The Catholic church as cultural repository.

Interesting experience at Amelia, an ancient walled town up in the mountains in northern Lazio. We parked outside the walls and hiked in -- a substantial hike, very steep. The town -- or at least what we saw of it -- was actually very dreary, even for a Sunday evening: narrow streets, black walls, no lights, deadly few citizens. But the arc-lit cattedrale kept shining magnificently at the top of the hill, so we pressed on. We heaved up more winding and utterly dark cobblestone streets and staircases until we finally crested the hill. The outside of the cathedral was bleached white and absolutely without ornament. We went in a small door that I assumed was the side door -- and lo, a Baroque masterpiece cracked open like a geode, fully lit and radiant in orange and gold and blue, opened up over our heads. We poked around for a bit. Pretty soon an old-ish man -- sort of a self-appointed docent -- came up and insisted that we see the dioramas in a side room Very impressive dioramas (of the life of Jesus), actually, with animated figures and running water. This was to be only the first stop, it turned out, on an hour-long tour of the cathedral. The old gentleman was very knowledgeable, and clearly very proud of Amelia and its grand (and mostly long-gone) history -- a history that was (and this is the key) largely encapsulated in and represented by the wealth of paintings, sculptures and objects of antiquity housed in the church: a Turkish flag from the (very) battle of Lepanto; a working 17th-century pipe organ; &c. The gentleman reminded me very much of the attorney/chorus character in Fellini's Amarcord: the old gentleman who represents the town's memory and its pride in its cultural treasures. What struck me was that this was the role that the church clearly played in the life of Amelia (not to mention that of this old fellow). There was nothing religious (from what I could make out) in his discourse His enthusiasm was that of a city booster, not that of a religious proselytizer. This you don't see in America. With the exception of a few historical-landmark churches (St. Patrick's, the Washington Cathedral), American churches don't play this role as cultural/historical repositories -- obviously, since 1) there's precious little culture or history to reposit, and since 2) they're Protestant, and thus generally suspicious of (if not overtly hostile to) the contamination of religion by art. It's a role of the overseas Catholic church that we don't clearly perceive in America; we tend to see it (if at all) as the institution that burned Bruno and jailed Galileo, if we're secular, or if we're Protestant then as a suspiciously idolatrous cult, with its saints and shrouds and icons. What we don't get is the ROLE that these icons and artworks play in the life of the parish: that they're not merely objects of befuddled worshipfulness for benighted old ladies, but that they're tangible objects of the community's identity.