In this Year of Mercy, below are pictures from Italy as the Companions of St. James travel throughout Italy.
For the pictorial tour of the Companions of St. James Archdiocese of Cincinnati Pilgrimage to Italy (Part 2), Click Here

The Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli is the seventh largest Christian church. Its magnificence may be at odds with the simplicity preached by St Francis himself but the flocks of pilgrims coming to visit the primitive Porziuncola chapel and the Cappella del Transito called for a building that was able to accomodate the faithful. The Porziuncola chapel was given to St Francis by the Benedictines, and is important because it was the initial nucleus from which the Franciscan order was born. The Cappella del Transito is the place where the saint died on October 4th 1226.

The Papal Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor—commonly known as the Franciscan Order—in Assisi, a town of Umbria region in central Italy, where St. Francis was born and died. The basilica is one of the most important places of Christian pilgrimage in Italy. With its accompanying friary, Sacro Convento, the basilica is a distinctive landmark to those approaching Assisi. The basilica, which was begun in 1228, is built into the side of a hill and comprises two churches known as the Upper Church and the Lower Church, and a crypt where the remains of the saint are interred.