Catholic culture gives Washington neighborhood 'Little Rome' identity

Published: 2007-07-20

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catholics don't have to go to Italy to visit Rome. Tucked away in a little section of Washington, the Brookland neighborhood around The Catholic University of America is known as "Little Rome" and "Little Vatican," according to local legend and District of Columbia guidebooks. Just as the center of the Vatican is St. Peter's, the center of Little Rome is Catholic University, founded by the U.S. bishops in 1887 to be the national Catholic university. Many other Catholic institutions later moved into the area around the university, creating a distinctively Catholic culture in which it's not uncommon to see a colorful variety of religious habits in a single day. About 20 religious communities for men and women, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are all located near the university. Father George McLean, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, has lived in the Brookland neighborhood since 1956 and remembers when the area had an even higher concentration of Catholic culture and communities. In the 1950s, the area had at least 50 men's and women's religious communities, about a dozen schools of theology for particular men's religious orders and 70 houses for graduate students of the various orders, he said.

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .