tuscany # 9 ~ barking on command
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 01:21PM 
In a church in Cortona • click to embiggenDid I mention that Italy is a very Catholic place?
Talk all you want about a Pavlovian response, but the former choirboy / altarboy / solemn high mass altarboy captain in me was just jumping and squirming to get out and do something ... anything ... genuflect, knee on something 'til my knees ached, smell incense, light altar candles, kiss someone's ring, sneak a sip of the sacramental wine, whatever.
It was, in a word, disconcerting, to say the very least.
All of which brings this question to mind - with just about everything worth seeing in Italy (seemingly, only a slight exaggeration) somehow connected to the Roman Catholic Church, do you have to be Catholic (I am Catholic, just not a practicing one) to appreciate it?
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: David Adam Edelstein wrote: "I'm Jewish, my wife is a lapsed Baptist, and we both enjoyed all of the art. Some of it we didn't have a reference point for ("what the heck is going on here? Oh, it's St. so-and-so who was killed by being pelted with pigeons") but it was still beautiful."
click to embiggenmy response: relative to a reference point: about the only reference you need is that usually somebody is getting killed, maimed, punished, suffering or the other big one - roasting in hell for all eternity.
Although, true be told, every once in awhile, there's some gliding around with angels.
Reader Comments (6)
NO! I am an atheist and love the work of Bach above all other music. I stick with his instrumental work though, just as I enjoy a Cathedral from an architectural standpoint, but can't get far enough away from it when there's a mass going on.
Also no. I'm Jewish, my wife is a lapsed Baptist, and we both enjoyed all of the art. Some of it we didn't have a reference point for ("what the heck is going on here? Oh, it's St. so-and-so who was killed by being pelted with pigeons") but it was still beautiful.
I'm of the same non-practising persuasion. However I think there are two ways to appreciate these things: from the purely aesthetic and also the functional.
I have no problem appreciating the beauty of the worshipping spaces of other religions, even though I have no idea what it's all for or what's supposed to be going on.
The thing is you and I will never quite see a Catholic cathedral in the ways non-Catholics do.
Martin touches upon a point though (if I can skip the non in non-Catholic in the last sentence). Not knowing the religous mumbo jumbo will make it difficult to appreciate these religious works of art fully. The more you know about something the greater the expereience (well not always to be honest, but that's an entirely different topic. After studying film/movies I've had a hard time getting sucked into the fictional universe). I am however quite skilled in religous writings (which is why I am an Atheist) and even in popular culture references pop up where you least expect it. Try understanding the lyrics of Leonard Cohen without knowing a few things about the Bible for instance. So to answer your question once again, you'd probably have a fuller and slightly different experience if you were a devoted Catholic.
I played basketball from the age of 10 until I graduated high school. I haven't played since. I don't call myself a basketball player just a non practicing one. I've always have been curious about the term(s) "non practicing" whatever. It seems to me if you no longer practice "WHATEVER", that means that you are no longer "WHATEVER".
Right? More to the point. I think that someone who is more familiar with a something, be it a religion or sport or style of music… "WHATEVER", is certainly going to have a "deeper" appreciation of that "WHATEVER".
`Nuf Said.
Italy? Catholic??? You've not been in Poland :)
I've visited Kraków and environs in September, and it is really, really unbelievable: Obviously the first thing they did after communism, was building churches. Every village seems to have a new, big church. Five masses on weekdays, seven on Sundays. This is not in the one main cathedral, no, that's everywhere.
Regarding your question: No, I think you don't need to be catholic, not at all, but it really helps knowing about Catholicism and - even more important - history.
For me, churches are mainly architectural and cultural heritage. I also don't see them as belonging to the church. They were build with the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors, and hardly a priest has dirtied his hands on that. They may use them though. I'm generous :)