Lupa, She-Wolf and the Discovery of a Roman Grotto

One of the best known legends of antiquity, for anyone familiar with the history of Rome, Italy, is the tale of how it became founded. It begins with a man named Numitor and his brother, Amulius. Amulius eliminated his brother and banned Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia, from having children, thus eliminating any heirs to the throne over Amulius’ children. Rhea was sent to serve in the temple as a Vestal Virgin, where she was tutored to be a priestess and who was to remain a virgin in the temple service. She became pregnant and gave birth to twins – Romulus and Remus. The legend does not reveal who the father was. Amulius sentenced Rhea Silvia to death, being justified because she didn’t keep her vows of virginity in her service as a Vestal Virgin. It was also ordered that the twins be killed as well, but the servant given the mission to do so could not do it and left them in a basket on the banks of the Tiber river. The legend states that the twins were raised by a she-wolf by the name of Lupa, a Latin name also used for female prostitutes and for priestesses of a fox goddess.

A shepherd discovered the boys and brought them home to be raised with his family. The famous bronze statue of the she-wolf suckling the twins is at the entrance to the City Hall at Rome’s Campidoglio and has become a symbol of ancient Rome and Latin romantic tales in Spain as well as Romania. 

Beatification of Pope Pius XII

In an Associated Press/Reuters report, the Vatican The Holy See] has been considering Beatification of Pope Pius XII, the preliminary procedure to canonization declaring sainthood to a person. He was the Pope during the time of the Holocaust period in Nazi Germany and there have been arguments over whether or not Pope Pius XII had turned his head during the persecution of Jews or whether he remained prudent in order to secretly save Jews through his diplomacy. According to an article at MSNBC: [See also

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano dedicated an entire page to praising Pius, including an impassioned tribute from the Holy See’s secretary of state, Italian Cardinal Tarcisco Bertone.
“It was precisely by means of a prudent approach that Pius XII protected Jews and refugees,” Bertone wrote in an introduction to a book by a nun about the late pontiff.
Last month, Pope Benedict XVI made one of the strongest defenses yet of Pius, whose death 50 years ago is being marked at the Vatican. … Pius, as Italian prelate Eugenio Pacelli, had served as a Vatican diplomat in Germany and as the Vatican’s secretary of state before becoming pope in 1939, a few months before World War II erupted in Europe. The Vatican has started the process for Pius’ beatification, the last formal step before possible sainthood. Jews and others have accused Pius of not speaking out forcefully enough against the Holocaust. Bertone contended that research has shown that Pius “was neither silent nor anti-Semitic. He was prudent. If he had made a public intervention, he would have endangered the lives of thousands of Jews, who, upon his directive, were hidden, in 155 convents and monasteries in Rome alone …
Earlier this week, an Israeli rabbi [Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen] who became the first Jew to address bishops’ gatherings at the Vatican pointedly omitted Pius when he spoke of the change in Catholic-Jewish relations from a “long, hard and painful history.”… The rabbi said some religious leaders “did not raise a voice in the effort or save our brethren, but chose to keep silent and help secretly.”