The Church is recognized as a society of fellowship with God, the ome is an important place of pilgrimage, particularly for Catholics,

sacrament of salvation, the people of God established as the body of because that is where the Pope resides in the Vatican. Catholics
Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. believe that Jesus appointed Peter as the leader of his disciples.
Tradition says that after Pentecost and time spent in Jerusalem,
The progress of Roman Catholic theology can be seen in the contrast Peter went to Rome and became the first ever Pope.
between this statement and the definition still current as late as
1960, which was substantially the one formulated by the Jesuit HOLY LAND
controversialist Robert Cardinal Bellarmine in 1621:
For Christians, the Land of Israel is considered holy because of its
The society of Christian believers united in the profession of the one association with the birth,
Christian faith and the participation in the one sacramental system ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, whom Christians
under the government of the Roman Pontiff. regard as the Savior or Messiah.

The older definition, created in response to the claims sthe land which, according to the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible or
of Protestantism, defines the church in external and juridical terms. the Old Testament), God promised and subsequently gave
The more recent definition is an attempt to describe the church in to Abraham and several more times to his descendants. In modern
terms of its inner and spiritual reality. contexts, the phrase "Promised Land" expresses an image and an
idea which is related to the restored homeland for the Jewish
From its origins the church has thought of itself as the one and only people and the concepts of salvation and liberation.
worshipping community that could trace itself back to the group
established by Jesus Christ. The ancient adage, “There is no salvation Christian books, including many editions of the Bible, often have
outside the church,” was understood as applying to those who had maps of the Holy Land (considered to be Galilee, Samaria, and
withdrawn from the church as well as to those who had never Judea).
belonged. When this adage was combined with the notions
contained in Bellarmine’s definition, lines between those inside the Catholic Church guidelines for Holy Land pilgrimages recommend
church and those outside it were clearly drawn. These lines were that visitors should seek "a healthy balance between visiting the holy
maintained in the breakup of Western Christendom in places and encountering the local Christian community".[21]
the Reformation. CHAPELS AND CATHEDRALS
There were, however, other factors determining the idea of the one Cathedrals and chapels are important in Roman Catholicism as they
true church. The Roman Catholic Church had never excluded provide a space for worship and are vessels for the display of
the Orthodox Church from the community of Christian believers, religious iconography and art1. They are also physical representations
even though the two churches fell into schism in 1054. of the divine and serve as a powerful conduit for spiritual growth
Why do romans believe in saints ? and an essential component of Catholic worship2.

In Roman Catholicism and certain other Christian faith traditions, a Cathedrals are churches in which a residential bishop has his official
saint is a holy person who is known for his or her “heroic sanctity” seat or throne, the cathedra3. They are of different degrees of dignity
and who is thought to be in heaven. In the 10th century, Pope John and are often seen as places of darkness as well as light, places
XV formalized a process for the identification of saints. Before that where people are killed as well as born into new life through
time, saints were largely established by public cult. There are more baptism4.
than 10,000 saints recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, though Chapels, on the other hand, are side chapels or altars inside of a
the names and histories of some of these holy men and women have church building dedicated to Mary5. A larger church or cathedral will
been lost to history. likely have a chapel, whereas a smaller church may have a side altar5.
Catholics venerate the saints and look to them as examples of lives
well lived in the faith. Many find comfort in the knowledge that holy
people shared in their same struggles, sins, doubts, or hardships and Marian Shrines
ask specific saints to pray for them.
or our purposes, it refers to active sites dedicated in honor of a saint,
or, less frequently, an event in Jesus’ life. These sites are occasionally
located inside or just outside a parish church, but more often are
Why do Roman has sacred places ? distinct from the parish, whether they are official or unofficial sites.
Catholics have historically spent a lot of time and effort creating and Examples include include major Marian shrines that claim to be sites
adorning their sacred spaces. The cathedrals are their grandest of apparitions; devotional shrines that crop up at side altars or
achievements, reaching to dizzying heights as they stretch toward outside parish churches, allowing for ongoing devotion to Mary or
the heavens, with St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City standing head another saint; statues and grottoes in neighborhoods or at
and shoulders above all others. It has the largest interior of any crossroads; and sites where a saint or a holy person is buried.
Christian church in the world and draws visitors from all nations and atholic shrines are frequently turned to for healing or for prayers for
faith. For Catholics, St. Peter's is a central pilgrimage site, supposed a specific cause. At many of them illness – both physical and mental
to house the tomb of Jesus' apostle Peter and commonly (although – is on display and is part of the power of the shrine.
mistakenly) regarded as the church home of the pope (another
Roman church, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, is actually the papal In Uganda, at the Mt. Sion Bukalongo shrine, possession and/or
cathedral church and houses the pope's throne). mental health problems were very much on display, perhaps even
part of the power of the site.2At Lourdes, physical debilities are
Vatican City is itself a kind of sacred space, the world's smallest there on display, for the same reason. At other sites, the nature of
nation-state, autonomous from and yet surrounded by the city of the debilities that prayer is sought for might be written (even as
Rome. It is the seat of government for the Roman Catholic Church, graffiti on the walls), or best kept private, interior and discreet, as
with the pope as its head-of-state. Its libraries, archives, and local cultural mores would prefer it.
museums house an amazing patrimony of western civilization,
bringing it about as close to a secular definition of sacred space as is An incredible event occurred in 1998 when people from the area
possible. suffering from dengue were allegedly healed upon praying to the
image.
PILGRIMAGE

pilgrimage as penance for sin, to fulfill promises to God and for the
joy of seeing the sacred spaces. Their reasons for going may differ
but the result each believer desires is the same: that he or she will
experience the presence of God and the blessings that flow from it
more fully than is possible in the normal spaces of their everyday
lives.