Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who is president of the Pontifical Commission of the Vatican City State, has invited Irish people to become patrons of the Vatican Museums and help preserve and restore priceless works of art. In return for an annual membership subscription of €500, patrons receive some perks including free entry into the thirteen Vatican museums.
The ‘patrons’ system was first set up in 1983 to help raise funds to preserve and maintain the Vatican museum’s huge art collection, which includes paintings by Raphael and Michelangelo.
Becoming a patron is open to people from all religious backgrounds, but it is only now that an invitation to become patrons of the arts in the museums has been specifically extended to Irish people.
Most of the 1,500 people who are currently patrons are in the United States, Britain and Portugal.
The money from patrons’ subscriptions – as well as other donations and ticket sales to tourists– goes towards caring for the priceless art works.
It is also spent on funding conservation projects, buying equipment for the museums’ restoration laboratories and sometimes buying new works.
The Vatican Museums have to be self-financing as they do not receive financial supported from the Holy See itself.
Cardinal Lajolo visited Belfast last week to publicise the initiative of seeking patrons in Ireland.
The cardinal said the Vatican Museums have one of the biggest art collections in the world which had grown in size century by century.
“The Holy Father has a duty to preserve for future generations all the works of art in the Vatican Museums”.
“The Pope has brought together a collection of arts and antiquities so they can be shown to people who can enjoy their beauty”.
Cardinal Lajolo said art had “always been an expression of beauty and shows the relationship between beauty and God”.
“Art was created in order to express some aspects of our faith”.
“We would now wish to have some patrons from Ireland; patrons enter into a special relationship with the Holy See and when they come to Rome they are attended in a special way.”
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