ROME, ITALY
The placement of the Angel Moroni statue atop the Rome Italy Temple suggests the Eternal City is one step closer to having a sacred structure where husbands and wives can be sealed together and children to parents in eternal families.
“It means a dream coming true,” said Elder Alessandro Dini Ciacci, an Area Seventy from Rome, of the Saturday, March 25, event at the temple construction site in the city’s northeastern suburbs.
“Finally, we see a lot of progress in this construction. We can finally envision the day when the temple will be dedicated.”
With about 150 invited guests — including mission and stake presidents from throughout Italy and construction site supervisors as well as family members of both groups — the Angel Moroni statue was lifted by a crane 150-plus feet from the ground beside the temple to the tallest, eastern-most of the building’s two spires.
The statue stands 13 feet tall and is covered with 22-karat gold leaf, with the statue’s chest facing east and its signature trumpet bell facing southeast.
The temple in central Italy will provide easier and closer temple access for many of the 25,000-plus members in the nation who comprise 10 stakes and 102 wards and branches. Italy is home to two missions — in Rome and Milan.
At present time, Italy is part of the Bern Switzerland Temple district. But travel there from most parts of Italy comes at a cost of time and money.
For example, Elder Dini Ciacci and his wife, Sara, are both temple workers in the Bern temple, and they try to take a week-long temple trip twice a year with their family, which includes four children between the ages of 9 years and 16 months.
That means a one-way drive of 12 to 14 hours, usually split over two days, with gas costing between $5 to $6 a U.S. gallon. To say nothing of both serving in the temple when four children are in tow for the trip.
“We thought if we want them to have a desire to go [to the temple] when their time comes, we need them to feel that spirit,” Elder Dini Ciacci said. “So, we go and we just take turns — my wife and I have not served together in the temple for a long time. When we go, she stays out in the morning, and I stay out with the kids in the afternoon.”
Church President Thomas S. Monson announced the Rome Italy Temple during October 2008 general conference, and the prophet led the groundbreaking ceremony two years later, on Oct. 23, 2010.
The three-level, 40,000-square-foot temple features a Bianco Sardo granite facade, with the stone quarried in Italy. Besides the temple, the 15-acre site is joined by Rome’s first Church-constructed meetinghouse (a stake center), a family history center, patron housing and visitors’ center.
The latter will house digitally reproduced marble replicas of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s renowned sculptures of “Christus” and the Twelve Apostles, the 13 original statues crafted in the early 19th century and on display at the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Church now has 155 operating temples across the globe, including 11 in Europe. A 12th — the Paris France Temple — will begin its open house sessions April 22, with its dedication scheduled for May 21.
