Chiesa dell'Immacolata Concezione (Church of the Immaculate Conception), Civitavecchia

The current church was built from scratch on a previous church dedicated to Saint Anthony the Abbot and was dedicated to the Immaculate Conception in 1855. The Conventual Franciscans moved there and took ownership of it they moved there from the church of S. Francesco which had become the cathedral of Civitavecchia. The church served as the parish of the new neighborhood built east of the Sangallo walls and was spared from war destruction. The church was transferred to the ownership of the Diocese by the conventuals of the Roman Province on 19 September. 2017. The church presents itself as a single nave with side chapels; in particular there is the presence of an organ in the mezzanine above the entrance area and a funerary monument created in memory of the commander of the pontifical navy Alessandro Cialdi. The façade, marked by two superimposed orders and closed by a tympanum, houses, on the sides of the main entrance, two white marble plaques commemorating the war dead. At the entrance to the church there are two large inscriptions which recall the story of the construction of the building and the dedication to the Immaculate Conception (the first church of the Conventual order dedicated to the Immaculate Conception after the dogma). In the church the miraculous image of the Virgin of Pietà is exposed for the veneration of the faithful. The single-nave church has six side chapels and is covered by a barrel vault decorated with panels.

The Ghetto church becomes the third Marian sanctuary of the Diocese, after the "Grazie" in Allumiere and Valverde in Tarquinia. A new Marian sanctuary in the diocese: this was the surprise that Bishop Luigi Marrucci announced to the faithful on Sunday 8 December during the celebrations of the Immaculate Conception. After the Madonna delle Grazie in Allumiere and the Madonna di Valverde in Tarquinia, the church of the Santissima Concezione al Ghetto was also elevated to a Sanctuary in Civitavecchia. It was Monsignor Marrucci himself, at the end of the Eucharistic celebration presided over in the morning, who read the decree. ***PH**