Religious Life in the Capital of Catholicism

As many of you are doubtless aware (either because you're a part of my family, or because I can't ever seem to shut up about them...) I was raised as a part of a ginormous Irish-Catholic family. Like, the kind of big Irish-Catholic family who make Mass an integral part of almost every family gathering, do some pretty entertaining acrobatics in too-small kitchens/living rooms/dining rooms in order to link hands and pray before a meal, and where everyone is not only someone's cousin or aunt/uncle, they're also someone's Godparent or Confirmation sponsor... in the 'recipes' section of our family website, there's a Novena. You get it. We're Catholic.

And I'm so very grateful to have been raised in this family. Not only for the more obvious reasons of having a ton of people supporting you in what you do and having the pretty sweet added bonus of a built-in group of friends, but for one very simple reason: if my parents had decided to raise my brother, sister and I in another religious tradition, I probably wouldn't be an art historian.

Not that everyone in my family is Catholic; my paternal extended family isn't, and their faith is just as strong and just as inspiring to me. But having the traditions of Catholicism reinforced, the stories reiterated over and over again, and the penchant for ornate (by Montana religious standards) ornamentation presented to me week after week certainly cultivated in me a healthy interest, and a rather comprehensive elementary knowlege, of Catholic iconography before I even knew of the existence of a field of study called Art History.

When I went to the Louvre at age 16 and found myself able to identify events and even relatively obscure people in Christian artwork without looking at the placard, it was one of the coolest moments of my life, and certainly the one that doomed me to a field where I can hope for little more than an especially nice refrigerator box to call home after I finally finish school. But that probably wouldn't have happened (damn! I could have been a lawyer!) if I had not been raised in the tradition for which these artists had been working.

Naturally, when it came time for me to study abroad (I love how that's like, a right of passage in the American university system now), Rome, with its rich history not only of the art that has fascinated me from the word 'go', but of all that which influenced and inspired it, seemed a perfect fit. Not because I'm an especially devout Catholic; I have more than a few gripes with the political position of the Institution as it exists right now, but because of all the incredible art that has been inspired by the Institution, and maybe by the Faith itself sometimes, throughout the centuries. So, with my very faithful and loving family behind me, supporting me, and my mainly academic interest in something so very spiritual for so many people before me, I found myself stuck between St. Peter and a hard place.

I came to Rome with not a little trepidation on how I was going to handle my political objections to the Church coupled with my burning desire to enter every church I saw and analyze the altarpieces to within an inch of their metaphorical lives. I was afraid that I was entering a country where the Institution reigned supreme and left little room for wonder, love, compassion, comfort, education... all the things that I've learned from my big Catholic family back in the States. I was afraid that the Italians would be able to smell on me the stench of 'culturally Catholic academic who thinks she's so enlightened'... I've definitely caught a whiff once or twice myself.

But really, I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead of prancing into the middle of a religious oligarchy where one can't purchase condoms because they spread AIDS and women must be seen and not heard, I found myself in a country full of cultural Catholics. The observation has been made before the you can't help but be Catholic when you live in Italy. Churches in Rome are like Starbucks' in New York; there are at least two every block or so. Most of the major holidays when people get off work are also Catholic Holy Days. Your kid probably goes to a parochial school, not because he's the second son and so destined for the priesthood, but because parochial schools provide a really good education.

I'm constantly fascinated and delighted by the way in which religious life seems to permeate the everyday here without making a big deal about itself. The main identifying factor of my bus stop is an altar to the Virgin built right into the wall, complete with an entire brigade of marble and bronze plaques bought and placed there by families. There are usually burnt-out candles, wilting roses and prayers written out and folded up and stuck behind a plaque. Many people make it a habit, when they're disembarking, to touch the foot of the altar before absent-mindedly making the Sign of the Cross and continuing on their way, screaming into their cell-phones all the while.

For a few weeks it was always amusing to me when a priest or a monk, in full cassock, or a nun in her habit (this is even in 90 degree weather) would pass me on the street. Now it's just business as usual. I've even begun to be able to identify the different orders based on their dress. It was a bit confusing at first when a group of nuns came to the park I was sitting in and began to gaily set up for a picnic... I thought one of them was Mother Thereasa... I'd only seen that blue and white habit on one other person before. But they ride the bus, drive around town and go grocery shopping (there's another icon of the Virgin set into the wall on the corner of the grocery store, btw) just like I do. They buy less cheap wine... but that's their perogative I guess.

And these people arent' just relics of a bygone era of devoutness, either. These are pretty young guys with their backpacks casually slung over their shoulders, skillfully navigating the crowded 75 to Piazza Independaza... in a cassock. There's one especially mean calendar that all the little tourist traps sell, which I can only compare to a fireman calendar in the States. It's basically just a bunch of beautiful young men, one for each month, staring broodingly at the camera. Except they all have black shirts with white collars on. Grr. That's just plain cruel. Blasphemous? Perhaps. But funny? Yeah. And a little unnerving for me, who was raised with priests who were all pushing at least fifty? You betcha.

And you know how in the States the biggest, most grandiose and hallowed buildings are usually reserved for affairs of state? Like, how every capitol building has a big dome on it and we build giant suggestive obelisks to commemorate our general macho badassery? And how churches are generally not the focal point of a major city's skyline? Turn that around, and you've got Rome. Parliament is nothing to sneeze at, architecture-wise, but St. Peter's makes it look like a Fischer-Price dollhouse. Rome's skyline, although it's not a particularly high city and therefore hasn't got a really distinctive one, is dominated by the domes of churches, not the skyscrapers of capitalist temples of commerce or Greecian inspired buildings build to house democracy.

The point is: Catholicism has been the norm around here for so long that no one even thinks twice about it. You pray to St. Anthony when you lose something because it's what you do, not because you're thinking that some guy with a halo is going to tap you on the shoulder and hand you your cell phone. You cross yourself when someone else does it more as a reflex than as a sign of solemn devotion. And Jesus not only died for your sins, but He also gets you the day off work once in awhile. To quote poor jilted Diane Lane out there under the Tuscan sun somewhere, Mary is less the absolute paragon of feminine Virtue and Purity than she is everyone's aunt, who is just there, looking out for you, from basically every street corner.

If I've learned one thing about religion from living in Rome, it's this: Catholicism, and religion in general, I suppose, can be whatever you need it to be. It can be a habitual action that tells you something about where you've come from, or just an excuse to get off work a few days a year. It can be a very dearly held belief that compels you to go to Mass each day or join a holy order, or it can be simply a part of the life going on around you. It can be a comforting familiarity when you're far away from your family. It can be the inspiration for a chosen path of education. It can be a new cultural discovery and a safety net at once.

I've learned that religion is intensely personal, and that devotion doesn't come in only one flavor. For me, the most sacred and holy part about Catholicism is the fact that it has inspired great human beings to greater feats of artistic expression. And my way of praying, by marveling at what human beings are capable of and then learning just how they did it, is just as valid as receiveing Communion every day of your life. I've learned that, shockingly, it's easier to ignore the Pope when he literally lives about a mile away than when he's across the world issuing edicts from on high.

Maybe that's why Italy has such a healthy (in my opinion) relationship with religion compared to the places I've lived before. It's part of their lifeblood. It's in the very soil. They imbibe it every day and, much like wine, it looses its remoteness and mystery and becomes another important facet of a rich and deep understanding of who they are and where they come from.