“In the Parish of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Canadian Martyrs, more simply known as the Canadian Martyrs, the first community of the Neocatechumenal Way in Italy was born on November 2, 1968 – from the evangelization of Kiko Arguello, Carmen Hernandez and Don Francesco Cuppini.

From the Canadian Martyrs - and in particular from this first community - began in the years immediately following the evangelization of Rome and Lazio and then of Italy and the world. Starting from here and from the other parishes, which Kiko and Carmen subsequently catechized, the Way, fruit of the Holy Spirit and of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, spread in a few years with impressive rapidity.

Here the initiators of the Way first introduced and experimented with the communities of the Parish and then spread throughout the world, both the itinerary of Christian Initiation as we know it today, and many pastoral initiatives (such as the Post Confirmation, the Monthly Scrutatio, etc.), direct fruits of the Way, aimed at children, adolescents, young people, engaged couples, and adults.    

Here the Holy Father John Paul II, during the Visit of November 2, 1980, he said: "Behold, this journey, the journey of faith, the journey of rediscovered Baptism, must be a journey of the new man…

In our time we need to rediscover a radical faith, radically understood, radically lived and radically realized...” 

Today in the Parish there are 32 Neocatechumenal communities that have borne abundant fruit (families with many children, Presbyters and Itinerants who are evangelizing in Rome and throughout the world).

The Parish – whose church, from the 1950s, is the work of the architect Appollonj Ghetti – houses some of Kiko's paintings both in the beautiful Crypt designed by Kiko himself and in the hall of the first Neocatechumenal community – in the spaces where he held his first catechesis in '68 – which can be visited together with the rest of the liturgical spaces.

Some brothers will accompany you on a visit to the places, to briefly retrace the history of what happened to the Canadian Martyrs and to learn about the current reality of the Parish, giving you their testimony.   

Do not hesitate to book a visit for your group of pilgrims….”