Formation in terms of the art and cultural properties of the Church will be at the centre of the 10th National Day for ecclesiastical cultural properties, promoted in Rome on 18 April by the national Council for ecclesiastical cultural properties and the Office for ecclesiastical cultural properties of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI). The objectives of the National Day include the “re-reading” of the pastoral note of the Italian bishops on “the cultural properties of the Church in Italy”, ten years after its publication. “During these ten years comments Msgr. Giancarlo Santi, director of the CEI’s Office for ecclesiastical cultural properties the attention to the conservation, safeguard and restoration of the cultural heritage owned by the Church has increased considerably”. In Italy, approximately 70% of the artistic heritage is of religious character. Out of some 95,000 churches, no less than 85,000 are considered a cultural property, just as are 1,535 monasteries, 3,000 monumental complexes, 5,500 libraries, 26,000 archives, 700 ecclesiastical collections and museums, and thousands of works of painting and sculpture.
