Saint Columba de Roma

Columba of Rome, better known as Saint Columba of Rome, was a 3rd-century saint of the Catholic Church. Columba was born in Rome during the 3rd century, in the era of Diocletian. Legend holds that she was given the name Columba by her parents "because her angelic face seemed to reflect all the candor and simplicity of the dove." Columba was little more than twelve years old when the persecutions against Christians ordered by Diocletian on February 24, 303, intensified. Columba and her parents were among the first to be detained. Because Columba continued to defend her beliefs, she was subjected to terrible torments and eventually died while forgiving her captors, to the astonishment of her executioners. Christians secretly collected her remains and placed them in a niche in the Catacombs of Saint Callixtus, covering them with a marble slab inscribed with the words Columba puella... They remained there until the early 19th century, when they were collected by the famous archaeologist and canon Boldetti, who guarded the Roman catacombs, and sent to the sanctuary held by Cistercian nuns in Anagni, Italy. In 1911, Daniel Figueroa, parish priest of San José de Flores in Buenos Aires, obtained the donation of the relics from the Bishop of Anagni, Monsignor Antonio Sardi, with the goal of elevating the Church of San José de Flores to a basilica.