Even the Best of Art, Architecture and Culture Are No Match for God

An emigrant returns home for a visit. A beautiful essay on small villages in Italy, the Faith of their people, and the assaults of secularism.

From Everyday For Life Canada

San Donato the town's patron saint

I have not posted anything in the last the month. I decided to take a break. The world goes on without my useless blogging. I think we're too attached to the electronic world that too easily can be used to manipulate our lives and that of our families. It can also become destructively addictive. Social media ought to be at the service of humanity and not about profits and exploitation. But that's another issue and possibly another entry.

Anyway, I spent last month in Italy in the small town of Casalvieri were I was born. Population is 3,125. Casalvieri is part of an area called Valle Di Comino that includes dozens of other wonderful towns. I had a chance to vist some of them. These include San Donato, Atina, Posta Fibreno. It's a wonderful area in the Province of Frosinone which is in the region of Lazio. It's just over 110 kilometres east of Rome. More about my town perhaps in a future entry.

Let's briefly consider a little of the history of just one of many of Val di Comino's small but beautiful towns: San (Saint) Donato. It goes back to a Samnite settlement Cominum that was destroyed and then rebuilt by the Romans after 293 BC.

Recorded history shows that the village of San Donato was established in the 8th century AD. It formed, like most towns across Italy, around a small church of San Donato something that today's visitors and even inhabitants don't much think about any more. The main churches are usually found at the highest point in town.

Just consider that the town was part of the Abbey of Montecassino. It was was part of the fiefdom of the Aquini, Cantelmo, of Cardona and Gallio that controlled it until 1806, the time feudal rights ended in Italy.

The town also has a Franciscan Monastery. Its main church dates back to 1,300 and first dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and later to St. Anthony. The town is also home to a cathedral dedicated to Saint Maria and Saint Marcello. The church of San Donato itself goes back to 778 AD. All this rich Christian history in one relatively little town with a population of just 2,100. The patron saint, martyred for the faith, is celebrated on August the 7th.

Picturesque San Donato

Monte Cassino is not far from San Donato. This is where the Romans constructed the town of Casinum. It's historically important for its abbey. It was St. Benedict of Nursia who chose Monte Cassino as the place to start his first monastery for the Benedictine Order, about 529. (Monte Cassino too is worth a visit, and if you get a chance stay for the celebration of the Gregorian Mass on Sunday, don't miss it.)

The very sad thing is that so much of the Christian past that has built the present in Italy is being forgotten today or not taken for granted. Church attendance in Italy like the rest of Europe is very low. Many of the old churches can no longer be repaired because people don't believe in doing so. Faith is becoming something of the past not the living present. The Christian life is no longer lived by the majority of Italians. Churches such as the ones in San Donato are becoming an artifact, places for tourists to visit. And Church feast days have in many cases been turned to cultural events to celebrate things like music, dance, film and food.

From my simple observations this past month, Italy's Christian art, culture, architecture and history are rich, interesting and worth knowing. The mountainous geography is beautiful and the food second to none. However, material things are a poor substitute for faith in God and His marvellous mysteries of creation and human redemption. This too is the present. It's for this truth that San Donato and other saints were martyred. But like Canada, Italy is making the same mistake: they are forgetting their Christian roots while seductively embracing the new cult of sex, state and self. Our Christian past guides our future. But sadly, much of what was built in the name of faith is now being left to erode and replaced by an aggressive secularism.