The sanctuary of the Sacro Cuore di Gesù stands in Via Roma, in Mugnano di Napoli, and belongs to the archdiocese of Naples. At its origin is the priest Vincenzo Orlando, who founded in Mugnano the first nucleus of the «Ritiro dei Sacratissimi Cuori» by buying some premises with a garden that had belonged to Fabrizio Capece Minutolo, Prince of Canosa; on 8 May 1873, after several disputes, he obtained from Cardinal Sisto Riario Sforza, Archbishop of Naples, permission to start the works. In 1881 the religious Maria Pia Brando arrived: after Orlando's death she was left alone to sustain the project and invested her whole inheritance in it to enlarge the complex.
What to see
The church, according to tradition, was conceived on 8 December 1882, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, when Brando is said to have received in a dream from the Virgin the instructions for building it. To the foundress is also owed the statue of the Sacred Heart venerated here: the face, she stated, was the one she had seen in a dream. The statue has a dialect nickname, «Scauzone», that is, barefoot, tied to a prodigious episode of local tradition.
The body of Maria Pia Brando is kept in the sanctuary, and there is an altar dedicated to her. Her cause for canonisation is under way: on 27 September 2023, at the closing of the diocesan inquiry, the church was made a diocesan sanctuary with a celebration presided over by Archbishop Domenico Battaglia.
Visiting
Opening and Mass times should be checked with the sanctuary; on the 27th of every month a Mass is celebrated there in memory of the foundress. Next door is the charitable work Brando wanted: once an orphanage, it is today a nursery and primary school run by the Suore Vittime Espiatrici di Gesù Sacramentato, the congregation she founded.
Our editors' tip
The feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated on the third Sunday of October and is known across much of Campania and beyond, above all for the great firework displays that accompany it.
