It is crazy to assist at such an historic Church! Today is the 400th anniversary of the Consecration of Santissima Trinita. Yesterday we had Pontifical Vespers. Today we had a Solemn High Pontifical Mass.

About the Church:

Urged by San Filippo Neri, by 1540 lay members of his order gathered at the church of San Girolamo della Carità. Neri soon had Pope Paul III recognize the group as the Confraternita della Santissima Trinita de’ Pellegrini e de’ Convalescenti (Fraternity of the Holy Trinity of Pilgrims and Convalescent). For the Jubilee of 1550, the group took on the burden of hosting pilgrims, with particular regard for those who came from distant lands. After Holy Year, the association cared for the convalescent poor, discharged from city hospitals. In 1558, Pope Paul IV assigned them the perpetual use of the church of San Benedetto in Arenula, which was in very bad condition. The next year, the fraternity bought a house near the church to be used as a hospital-hospice. For the Jubilee of 1575, the fraternity hosted more than 180,000 pilgrims.

The fraternity ultimately tore down the decrepit church, and decided to build a new. The first stone was laid on February 26, 1587, and consecration took place on June 12, 1616 and titled Santissima Trinità e San Benedetto. In subsequent centuries the parish and adjacent buildings continued to serve as a hospice for pilgrims, or as a hospital.

In 2008 Pope Benedict XVI entrusted the parish to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), a society of apostolic life dedicated to the celebration and preservation of the Tridentine Mass, now an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, the 1962 form of which is authorized for continued use within the Catholic Church. The SS Trinità dei Pellegrini church provides the Latin Tridentine Mass for the local community, as well as tourists and pilgrims.