Churches & Places of Worship

This church of Santa Maria delle Grazie is one of the oldest in the country and is located on a cliff overlooking the entire village of Cantalice.

Inside it is preserved an old wooden statue of the Madonna that according to legend, was found by a shepherd miraculously in a cave.

This statue is carried in procession on the feast day of the saint.

Behind the sacristy of the church could have been found the holm oak that grew from a stone, the one that gave the village its name.

it houses the brotherhood that organizes the feast in her honour, celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter.

Outside Cantalice, in the village of San Liberato, is the parish church and the old oratory.

Inside you will find many interesting frescoes such as probably one from the Giotto school depicting the Madonna and Child.

The church has an organ with 1600 pipes, renovated in 2005, and retains the urn containing the relics of the Holy Martyr Liberato.

On the main bell is engraved with an inscription in Latin dedicated to the “Madonna della Grandine” (Madonna of the Hail) which states the place and date of the casting.

This church in the heart of the village of Cantalice was dedicated to Santa Maria del Popolo (of the people) to sanction the union of the ancient fortresses which formed the Cantalice Castle.

The facade is adorned with a 1548 portal on which we read a Latin inscription with a dedication to Mary.

Inside you can admire the tombs of the two most illustrious citizens of Cantalice, Giovanni Battista Valentini (Bishop 1500 called "Cantalicio") and San Felice Porro, patron of the town.

The church has three naves and the main altar is decorated with a fine seventeenth-century canvas.

Coming down from the top of the village of Cantalice, you find the Misericordia church with an image of the Madonna painted on the upper part of the apse.

This is the church of the Brotherhood of Mercy or the Company of the Good Death, as evidenced by a death emblem in the ceiling of the church that reminds of the mission of the brotherhood.

The church of San Felice is located in one of the best and highest positions in the town of Cantalice and was erected on the spot where stood the house of the saint.

The church is from the mid-seventeenth century and its façade is the eighteenth-century.

The church has an eighteenth century organ.

The plan is a Latin cross and the interior has a Baroque style.

In the dome are represented some of the miracles attributed to the saint.

The main altarpiece depicts San Felice with the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus.

Inside is a statue of San Felice, dressed in his own Capuchin habit, which is carried in procession by the Capuchin brothers on the day of the saint's feast (May 18).

The shrine of St. Felice of Cantalice is a pilgrimage destination.

Felice Porro was born in Cantalice between 1510 and 1515 and was initially a shepherd farmer.

As a child he went to the Picchi family service in Cittaducale, where he developed his aspiration to become a Capuchin friar.

Felice took vows after having miraculously escaped death, run over and trampled by bulls, he was unbroken.

He entered the convent in Rome in 1544 and there he proctised his ministry for a long time, so to gain a huge popularity.

He was a friend of St. Philip Neri and Cardinal Peretti, the future Pope Sixtus V, who predicted the papacy.

He died in 1587, and pope Sixtus V started immediately the canonization process.
 

Outside the town of Upper Cantalice is the fifteenth-century church of Peace.

There are interesting frescoes of the Annunciation in the apse and the eighteenth-century coffered ceiling.

Along the road that connects the lower Isola del Liri with the upper one, there are two small caves with a small stream that closely resembles the French sanctuary.

In 1938, the then bishop who wanted to keep religious tension high among the working masses, decided to modify the caves to make them more and more similar to Lourdes and in 1940 a statue of the Madonna was placed.

The Evangelical Church of Isola del Liri is a simple building with a single room with a gabled roof and a simple facade with a carved door.

Its history is representative of the independent spirit of the inhabitants of Isola del Liri.

In 1909, Giovanni Venditti founded a first cultural circle and in 1911 the first baptisms began. The church became the object of political, and not just religious, division as a support to the working class.

"In 1915, after the earthquake and the outbreak of the war, the peasants, spurred on by the local clergy, attacked the church".