Chiesa di San Francesco Saverio alla Garbatella

The church, built to a design by Alberto Calza Bini, was erected as a parish church on 1 May 1933 by Pius XI with the apostolic constitution Quo omnes sacrorum, and is the seat of the cardinal title San Francesco Saverio alla Garbatella.
The church became famous because it was the first parish visited by John Paul II as soon as he was elected pope. Three months after his election, on Sunday 3 December 1978, the pontiff visited the neighbourhood and the parish, to which he was bound by a special and personal memory:It is a great joy for me to be able to visit as my first Roman parish precisely yours, to which I am united by a special memory. In fact, in the years immediately after the war, as a student in Rome, I went almost every Sunday to Garbatella to help with pastoral work. Some moments from that period are still vivid in my memory, although it seems to me that, in the course of more than thirty years, many things here have changed enormously.
(John Paul II, Homily delivered on 3 December 1978)
The façade is in brick and travertine; the central portal is surmounted by a large window in a lunette, above which is the coat of arms of Pius XI. The church is enriched by a high dome.
The interior of the church has three naves, divided by columns with Ionic-style capitals, with a transept. In the apse is a large canvas depicting the saint in the act of preaching. In the transept are two other canvases: on the right the depiction of Our Lady of Divine Love coming to the rescue of Rome after the bombings of 1943; on the left Jesus in glory with angels. On either side of the entrance are two bronzes with the Crucifixion and the Madonna.