Chiesa di San Giuseppe all'Aurelio

The church, located on the Via Boccea in Rome, was built in 1970 by architect Ildo Ivetta and dedicated to St. Joseph, the groom of the Blessed Virgin Mary. V. Mary. It was erected as a parish on 19th June 1961 and entrusted to the Congregation of the Oblates of St Joseph (Giuseppini d'Asti).Since 1991, it has been the seat of the cardinal title of San Giuseppe all'Aurelio.The tuff façade is divided into three parts by concrete pilasters. The entrance is surmounted by a ceramic depicting Saint Joseph with Child and angels. The interior has a central nave with small side aisles. In the apse there is a tapestry depicting Saint Joseph with Child, completed in 1915, coming from the Vatican Tapestry Restoration Laboratory, where it lay abandoned. The Via Crucis is by Vasco Nasorri: by the same artist is a large ceramic (from 1986), placed on the apse, with the representation of an open illuminated manu. Next to the high altar is a Last Supper by E. Hotis from 1981. In the Church, there are three large works created a few years apart. The first, placed behind the altar, consists of a large bas-relief in enameled ceramic and lightly colored in keeping with the atmosphere of the environment. Placed next to a large tapestry, made at the beginning of the last century at the Opificio degli Arazzi in the Vatican and donated to the church by Pope Saint Paul VI, it represents the story of the Saint to whom the Church is dedicated, from the Workshop of Nazareth to the Kingdom of Saint Joseph, covering the whole history and the path within which the whole theme of Jesus' life lies. The work appears as a large page of illuminated manu in whose score we can read the writing Ite ad Joseph which constitutes the center around which the representations of the scenes are articulated. This spectacular work, surrounded by a series of large flowers and garlands, also made by Nasorri in enameled and colored bas-relief, occupies a place of great importance in the general scenography of the Church to which it gives decoration and a symbolic and religious point of reference.To the left of the altar is a chapel containing another large ceramic piece by Vasco Nasorri. This is a representation of Giuseppe Marello, founder of the Congregation of the Oblates of Saint Joseph, canonised by Saint John Paul II in 2001, depicted in the centre of a series of scenes that recount his life.The church also features a Stations of the Cross of 14 enamelled ceramic bas-reliefs placed around the perimeter of the church and measuring 80 x 50 cm each. The work was inaugurated by His Holiness John Paul II in 1981.On 14 December 2014, the third Sunday of Advent, the parish community was visited by Pope Francis.