Chapter History

For more than twenty years, I have been a member of the Pennsylvania Patrons. My sister has the privilege of living in that state and, when she and her husband joined the Pennsylvania Patrons on their visit to the Vatican, my husband and I joined them with enthusiasm. A few years ago, Father Mark suggested I create the Belgium chapter. Not all of our Patrons are Belgian, but there are generous expatriates living in Belgium, whose selflessness we have brought to the Vatican Museums.

I love my Church, the Holy Father, the Vatican and the Museums but I also have another reason for my attachment, it is my great admiration for Pope John Paul II. My husband and I had the honour of knowing him. During the last war as a young Pole living in occupied Poland, he and his fellow students were about to be sent as “slave labour” to Germany.

Our family firm in Krakow managed to bring him and his friends to work in a quarry not far from Krakow. It saved their lives. After 1945, the young Karol Wojtyla entered the seminary.

The rest is history and our Holy Father stayed in touch with us. I feel privileged to work for the Vatican. Our Patrons are very generous and to date we sponsored several restorations: The Wooden Statue of the Virgin Mary, the Anastasis Sarcophagus and the Astarita Vases in the Gregorian Etruscan Museum. We usually travel together and we enjoy each other’s company. Our members are not all Catholics but we are all broadminded and we love what we do.

 

Chapter Mission

The Patrons of the Arts are passionate about the arts’ ability to inspire, elevate, and reveal the human spirit. Our mission is to promote, restore, and conserve the artistic patrimony of the collections and buildings of the Vatican Museums. As an interfaith nonprofit organization, patrons are organized into regional chapters that further its members’ knowledge of these works of art through local events and Vatican Museums activities.

Patrons are dedicated to sustaining one of the oldest and most unconventional museums in the world. Unlike other major museums, the Vatican Museums receives no tax revenue to sponsor the restoration of its treasures, and therefore relies significantly on the generosity of our Patrons.

The Patrons enable the Vatican Museums to:

• Restore and conserve the works of art of the Holy See

• Convey the cultural, spiritual, and historic patrimony of the Vatican Museums

• Improve, enrich, and expand the Vatican Museum’s facilities and collections