ROME
First Things
Sunday, March 10, 2013,
Kevin Staley-Joyce | @KevinSJoyce
For the small percentage they comprise of Catholics worldwide, Italians are disproportionately represented in the Roman Curia and ecclesial governance more broadly, not to mention their long history of native-born popes. And while the last memory of an Italian pope is now three decades old, today’s populus Romanus has not let go of its special concern for the Roman pontiff. If the Corriere della Sera‘s polling can be trusted, a strong current of Italians (it claims nearly forty percent) has expressed admiration for Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley among the field of papabile cardinals. Along with his pastoral and theological strengths are qualities that resonate profoundly with the loyalties and hopes of many Italians. He is a Capuchin Franciscan like the nation’s beloved Padre Pio. He speaks Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese flawlessly, and strikes most as humble and consummately apolitical.
Today O’Malley offered Mass at his titular church, Santa Maria della Vittoria, the Roman landmark famed as the home of Bernini’s masterwork, St. Theresa in Ecstasy. The church has received much attention of late, if perhaps for indecorous reasons, being a stop on the city’s Angels and Demons tour. But at least Dan Brown’s fantasy manages to commit the irony of bringing tourists into churches instead of away from them.
The aged Carmelite friars who serve as the church’s caretakers excitedly said they had never in recent memory witnessed a crowd of today’s size. Perhaps forty print journalists, cameramen, and reporters packed into the transepts of the diminutive space, one of them having to be pulled away to allow O’Malley to process to the altar. A large congregation also attended, most of them natives, judging by their laughter when O’Malley joked in Italian of his desire to take the Bernini statue back to Boston. The press were largely Italian as well, save a number from Boston news outlets.
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