Rome: The Church Up Close - Day 1

Caravaggio's pilgrims arrive in Rome, Church of St Augustine

What practical steps is the Vatican taking to conserve our common home? This question was directed at Telaldo Vinciguerra of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development by a participant in this week's 'Church up Close' seminar at Holy Cross University in Rome. "Not enough and very late" he responded, but did point out that the Dicastery has recently abandoned using plastic and is working on using ethical suppliers. The Gala event for Laudato Si in July 2015, organised alongside CIDSE, was held at a poor suburb in Rome, used food from smallholder farms near Rome and was staffed by the Sant'Egidio community. And before that, under Pope Benedict, the pope's meeting hall was covered by several thousand solar panels.

Tedaldo is just one of the Vatican officials speaking to Catholic journalists from 16 countries, including the Associate Editor of the Catholic Weekly of Macao, the Editor of the Southern Cross of the Australian Diocese of Adelaide, and Vatican correspondents for EWTN News. His focus was 'The Pope and the Earth', and he provided an update on his Dicastery's latest initiatives inspired by the Church's Social Teaching on Creation Care. The third anniversary of Laudati Si earlier this year saw a Vatican conference pulling together Church initiatives to stimulate action on environmental crises as climate, biodiversity diminishment and water security. The Dicastery works closely with such groups as the Global Catholic Climate Movement and REPAM, which supports indigenous people in the Amazon Region of Latin America.

Fundamental questions were examined on the first day: 'What is the Catholic Church?' 'What are key issues for Pope Francis? Prof Guzman M Carriquery Lecour of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America said Pope Francis underlines the importance of holiness in his daily life. His mission priorities include reaching out to the poor and vulnerable, migrants, and young people.

A tour in the vicinity of Santa Croce University highlighted the age of the Church and the great riches in the many churches. Participants saw Caravaggio and Raphael paintings in St Augustine's Basilica, and the tomb of St Monica, the mother of St Augustine. Turn another corner and the group was before the Pantheon with 16 huge granite columns at its façade - a former Roman temple, now a church.

Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. It has been in continuous use throughout its history, and since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been dedicated to St Mary and the Martyrs but informally known as 'Santa Maria Rotonda'. At Pentecost, tens of thousands of petals are dropped from its roof, giving the whole space a red carpet. Down the street, the group saw more red petals as a smiling wedding party emerged from St Eustachio Church, reminding that the key treasure of any parish is its worshipping community.

The group walked nearby to Piazza Navona, with its many busy cafes. How many know that underneath is the Stadium of Domitian and Rome's first permanent venue for gladiator games and competitive athletics? The seventeenth century Four Rivers Fountain in the centre of the square carries a message of celebration and worldwide evangelisation. The known continents are represented by the statues of four rivers, the Danube for Europe; the Nile for Africa; the Ganges for Asia; and the Rio de la Plata to represent America. The water of the fountain rolls down the gigantic rocks of the world, alluding to the holy water used in baptism.

The group is meeting tomorrow at the Obelisk in St Peter's Square for a tour of the Vatican, led by Rev Prof John Wauck of Holy Cross University. The Church is much more than the papacy, centred around Rome, but who could not be awed by the faith of so many down two millennia in 'the eternal city'.