For Italian Catholics, a different debate over ‘choice’
It may be the last empire in the world on which the sun never sets: the Catholic Church, a kingdom full of believers and skeptics alike, with its one billion followers strewn across the globe. With such reach and untold wealth, it might seem ill-advised to question its influence. But walk across the street from its seat of power, and you will find a direct challenge to that influence at the most unusual of places: a local pharmacy.
Fighting the Good Fight: Profile of an Evangelical Missionary in Italy
Brent Harrell is a Protestant Evangelical from Boise, Idaho who now lives and works in Rome as a missionary for his faith. Through his various efforts, some stemming from within the church he set up in a suburb of Rome, he hopes to missionize the world’s most Catholic country.
The nuns of Rome
While wandering the streets of Rome, Andrea Palatnik was struck by the volume of nuns in the city. Camera in hand, she documented almost every nun she came across and put together a slideshow.
Outside the camps: Helping the Roma in Rome
The Roma (gypsies) are a group of people who are historically Italy’s most marginalized, hated, victimized and poor. Sant’Egidio is a lay organization that battles negative public sentiment to provide these people with the social services they desperately need. The services are not granted to them in the camps they are forced to live in by the government, which in turn has spurred ethic and religious conflicts within camp boundaries.
Revealing Family Secrets
Sara Terracina works as a tour guide in Rome’s Jewish Ghetto, explaining the history of the Jewish families there. But it was only in the past few months she learned more of her own family’s history — through a series of letters she rediscovers her uncle Amedeo, who was killed by the Nazis in 1945.
The paradox of birth control in Italy
As the debate over birth control in the US rages on, this video takes a closer look at the duality of opinions – and practice – of women’s reproductive rights in Italy, and how the Catholic Church extends its long arms of the law across the pond.
The African Catholic Experience
Many Africans move to Rome to study Catholicism and the teachings of the church. Brandon Gates speaks with two Africans studying at Pontificia Università della Santa Croce about their experience as African Catholics.
A long way from home: African refugees lost in Italy
Stranded in Italy after leaving war-torn Libya, African refugees like Yeboah Emmanuel try to get by despite the lack of documents and the restrictions of a complicated legal limbo. Miles away from family and not sure about a place to call home, they depend on the kindness of strangers like the volunteers from a protestant organization in Rome.
Immigrants in Rome find a home in the Protestant Church
Italy’s political and social climate has made it a difficult place for immigrants to live — especially those who aren’t a part of the Catholic Church. As a result, Protestants and immigrants have created a sense of community for themselves in Rome.
An order that educates
There are over 50 educational institutions worldwide affiliated with Opus Dei, a 20th-Century Catholic lay organization founded by Josemaria Escriva. Though the group has a storied history of involvement with education, the affiliated institutions are surprisingly independent.
Bearing the Cross in a Changing World
Who are America’s priests? How many are there? Where do they come from and who instructs them? “Bearing the Cross in a Changing World” — a short documentary — takes you from Rome to New York to answer those questions.
Stumbling upon memories
Amid the grey cobblestones that line the narrow streets of this ancient city are some that seem to demand the attention of a passer-by.Their placement in the city seems random, but they are part of an art installation called “stolpersteine,” a memorial for the victims of the Holocaust by German Artist Gunter Demnig.
A reversal of faith: When the ‘missionized’ become the missionaries
The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary are not the missionaries as we have come to know them in memoirs and movies: strict nuns and priests carrying the banner of colonialism to unknown, “savage” lands. These sisters are modern missionaries for a brave new world.
Women and the law of the Church
Canon law is an area that has been traditionally dominated by men and specifically, priests, until recently. The Archdiocese of New York, faced with an understaffed priesthood, began incorporating lay people into the fabric of Canon law. Now, the Archdiocese has sent its first woman to study Canon law in Rome.
Being Gay and Catholic in Rome
This short documentary examines the constant battle between religion and homosexuality, through the eyes of a schoolteacher in Rome discovering his sexuality and accepting his faith.
