also visited this basilica as a pilgrim. On that occasion, in the homily, among other things he said: “We have come as pilgrims to this Basilica of Saint Bartholomew on the Tiber Island, where the ancient history of martyrdom unites with the memory of the new martyrs, of the many Christians killed by the demented ideologies of the last century — and today too — and killed solely for being disciples of Jesus. The memory of these ancient and recent heroic witnesses confirms us in the knowledge that the Church is Church if she is the Church of martyrs. Martyrs are those who, as the Book of Revelation reminds us, ‘have come out of the great tribulation’ and ‘have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (7:14). They had the grace to confess Jesus until the end, unto death. They suffer; they give their life, and we receive God’s blessing through their witness. And there are also many hidden martyrs, those men and women faithful to the gentle power of love, to the voice of the Holy Spirit, who in everyday life seek to help their brothers and sisters and to love God without reservation. If we look closely, the cause of all persecution is hatred: the hatred of the prince of this world toward those who have been saved and redeemed by Jesus through his death and his Resurrection. In the Gospel passage we have heard (cf. Jn 15:12-19), Jesus uses a harsh and frightening word: the word ‘hate.’ He, who is the master of love, who so liked speaking about love, speaks of hate. He always wished to call things by their name. And he tells us: ‘Be not afraid! The world will hate you; but know that before you, it hated me.’ Jesus chose us and redeemed us, through the freely given gift of his love. With his death and Resurrection he redeemed us from the power of the world, from the power of the devil, from the power of the prince of this world. The origin of hatred is this: since we are saved by Jesus, and the prince of the world does not want this, he hates us and causes persecution, which, since the time of Jesus and of the nascent Church, continues to our day. How many Christian communities today are the object of persecution! Why? Because of the hatred of the worldly spirit.”
Yes, even today so many Christians are persecuted, maybe even very close to us, even if we don’t notice this.
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