Anime Sante, Alcamo

Anime Sante ("Holy Souls") is a Catholic church located in Alcamo, in the province of Trapani. Adjoining it there is the Salesian Oratory of Don Bosco

The church, even if it had been planned in 1577, was built only in 1813 by Company of the Holy Monte di Pietà, near the cemetery of the plague victims which was located in contrada Sant'Ippolito, whose church gave the name to a casale (hamlet) among the oldest ones in Alcamo. After the falling down of the old Church of Sant'Ippolito at the end of the 18th century, there was the need for a new church (1816), which was dedicated to the Holy Souls of Purgatory. As it was falling, the church was left and the tombs destroyed: the bones and mortal remains were moved to common graves in the cemetery of Spirito Santo and the land was given to the town municipality as a limestone quarry. In 1942 it became an autonomous parish; in 1937 they built the clergy house and, in 1964, the crypt under the structure of the present church was consecrated.

The Salesians, founded in 1855 by Saint John Bosco, in order to give instruction to children from poor families, had the approbation by Pope Pius IX in 1874.[3] Since October 5, 1958, the first Salesians (Don Girolamo Giardina, as the Parson, Don Giuseppe Falzone as the Director of the Oratorio, and the assistant Antonino Miraglia), inaugurated the long-awaited Salesian Home. After so many bureaucratic difficulties, they succeeded in founding the Oratory Don Bosco (Salesian Centre for Youth) in the premises next to the parish Church of the Holy Souls, which was built by them on the same place of the old 19th-century church. During the period of their presence in Alcamo, the Salesians together with liturgical activities, have made several cultural, recreational activities, and above all, theatre for young people: just remember in 2014 an important and successful project which involved a lot of teenagers and educators of the community, Don Bosco the musical. Besides, from 1969 to 1974, they published, under the direction of P.F. Mistretta, a periodical with the title: God's Family, a fortnightly news bulletin of the parish of the Holy Souls a

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).