It is also since 2010 the titular church of Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, one of the most respected and beloved prelates in Rome.
Rich with history, this church is best remembered as the final resting place of the great Enrico Cardinal Dante, who is entombed in the basement crypt. This was his titular church from 1965-1967. He served as Papal Master of Ceremonies from 1947 until is death and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1965. His recognizable face can be seen in old photos of papal liturgies across a span of more than twenty years.
Buried next to Cardinal Dante is Dr. Tenente Francesco Paolo Remotti, a medical doctor who was killed in Africa while on a UN mission during the 1961 Kindu massacre in the Belgian Congo.
Later Sant'Agata was also the titular church of the great Silvio Cardinal Oddi.
Also of note is that the Irishman Don Columba Marmion, OSB, a Benedictine monk and prolific author who wrote classic spiritual works in English, lived here as a seminarian. He went on to be the third Abbot of Marsedsous Abbey in Beligium.
Don Columba studied in Rome as a seminarian at the Irish College, arriving in 1879. In those years the College was located at St. Agatha's from 1836-1926. He was ordained at Sant'Agata on June 16, 1881.
During that time the church became the burial place for the Irish political leader, Daniel O'Connell. On his way to Rome on pilgrimage, he died in Genoa, commending "his soul to God, his body to Ireland and his heart to Rome," as commemorated in a memorial to him at Sant'Agata.
In 2012 Cardinal Burke had a new marble plaque put on the side wall of the church to commemorate the ordination day. The monument was designed by Duncan Stroik and consists of a bas relief profile with an inscription in Latin. The monument was made of Giallo di Siena and Carrara marble with the profile carved in Statuario marble by the artist Giuseppe Ducrot.
The church is also known as having been an Arian church and the only one that was preserved in Rome. It was originally built for the Goths, Arians living in Rome in the fourth century. When the heresy of Arianism was suppressed in Rome, the building was passed into Catholic hands and Pope St. Gregory the Great reconsecrated it in about 591. It is believed at this time the church was named after St. Agatha.
The building was later restored and in the ninth-century a monastery was founded next to it that later became Benedictine. After the apse collapsed in 1589, ancient mosaics were lost. It was partially rebuilt in 1633 with a new apse. At that time the unique interior courtyard was built with a covered cloister walk.
A religious order known as the Stigmatines staff the church, having been here since 1926. They act as sacristans and caretakers of the property, with their Generalate (congregational headquarters) adjacent to the church.
The church has a beautiful Cosmatesque floor, redesigned in the 1930s. At that time the baldacchino was also rebuilt from twelfth century pieces. In the main altar are relics of Greek martyrs, brought from the Catacombs of St. Callisto.
February 5th is the titular feast of this beautiful church, a special day to visit and to honor the heavenly patroness, a renowned early Church virgin and martyr buried in Catania, Sicily, where she was martyred for the one true Fatih.
