The Notre Dame Club of Italy exists to help connect Notre Dame alumni and friends in Italy with each other and to help raise Notre Dame’s profile in Italy and at the Vatican. About half of our members are in and around Rome, and most of those are either religious or academics, including students, seminarians, and faculty. We also see a lot of friends and alumni come through Rome for vacations and
pilgrimages, short visits and seasonal living. The generalate of the Congregation of Holy Cross is on the outskirts of Rome. Students from ND and SMC study abroad in both Rome and Bologna, including Notre Dame's famed Architecture program. There is no fee to be a member of the club. We do ask that everyone keep their contact information up to date, especially email. Our events rely on the volunteerism of our members, and range from gamewatches in the wee hours of the morning, to club participation in the mass of canonization for our first CSC saint. There are an increasing number of conferences, lectures, visiting choirs and sports teams coming through Italy, and we try to connect with and support them as well. With the opening of the Rome Global Gateway in 2013, a lot of the traditional hospitality, organizing, and events previously offered by the volunteer efforts of the Club are now handled by professional staff at the Gateway, which has become the new locus of ND presence in Rome. HISTORY – NOTRE DAME CLUB OF ITALY
Beginnings: Liberation of Italy
The Notre Dame Club of Italy was founded on 14 May 1944. Bob Coleman, '42, who served as the first secretary of the club, located about twenty ND alumni serving with U.S. forces engaged with the liberation of Italy. Gathering about a dozen of these together, the first event, a Communion-breakfast, was held in an undisclosed location on the same day that the Gustav Line was breached as the Allies moved to take Monte Cassino. Rome was liberated three weeks later. John Hinkel, '29, served as the first president of the club; it is not clear if it was an elected position, or if he was the highest-ranking Domer in the founding group (he would retire as a full colonel). Over the course of its first year, the club grew to over one hundred members, all U.S. servicemen engaged in the final months of World War II. Some of its early members moved on to the fighting in France, and helped establish the Club there. Others remaining in Italy helped found the Allied Forces Holy Name Society in Italy. During the initial fighting over Rome, one wing of the international Notre Dame School, run by the Notre Dame de Namur community, was destroyed and all the windows were blown out. The Club replaced the windows, and helped get the school back off the ground. Members helped found an orphanage to house 300 childredn ages 4-15, and by December of '44 arranged for a soap and candy drive back on campus for the children of Italy so successful that the U.S. Army had to supply an entire warehouse to store incoming goods. As the newsletter that season reports, even the personal mail of Club president Maj. Hinkel got redirected to the warehouse, including his own Christmas packages. In early 1945, Pope Pius XII imparted his apostolic blessing upon Notre Dame and all of its sons serving in U.S. forces, during a private audience with Club president Maj. John Hinkel, along with these words, "Ah, Notre Dame. My dear-loved Notre Dame! With pleasure, my son..." (Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli had been awarded an honorary doctorate by ND in 1936). The Club's first Universal Notre Dame celebration was held on 16 April 1945, featuring Maj. Daniel Noce and Lt. John LaBoon, a close friend of Knute Rockne. Club president Maj. John Hinkel is recorded as inspecting the Dachau concentration camp on 16 July 1945, escorting Jesuit Edmund Walsh, an advisor to the U.S. chief prosecutor at Nuremburg, Justice Robert Jackson. By sometime in the mid- to late-1940's, the Club had settled into a regular hangout at the Ristorante Scoglio di Frisio, in the shadow of Our Lady's principal church in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore. The restaurant's proprietor, Dr. Augusto Rossi, was a 'catacomb' alumnus (as 'subway' alumni are called here!) and resistance fighter during the war. By the fifties, the annual St. Patrick's Day gala at Scoglio was drawing nearly 200 people. Scoglio remained central to ND presence in Rome until the late 1990s. A Golden Era: Around The Council
The 1951 UND Celebration featured Dr. Charles Price, chair of the chemistry department at ND. In 1957, CSC Superior General Christopher J. O'Toole, '29, spoke at the Club's UND Celebration, his lecture shared with clubs around the world.
1958 proved to be a busy year for the Club, which by this time had been renamed to the "Notre Dame Club of the Eternal City." It was also the first year recording as members two ND alumnae, Mother M. Aloysi, SND and Mother M. Vera, SMD. Early in the year, the club commissioned a reliquary inspired by the Golden Dome, for a first-class relic of St. Bernadette. It was sent as a gift to the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception on campus, marking the centenary of the Lourdes Grotto in France, upon which the Notre Dame Grotto is modeled. In April, the Club established a "Man of the Year" award, and named as its first honoree Pope Pius XII, making the bishop of Rome an honorary member of the Club. During a private audience with the Holy Father on 26 May, Club officers presented the Holy Father with commemorative certificate of the award, and with two gifts: a Swiss-made music box that played the Victory March and Alma Mater, and a wood-carved model of the then-football mascot, an Irish Terrier named "Mike". That year's UND Celebration featured Patriarch Gregory XV Agagianian of the Armenians. The Club donated a 1960 Cadillac to Pope John XXIII to replace the 1938 model that was the only American car in the Vatican garage at the time. It was blessed by the Good Pope on 16 March 1960 [Pictured Below]. Eighteen years later, a recall of the steering mechanism revealed that the car was no longer in the motorpool, but officials were not sure where it had ended up. [Observer-Reporter Feb 1978]
Also in 1960, the Club opened Rome's first Notre Dame Centre across the street from Scoglio di Frisio, in the Palazzo Brancaccio. It operated as headquarters for the Club, and as a hospitality center for visitors, pilgrims, council Fathers and peritii throughout the decade. Throughout this entire time, Vincent McAloon, former club president and perennial secretary-treasurer served as the full time director and the face of Notre Dame in Rome. The Center was open every afternoon and early evening for any member of the Notre Dame family to stop by. During the Vatican II Council, dozens of U.S. bishops and other Council fathers would congregate at the Notre Dame Centre for apertivo before dinner at Scoglio. Throughout the Council, the proprietor Dr. Rossi kept a special registry-guestbook for the bishops to sign on their first visit to the restaurant. After four sessions, 900 bishops had signed in, most having spent time in the ND Center as well. Among the peritii recorded there was Father Francis X. Murphy, who, under the pseudonym Xavier Rynne, published a series of reports that read almost like minutes of the Council. The Summer 1963 Issue of Notre Dame magazine ran an article on the hospitality of the Notre Dame Club of Italy. On the occasion of his apostolic visit to India for a Eucharistic Congress in December 1964, former club president Jerry Ashley arranged for a '64 Lincoln convertible to be donated to Paul VI for use during the processions. At the close of the Congress, Paul VI in turn donated it to Mother Teresa for her Missionaries of Charity. She decided to raffle it and raise funds for their mission. The proceeds founded Shanti Nagar, 'the place of peace', a l***r village, on land donated by the Indian government near Asansol. (As of 2010, the car was in good condition in Pune, India.) Dorothy Day visited the Club's Notre Dame Center in October of 1965, as part of her pilgrimage in Rome. [Catholic Worker 1.8]
The Dedication of Vince McAloon, CSC(hon)
In 1969, the School of Architecture began its Rome Studies Program. From 1986-2013 this program was housed separately on Via Monterrone. In 1970, the Club was required to downsize its commitment to the hospitality centre, and let go of its rented space in the Palazzo. It relocated to the upper floor of the restaurant Scoglio di Frisio. Vince returned to teaching at Notre Dame International during the day, but continued to spend every evening at Scoglio, holding 'office hours' at one of the tables there, usually throughout the dinner hours (about 19:00-23:00). Vince was one of the people that Fr. Ted Hesburgh credits with inspiring his passion for social justice, when the future president of Notre Dame first arrived on campus in 1934, as recorded in Fr. Ted's contribution to Walking with God in a Fragile World. Vince received the Sorin Award in 1976, for his 25+ years of service; and in March 1985 he was made an honorary CSC brother at the CSC generalate in Rome for his decades of service to Holy Cross and Notre Dame. He continued in his role as director of Notre Dame hospitality until he left Rome in 1991, having served Notre Dame in Rome for forty years. He was succeeded in this role by Thaddeus ‘T.J.’ Jones, '89, who served as the Club president until 2005. (as of 2023, TJ remains the longest serving ND alumnus in the Roman Curia and affiliated organizations, mostly serving in the various Vatican News media and the Dicastery for Communications. He was knighted by Pope Francis, in the order of St. Gregory the Great...
The New Millennium
In 2001 Notre Dame started collaborating with John Cabot University to offer a study abroad opportunity in Rome to students in Arts & Letters, Business, Science and Engineering. The 2013 UND Celebration served as the first public event in the new Notre Dame Global Gateway in Rome, featuring Bill Lies, CSC, Vice-president for Church Affairs and Mission Engagement. In January 2014, the Club welcomed the University Board of Trustees, after having helped facilitate a private audience for the Board with Pope Francis. Rome was one of five locations around the world to host Fr. John Jenkins for a virtual Celebration of Notre Dame event in 2015. With the construction of the Rome Global Gateway and the expansion of staff and services there, a lot of the hospitality and organizing previously taken on by volunteers from the ND Club of Italy is now provided by the Gateway, especially for visiting faculty and students. The Club waxes and wanes in its activity, and has perhaps the highest concentration of clergy, religious, and higher education professionals of any ND Club around the world, with regular turnover. Past Presidents
2016-2020 Domenick Valore, ‘00
2012-2016 A.J. Boyd, ‘00
2010-2012 Russ McDougall, CSC, '85
2006-2009 Kate Ferrucci, '97
1991-2005 T.J. Jones, '89..
1961-........ George Gleason, '36
1958-1960 Warren "Jerry" Ashley, '33........-1957 Vincent McAloon, '34..
1944-.......... Maj. John Hinkel, '29
Founded by Sgt. Bob Coleman, '42
NDAA Executive Board Members from the Club:
2015-2018 A.J. Boyd,'00, Representative for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East
