On December 8, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest organized for the fourth consecutive year a candlelight procession in honor of Mary Immaculate through the very heart of Rome.

Very Reverend Msgr. Juan Miguel Ferrer Grenesche, Undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, presided over the procession, which began at the Church of Jesus and Mary (Chiesa Gesu e Maria), the home of the Institute's apostolate in Rome.

A representative group of canons and seminarians of the Institute, along with priest friends and clergy led the faithful in singing Marian hymns and in reciting the Holy Rosary. A very large crowd of about 2000 people, following the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima brought for the occasion by the Association Luci sull'Est, filed down the Via del Corso and through other avenues which serve as main arteries through the center of the city, passing along the way such well-known Roman landmarks as the Pantheon, Chiesa Santa Maria in Aquiro, Piazza Colonna, and Palazzo Montecitorio. Along the way the Madonna was greeted with ringing church bells, wholehearted applause and cries of "Viva Maria," as festive music was played at intervals by a band of the Carabinieri, the national gendarmerie of Italy.

Upon the arrival of the procession at the Basilica Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, His Eminence, Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyas, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation of Clergy and former President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, offered Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and delivered a closing ferverino in this splendid Gothic basilica of the Dominican Fathers.

The Institute is very grateful to the eminent clergy who were present, as well as to the groups which helped with organizing this procession such as Luci sull'Est, the Lepanto Foundation, and the Association Cristo Re of Livorno, among so many others.