2.2. Aim

2.2.1. Safeguarding memory

The aim of an ecclesiastical museum is connected to the "sensus ecclesiae" (feeling for the church) which sees in the history of the church the progressive development of God's people. Therefore the ecclesiastical museum assumes a specific aim in the context of the pastoral action of the local Church.

The ecclesiastical museum, in particular, serves different functions among which one can indicate the following: 

- the conservation of artefacts in so far as it gathers all those works that, due to the difficulty of protecting them, their unknown origin or alienation, the destruction or degradation of the original places where they belonged, as well as other different risks, cannot stay in their original location;

- the investigation of the history of the Christian community, because the criteria for museological display, the selection of the pieces and their placement, should reconstruct and tell about the temporal and territorial progress of the Christian community;

- the display of historical continuity since the ecclesiastical museum should represent, by the material it contains, the "stable memory" of the Christian community and at the same time its "active and current presence";

- a comparison with other cultural expressions characterizing the territory, since the preservation of the cultural patrimony must have a "catholic" dimension; in other words, take into consideration all those who were present and the manifestations within a territory as the Church developed.