Chiesa di Sant'Alfonso Maria De' Liguori

The end of the 1950s marked, for Prima Porta, the beginning of a real immigration phenomenon; numerous families mostly from central and southern Italy arrived at the gates of a large city with the intention of building a new life for themselves. They brought obviously different cultures, but they were united by a simple and sincere faith with well-established religious traditions, which were not to be neglected at all; on the contrary, it was necessary to provide concrete spiritual support. The Roman Vicariate, aware of the situation, made available a small villa on its property in Via della Giustiniana 202, entrusting it to the Franciscan Sisters of Susa, with the task of educating the young children in the area and spreading the Gospel (it was April 1958). The building had a small hall on the ground floor whose furniture was destined to furnish a chapel that would become the first cell of Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori at the end of the 1960s.In September 1965, ten days after the terrible flood that wiped out the sacrifices of a large part of the population of Prima Porta, in the parish of Saints Urban and Lawrence, a 33-year-old priest arrived from Spain with the mission to help the diocese of Rome: Don Eulogio Carballido Diaz.The first three months of his stay were very hard for him, to the point that as Christmas approached, he was about to return to Spain, but his strong sense of duty and his tenacity forced him to stay. So, for ten years, he was vicar in the parish of Santi Urbano e Lorenzo alongside the parish priest Don Giovanni Massi. Don Eulogio began a life completely dedicated to the poor, to listening to the many families who never lacked the advice and support of a priest. He turned out to be a ‘priest of the people’ and before long, despite his gruff temperament, more and more of the faithful appreciated his sincerity and good heart. Between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, the progressive demographic and territorial increase that the area was rapidly undergoing made it indispensable not only to open new venues to celebrate services, but also the valuable apostolate of two other religious communities: the Carmelite Sisters of Charity (arrived in 1972) and the Little Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (arrived in 1980). Both dedicated themselves to the care of the sacred rites celebrated in Via Dalmine and Via di S. Cornelia respectively, and were active in the education of the little ones as well as in the evangelisation of the older ones.On 16 June 1975, Cardinal U. Poletti, then Vicar of Pope Paul VI, decided that it was time to establish a new parish in the territory of the parish of Saints Urban and Lawrence, whose name originally dedicated to Saint Abercio was to be changed to Saint Alphonso Maria de' Liguori.However, it was not until 25 September 1978 that his actual appointment as parish priest was decreed by Cardinal U. Poletti and approved by Pope Paul VI (this was to be one of the last acts performed by the Pontiff, who died on 6 August of the same year, historically defined as the year of the three Popes) and finally, on 27 September 1978 at 10:00 a.m., Father Eulogio Carballido Diaz officially took possession of the parish of Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori during a ceremony presided over by Vice-gerent Monsignor Giovanni Canestri, with Mr Ubaldo Minnucci and Mr Pietro Vagnarelli acting as witnesses. Thus, over time, an active and vigilant community of faithfulness to Christ was established under the guidance of a tireless and helpful priest. The means at his disposal were always modest but never discouraged his resourcefulness.