Amedeo Di Cori's photograph and the letters he sent from the Regano Coeli prison in Rome. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

ROME: On a fine March morning at her home in Via Cesare Pascarella, Sara Terracina breathed in deeply as she took the postcard-sized, black and white photograph that her mother handed to her. It was the picture of a boy and a girl, brother and sister, standing in front of a railing overlooking hilly Italian scenery.

Sara stared at the image of the boy for a few moments. His pants were a little too high above his waist, and the white shirt he wore seemed too big for him.  His hair was combed back, his eyes looked downward and there was a hint of a smile on his bashful face.

“This was my uncle, Amedeo,” she said. “This is the first time I am seeing what he looked like.”

Amedeo Di Cori was 16 years old when he was arrested by the Nazis in 1943 in Rome and kept at the Regano Coeli prison in the city for a few months. He was then taken to the camps at Auschwitz, and was eventually killed in Germany toward the end of the Second World War.

Although Sara, 32, grew up knowing that her mother had a teenage brother who died in the Holocaust, her mother had never told her about the existence of this photograph of Amedeo, or about the letters that he sent during his few months at Regano Coeli.

Sara, a graduate in international affairs and history, works as a tour guide taking visitors around the Jewish Ghetto in Rome, explaining the history of the Jews in Rome. Sara often peppered her talks with anecdotes from her own family history, but today, she realized there were still many details about her uncle that her family hadn’t yet told her.

Sometimes it takes a stranger to get families talking. I met Sara during a trip to Rome with my “Covering Religion” seminar at Columbia University. Sara had invited me to her home to meet Amedeo’s siblings: her mother, Luciana Terracina, and her uncle, Angelo Di Cori, and they retold the story of the uncle Sara never knew.

As Sara cradled her own son, one-year-old Gideon, Angelo and Luciana brought forth first Amedeo’s picture, and then his letters. Sara had never seen them before. But these were the only remains the family had of Amedeo: a young life that was cruelly ended by the Nazis and their Italian collaborators.

***

Regina Coeli

April 25, 1944

Dear Mother,

It’s only now that I am able to write a few lines to you. I can tell you that I am fine, my health is fine. I am quite relaxed, and I hope that you feel the same. I received all your packages. I ate all the food that you prepared for me. I was very happy because everything was prepared in our house—it was delicious.

We are waiting to leave for an unknown destination, on maybe Tuesday or Thursday. If you can, could you send me some more things that I need? Can you send me some thread and a sewing needle, some cigarettes, some soap — it’s very useful in here. And please, more paper and envelopes. I am writing a lot of things in here, although I don’t know when they will reach you.

With this letter, I send you a lot of kisses, and a million more to Franca and Luciana. I hope to see you all as soon as possible. Please tell me any news you know about Marietta. I hope that she is fine. Once again, a trillion kisses from your dearest son,

Amedeo.

***

Undated photograph of Amedeo Di Cori with his sister, Rina Di Cori. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

Amedeo was the eldest son in the Di Cori family; a large Jewish family that consisted of the parents, Mario and Giulia, and six children: Rina, Amedeo, Angelo, Giuseppina, Luciana and Franco. They lived in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome, and his father made a living both as an oculist and as a hawker on the streets of Rome.

However, this changed with the laws under the “Manifesto della Razza,” the Manifesto of Race issued by the Italian government in 1938. Under these laws, Italian Jews were stripped of their citizenship, and weren’t allowed to practice their professions. With Mario unable to work anymore, the onus of taking care of the family was taken up by the young Amedeo.

Amedeo followed his father’s example, and became a hawker, laying out his wares on a table in the street. Although this makeshift shop became the Di Cori family’s primary source of income, Amedeo was working in extremely dangerous conditions. The fascist regime had put out rewards for people who caught Jews breaking the racial laws — and Amedeo was a prize catch for anyone greedy enough for the money.

“It used to be 5000 liras for a Jewish man, 3000 liras for a Jewish woman and 1000 lira for a Jewish child,” Sara explained. “At that time, it was a lot of money. People were starving, and they would do anything for the money.”

Sara paused for a minute, breathing in deeply. “I’m not saying I condone their behavior. I hate the people who sold out the Jews,” she said. “But yes, I can understand the situation they were in.”

One day in April 1944, Amedeo’s luck ran out. A fascist soldier arrested him, and took him to the Regano Coeli prison in Rome.

***

Regina Coeli

May 2, 1944 

Dear Mother,

I received your package with food, and I thank you so much for that, and for everything you do for me. I ate everything you sent me and I’m very glad to know that all of you are fine. I hope Franca and Luciana will never forget their beloved brother and that, one day, when God wills it, I hope I will be able to hug you again and hug them again and to buy for them all the sweets in the world, all the sweets and candies they want.

Dear Mother, do not send me more bread, just send me three of those since I have enough of that in here. For the next package, please send me some toothpaste, a toothbrush and soap. I am in good health and I am very relaxed. Again, a lot of kisses for everyone at home. And please say hello to all my friends and relatives.

From your beloved son,

Amedeo di Cori.

***

The final undated letter that Amedeo Di Cori sent from his time at the Regano Coeli prison in Rome. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

Once she learned that her son was in the Regano Coeli prison, Amedeo’s mother made an arrangement of sorts with people who worked at the prison. Through them, she was able to send her son food, clothes and other items of daily use. It was through the exchange of laundry that Amedeo and his mother found a way to communicate with each other as well.

Every time he gave away his clothes to be washed, Amedeo would replace the cards that were used to keep the collars stiff in some of his shirts with small pieces of paper on which he had written letters to his family. It was a risky practice, but a channel of communication was opened between them.

In his four letters from Regano Coeli, Amedeo put up a brave front, constantly telling his mother not to worry about his welfare. Loving words to his mother and siblings make up most of his letters. Amedeo seemed to have a relentless hope for a future when he would be able to see his family again.

Amedeo also made sure that he didn’t run his family into trouble if his letters were found by the prison guards. Since he knew that the Nazis were targeting Jewish men in their arrests, he changed the names of his family’s male members to make them seem female. Thus, in his letters, he referred to his father, Mario, as Marietta and his brother, Franco, as Franca.

Such actions by Amedeo in his letters were characteristic of his protective nature, said his youngest sister, and Sara’s mother, Luciana. While he was the caretaker of the entire family, Luciana remembered his particular fondness toward his youngest siblings.

“Every night — every single night — when he would come back home after work, he would always have some little gift for me and for the little one, Franco,” she said, her eyes welling up as she remembered.“He never came back without something for us.”

***

May 20, 1944 

Dear Mother,

I am writing to you these few lines because I’d like to let you know that I am about to leave. If I can, I will write to you from where I am going.

Be strong, and have faith. Please pray for me to the holy God that He will assist me. Just like the way that I am praying to him now, please do the same as well. I am full of courage and faith. I pray and I have faith in God that one day, he will let me hug you again.

***

Three generations: Luciana Terracina with her daughter, Sara, and her grandson, Gideon. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

It was not just the photograph of Amedeo that took Sara by surprise today — she was seeing the letters for the first time as well. As Sara read the letters out loud, her voice broke several times, and she struggled to keep her composure. Later, Sara said that she wasn’t surprised that her mother had chosen to keep these documents away from her all this while.

“The answer to why my mother she didn’t show me these things is because I am her little daughter,” Sara said. “She thought this was too much for me and that I should be protected. She knew that this was too painful for her, so she must have thought it’s too painful for her little daughter.”

Luciana was only a young girl when her brother was arrested but her memories of the time are still vivid. Nightmares of the Nazis coming wake her up from her sleep even today. Although Luciana still finds it difficult to watch historical video footage on Nazi concentration camps, she grits her teeth and continues to see them, hoping to see her brother somewhere in those clips.

“It still hurts,” Luciana said, pressing her hand against her heart. “Every time we sit down to eat, every time we go out, the memories are always in my heart. Every moment we get together with family, we always return to talking about the past. Sharing the burden of memories doesn’t make me feel better — I’m just passing along the story.”

It was many years after the war that the Di Cori family carried out research of their own to find out what exactly had happened to Amedeo. As the war reached its end in 1945, the Nazis were taking out prisoners and indiscriminately killing them. Amedeo was one of those victims — he was shot and killed on January 6, 1945 at Hailfingen in Germany.

Sara gave birth to Gideon a year ago, and her new role as a mother has helped her better understand the pain and trauma her family, particularly her grandmother, had to live through.“Because I can imagine that it could happen to me — not to die myself, but to suffer the pain of a mother seeing her 16-year-old son taken away from her and die in a horrible way, so far from home, maybe calling my name,” she said.

“Because that is the thing that most scares me,” she added, as she tightly hugged Gideon. “My son is calling my name and I am not there to help him.”

***

(undated, final letter)

We are leaving for the concentration camp, maybe the one in Carpi, Modena. Once I get there, if it is possible, I will write to you. We are all fine, and full of courage.

Greetings to everybody.

Kisses,

Amedeo. 

Sira Fatucci points to the five stolpersteine she had commissioned for members of her father's family. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

ROME — 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. They appear to be made of gold and glint in the light of the sun by day and the street lamps by night. Their placement in the city seems random as well: there are a lot of them in the Jewish Ghetto, but they can be seen also in Trastavere and several other neighborhoods in Rome.

A closer look reveals that these cobblestones are, in fact, brass plated and each one has a small history lesson engraved on it. Here is one that sits amid the stones in Via della Reginella in the Ghetto:

Here lived

Rossanna Calo

Born 1941

Arrested 16.10.1943

Deported Auschwitz

Murdered 23.10.1943

 After reading this stone, the passer-by might wonder:  Why was the two-year-old Rossanna Calo arrested, deported and worst of all, killed? Who was Rossanna Calo? Couldn’t someone have stopped this atrocity from happening?

The stones are part of an art installation called stolpersteine, meaning “stumbling stones” in German, and they are intended to evoke questions. They are permanent memorials for the victims of the Holocaust during the Second World War, and more than 32,000 of these stones have been installed in over 700 locations in Europe by the German artist Gunter Demnig.

The Holocaust in Europe killed approximately six million Jews, of which more than one million were children like Rossana Calo. Under a carefully planned act of genocide called the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” the Nazi regime arrested Jews from all over Europe and sent them to extermination camps like Auschwitz in Poland, where they would either be systematically killed, or die due to the camp’s horrific living conditions.

The stolpersteine project honors not just the memory of the Jews, but also the other groups of people who were targeted by the Nazis, which included the Romani and Sinti gypsy tribes, homosexuals, and political and religious opponents to the regime. By placing these stones in front of the last known residence of the victim, Demnig hopes to immortalize each of the estimated 11 million lives lost in the Holocaust.

Adachiara Zevi leads the stolpersteine project in Italy. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

Requests for stolpersteine can be made by families of the victims through Demnig’s website for a fee of 120 euros, and while the stones are always installed by him, the logistics are managed by various teams around Europe. In Italy, the stolpersteine project is led by Adachiara Zevi, an art historian and architect working with the Union of Jewish Communities in Rome.

Zevi doesn’t contain her excitement when talking about her admiration for the artist. She says that Demnig has dedicated his life to a project that he must know he can never finish. The task of creating a stone for each of the 11 million victims is simply not realistic. But even though he’s just scratched the surface, the work he’s done so far are a highly effective means to make sure that the Holocaust is never forgotten.

“You stumble upon the stolpersteine every day,” she says. “Each day you overlap the past with the present.” Zevi also draws attention to the unassuming, discreet characteristic of the stolpersteine. “It is not a monument that is added to the city. Instead it becomes, really, a part of the city,” she says. “This is a monument in progress. It is going to become a map of memory, all over Europe.”

But not everyone has responded positively to the stolpersteine project. The stones have been subjected to several instances of vandalism; the most recent of which was in January of this year when three stolpersteine plaques were stolen barely a week after they were installed in the Santa Maria di Monticelli neighborhood of Rome.

Such incidents have made some people wary of putting up stolpersteine for their loved ones. Luciana Terracina’s brother, Amedeo Di Cori, was 16 when he was arrested and taken to Auschwitz by the Nazi regime. She never saw her brother again. Although her daughter, Sara, wants to put up stolpersteine in memory of the uncle she never met, Terracina is firmly against the idea.

“By placing them [the stolpersteine] outside, they will not be protected. People don’t care. People could take it and break it,” Terracina says. Her fears are also echoed by those who already have stones installed on the streets of Rome. Sira Fatucci, who works with Zevi on the stolpersteine project, confesses that she has mixed feelings about the five stones she had commissioned for members of her father’s family.

“When I see them, I feel a sense of peace,” she says. “But, all the time, I am also afraid that someone can take them, or vandalize them, or write something on them. That makes me kind of uncomfortable.”

By mimicking normal cobblestones, stolpersteine become "a part of the city," says Adachiara Zevi. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

Fatucci’s father, Amadio Fatucci, was hiding under a table when the Nazis took away his parents, grandparents and eight-year-old brother from their home on the morning of October 16, 1943. Her father talked to her about the incident only once because, Fatucci says, it was too painful a memory for him to talk about. “In a strange way, I think he felt guilty for being the only one in the family who got saved,” she remembers.

But both Fatucci and Zevi agree that the stolpersteine, besides being a memorial for others to see and appreciate, also make the victims of the Holocaust become more real and human.“Six million Jews is just a number, and it can be too abstract to comprehend,” says Zevi. But naming each of the lives lost makes a bigger impact than just the number.

“When you got into a concentration camp, you stopped being a human being,” Zevi explains. “You lost your name, you became a number. And then when you were killed, you were buried in a common, mass grave. The moment you were taken out of your house, you became nothing.”

But with the stolpersteine, each victim becomes a person again, with a name, a year of birth, a place where he or she will be remembered forever. Zevi remembers a friend who, after seeing the stolpersteine laid for her family, said that she felt that she had “brought her family back home.”

“The location of the stolpersteine marks the threshold between the before and the after—between a normal life and an abyss,” Zevi says. “I think that’s very important.”

Fatucci smiles when asked if talking about the Holocaust every day could be thought of as excessive. “No,” she replies. “Speaking too much about the Holocaust is better than nothing at all.” Fatucci says that the stolpersteine is an effective weapon against the problem of historical revisionism as posed by the deniers of the Holocaust, since each stone validates a life that was cut short by the Nazis.

The ultimate aim of the stolpersteine remains, however, to make sure that people never forget the past.

“The Holocaust was made possible because people looked the other way when the atrocities happened. With the stolpersteine, you can’t do that, you can’t look away,” Zevi says. “You see them every day, and you have to remember the Holocaust, so that it never happens again.”

Vespas parked in front of a mural on the wall of a shuttered shop. | Photo by Trinna Leong.

A stark contrast to Rome, Napoli — as the Italians call it — is littered with garbage and graffiti. Though trash and pickpockets are everywhere, the city’s complicated history has created a unique façade for travelers to visit. Once a Greek colony, Naples later became a part of the Roman Republic and has over the years became a melting pot of different cultures and people. In modern times, however, local gangs control the city and this background gives the city a rough polish that one does not find in Rome. Graffiti on new and ancient walls, on monuments and on streets are not uncommon and have left an indelible mark on the city’s identity.

Websites like www.fatcap.com even has a page dedicated to all the graffiti found in Naples. One cannot miss the graffiti on the walls along streets and alleyways. Whether one chooses to view these as vandalism or art, is another question entirely…  Most of us had never been to Naples and did not know what to expect of the city. Having been to Rome earlier in the week, the sight of words and pictures sprayed coherently or incoherently everywhere in public spaces looks oddly jarring when placed against Baroque and Medieval buildings. Churches tucked in tight narrow streets have piles of garbage in one corner and slogans like “Mastiffs” or “Papa Vero” scribbled in ink on adjacent walls. In some cultures, this could be seen as offensive and disrespectful to a place of worship. But in Naples, no one seems to be bothered at all. “Mastiffs” is a local soccer team in Naples, and in Italy, soccer is king.

My initial reaction to the preposterous amount of graffiti everywhere was one of shock and bewilderment at the lack of appreciation Neapolitans show toward historic monuments. Buildings and statues that should have been treasured and taken care of have less than pretty words sprayed across them. It took a few hours before I calmed down and noticed that the words add a touch of character to the city and complement its tough image. I had to remind myself that this is not Rome. Naples is all about street cred and tourists who come to Naples should not expect to be greeted by a quaint city.

It soon became a game of “spot cool graffiti” as we tried to capture works of art with our cameras. From sentences that vented out people’s frustrations with the mafia (particularly the Camorra), religious devotion to saints and political activism, Naples’ spray-painted streets are unconventionally iconic. Eating the city’s famed pizza by a pile of trash next to a wall of graffiti even gave us a sense that we are already Neapolitan. Graffiti art in Europe is different from New York. It’s not just words on the walls of an urban city, it’s about the blend of both old and new cultures, and that’s what makes Naples what it is today.

See a collection of various photographs of Neapolitan graffiti, culled from the Religio staff.

Valentina Franzese came to the Padre Pio shrine on a "journey of faith, to figure out answers to her existential dilemma." | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

20-year-old Valentina Franzese looked out of place in the throng of visitors to the Padre Pio shrine at the Santa Maria delle Grazie Church on a sunny Saturday morning in San Giovanni Rotondo. With a snazzy sense of style, which today showcased a chic scarf and large dangling earrings, Franzese, with her hair pulled back in a pony-tail, could have easily passed or a fashion model.

In fact, Franzese herself says that most of her friends would have thought she was wasting her time at San Giovanni Rotondo and that she should have gone shopping instead. However, Franzese swum against the tide of her peers and chose to take on the role of pilgrim instead. She has been travelling with her family to various destinations in Europe, all of religious significance.

“It’s a journey through faith for me,” she said, having made stops in Rome earlier before coming to pay her respects to Saint Pio. Pointing at the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, the hospital which Padre Pio set up, she said that seeing people from different backgrounds coming together to help the needy gave her a lot of satisfaction and hope for the future.

However, Franzese said she was surprised at the display of wealth in the relatively new Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church, built next to the original shrine of Padre Pio. Designed by the Genoan architect Renzo Piano, the church also houses a magnificent crypt covered with gold mosaics, holding the body of Saint Pio in a decorated Pharaonic sarcophagus.

Milena Ercolino stands beside the door of the Padre Pio shrine, ready to greet the pilgrims and help them out with their questions. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

According to Franzese, the excessive display of wealth seemed vain and materialistic, which was in stark contrast to the humility that was paramount to the saint’s life. But for others like San Giovanni native, Milena Ercolino, the beauty resplendent in the new church was something that made her proud.

The bespectacled, short-haired Ercolino, who has been working as a guide at the Padre Pio shrine for more than 12 years, said that while the original church was something that Padre Pio built for the little town, the new church was the town’s gift to the memory of the venerated saint. “It’s the only thing that is beautiful here,” she said of the new church.

Her job greeting and helping visitors to the church had enabled Ercolino to see both the positive and negative aspects of pilgrims. She mostly got irritated at people who are loud and noisy in the church, showing a lack of respect to the sanctity of the church. Ercolino also added that it was important for the faithful to remember that they needed to pray to God, and not to Padre Pio.

Ercolino however was quick to add that there had been a lot of good that she had both seen and heard of at the church as well. Ercolino retold the story of when the previous pope, John Paul II, wrote to Saint Pio on the condition of Paul’s dear friend, Wanda Poltawska, a psychiatrist who had been diagnosed with throat cancer.

The story then says that once the saint received the letter, Poltawska’s cancer had been miraculously healed, with doctors unable to explain the phenomenon. With stories like these to tell the hordes that come to pay homage to the saint, Ercolino hopes to stay on in her current job with the church, having recently signed a full-time contract. Her reasons for staying on though are hardly religious or spiritual though.

“It’s hard to find other jobs here,” she said. “I hope to work here until they fire me.”

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. | Photo by Anam Siddiq.

“I cannot tell you how much I wished you were here, for until you have seen the Sistine Chapel, you can have no adequate conception of what man is capable of accomplishing,” said the German poet, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, when he visited Rome in 1786. It has been more than 200 years since Goethe made that statement, but those words are the best way I can describe my feeling today after our visit to the Sistine Chapel.

Elizabeth Lev, an art historian who has been giving guided tours of the Vatican Museum for over thirty years, told us that while the Sistine Chapel may not be much to look at from the outside, the reason why 4.5 million visitors come to the museum each year is to see the grandeur of the interior of the church. While it has several frescoes completed by groundbreaking Renaissance artists Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino and others gracing the walls, it was clear that the majority of the people in the chapel were, like us, throwing their heads back and gazing open-mouthed at Michelangelo’s masterpiece on the ceiling.

Michelangelo was originally asked by Pope Julius II to paint the 12 apostles on the ceiling, but he refused to do so. Michelangelo, the sculptor of the Pietà and of David considered painting, a lower art form. As a compromise between himself and the Pope, Michelangelo was allowed to choose scenes from the Bible that he wished to paint, which led to the famous depictions of episodes from the Book of Genesis on the Chapel’s ceiling.

As Lev pointed out, Michelangelo used his background in sculpture in his paintings, staying true to his form of art. Every scene on the ceiling was telling a story — you could see the churning of the energies as God created the world, echoing the arm and body gestures representative of Troy’s Laocoon, or how Adam and Eve looked blanched and tired as compared to their relaxed beauty before they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. The ceiling, which was once just a starry sky, is now populated by 300 or more of Michelangelo’s animated figures, each displaying his mastery of the use of color, light and shadow.

But Michelangelo’s talent doesn’t stop with just the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. “The Last Judgment,” the massive fresco behind the altar, plays second fiddle to his famous ceiling in many people’s minds, but it shows the celebration of the human form in sculpture channeled into Christian teachings like never before. Jesus, beardless and muscular, has a face that resembles that of the statue of Apollo in the Cortile del Belvedere.

In "The Last Judgment," Michelangelo paints Jesus' face which resembles that of the statue of Apollo in the Cortile del Belvedere, pictured here. | Photo by Aby Sam Thomas.

In Michelangelo’s original version of “The Last Judgement,” the figures were all painted in the nude. However, thanks to Biagio da Cesena, a cardinal who found the genitalia on the fresco offensive to his senses, an apprentice of Michelangelo, Daniele da Volterra, was commissioned to cover up all the “sacrilegious” imagery. However, Michelangelo had the last laugh, by making sure that at the bottom right of the painting denoting hell, a figure with a striking resemblance to the said cardinal was portrayed with unmistakably large donkey ears.

Michelangelo’s fondness toward sculpture can also be seen in his design for the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The dome’s structure was representative of the human form, with the curvature of the dome indicative of strong, well-rounded shoulders and the apex resting on the dome as a proud and regal head. It was the last of Michelangelo’s many everlasting gifts to the Church. He accepted no money for it and, instead, hoped that his reward would be the salvation of his soul.

A few minutes before 7:30 on a cold Sunday evening in January, Gary Spokes stands by the door of St. John’s in the Village Church. His white hair slicked back, a rainbow ribbon sticking out of his shirt pocket and a smile on his old, pink face, Spokes greets almost everyone who’s entering the church. He seems to know everyone coming through the doors, but in case he doesn’t, he makes it a point to ask.

Once he knows your name, Spokes looks through a stapled sheaf of labels, and pulls out a sticker with your name on it. If, in any case, your name is not already present in his collection of labels, he pulls out a pen, writes your name on a blank label, and gives you that label, to be stuck onto your shirt. “I’m the doorkeeper,” Spokes says, as he introduces himself. “I’m the St. Peter of this church.”

After the church has more than 30 people gathered together, the mass begins with a passionate signing of a hymn. Bible readings from the Old and New Testaments follow, interspersed with more hymns sung by the choir. The congregation, consisting almost entirely of men, participates actively in the mass that seems to follows the traditional Roman Catholic Church’s model.

However, there is one thing that is decidedly un-Catholic—at least by the Church’s standards—about this congregation. This weekly celebration of the Eucharist is organized by the New York chapter of DignityUSA, an organization that bills itself as the country’s foremost movement of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics. In their mission statement, DignityUSA, a national organization since 1973, “envisions and works for a time when gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics are affirmed and experience dignity through the integration of their spirituality with their sexuality.”

The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy does not permit Dignity to meet in Catholic Church buildings. St. John’s, where the mass is being held, is an Episcopal church.

The Rev. Jim Morris, an ordained priest “on leave” from the Roman Catholic Church, is leading the mass, and he now calls on John Doyle to address the gathering.  Doyle is called the in-house speaker of DignityUSA—a bespectacled man with white hair and a white beard.

In his sermon, Doyle starts by touching on the readings from the Bible: the Deuteronomy reading on the laws of the Old Testament on false prophets: “Any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak–that prophet shall die.”

Doyle then goes on to talk about St. Paul’s views on celibacy in his letter to the Corinthians, in which St. Paul states, “I say all this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote… devotion to the Lord.” Doyle explains how St. Paul’s views are just his opinion, and how they do not take on the tone of the Old Testament laws.

He then mentions Pope Benedict’s recent statement to the ambassadors to the Vatican that “policies like same-sex marriage undermine the family, threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.”

Doyle reads the Pope’s words verbatim, pauses for a moment, and says, “Really? Really?”

The congregation enjoys a brief eruption of laughter, before Doyle continues. “He completely ignores all the scientific evidence to the contrary and he makes absolutely no indication that this is just his opinion… leaving all who heard him and the world at large free to assume that he was speaking in God’s name and delivering God’s own teaching.”

Doyle then makes a mention of the reading from the Gospel for the day, a passage from the book of Mark detailing Jesus driving out a demon from a man, and says that he wishes a similar miracle to happen with the pope, rather than the Deuteronomy prediction of “death to false prophets.”

“I do kind of wish that Jesus would come to him [the pope] like he came to the disturbed man with an unclean spirit in tonight’s Gospel reading, and tell him to ‘be silent’, and then, drive out that demon of homophobia that seems to have infected his mind.”

Doyle ends his speech by calling the audience’s attention to the word of the year, as coined by the American Dialect Society. “Occupy,” he says. “Let’s all work for justice every day this year in 2012, and occupy the place the Lord our God is giving us!” In the midst of a resounding applause, Doyle returns to his seat at the back of the church.

Doyle explains his rationale behind his usage of “occupy” in the context of the Catholic Church. “The hierarchy would like us to go away, and we’re not going. That’s my attitude. I wouldn’t give them that satisfaction. I want to stay around and be a thorn in their side, and make them deal with me.”

“Because it’s my church,” Doyle continues, angst in his voice.“The church is defined as the people of God. So, we are the church. The hierarchies are the caretakers. They work for us.”

“And they’re doing a lousy job,” he adds.

Later, once the mass has ended, another member of the church pats Doyle on his back, and congratulates him on his speech. “Keep fighting,” Doyle says to the man. “Occupy!”

Claudio Del Castillo | Photo by Donovan Ramsey.

It was almost 1 a.m. on a recent Friday morning when Claudia del Castillo decided that it was time to close up shop and get some sleep.

Del Castillo, a graduate student at Columbia University, had been juggling a number of different study-related tasks over the past few hours: reading her textbooks, searching for information on the Internet, organizing her contact lists. Her usually perky eyes were tired, and she ran her hands over her black hair, worrying that it had seemingly lost some of its bounce.

In the midst of all her work, she had also managed to have a chat on the phone with her mother in Colombia, while trying to decide between watching “Wall-E” and “What’s Your Number?” on her iTunes movie account. In the end, she decided to watch neither—she was tired and she needed some shut-eye.

But there was something she needed to do before she got to sleep.

A quick, warm shower later, she was in her pajamas, sitting cross-legged over the covers on her bed. She reached out to the small desk by her bed and picked up the small, square book given to her as a gift by a friend from the Dominican Republic. The book was titled “Novena Biblica Al Divino Nino Jesus,” the Biblical Novena for the Divine Infant Jesus.

The cover of the book had a picture of a cherubic Infant Jesus in a pink robe, his tiny feet visible just beneath the hem of the robe. There’s a glow around the Infant’s image, with a golden halo in the shape of a crossbehind the Infant’s head. The Infant is smiling, with his arms outstretched, as if to give a reassuring embrace.

Del Castillo held the book with both her hands, closed her eyes and said, in Spanish, “En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo. Amén.” In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

With that solemn utterance, del Castillo picked a page in the book and started to read out the prayer forthe fifth day of her novena, starting with the persignarse, the Sign of the Cross.

The novena, an act of devotion in the Roman Catholic Church, is a prayer that is repeated every day, for nine days, in the hope of receiving God’s grace. These prayers are often dedicated to a specific entity like a saint, an angel, the Blessed Virgin Mary or one of her representations or one of the personages of the Holy Trinity.

“People pray [the novena] when they are in need of solace, to ask for favors,” said del Castillo. She smiled as she confessed her own reasons for doing the prayer.

“I just want this week to be better,” she said, having had a slew of heavy, work-laden days at school. “I just need some vision, some courage to guide me. And this prayer helps. You can pray novenas anywhere. You can pray them in church, at home, anywhere.”

Del Castillo learned these rituals as a young girl growing up in a devout Catholic family. She is no longer devout and considers herself a “secular” Catholic. But her nighttime routine demonstrates that for del Castillo and many formerly religious people, religious rituals remain so deeply ingrained that they never go out of style.

The freedom to be able to pray “anywhere,” also works well for del Castillo, who, though reluctant to go to church for Mass, finds the confines of her small room good enough for prayer.

Her eyes closed, she chanted: “Por la señal de la Santa Cruz, de nuestros enemigos, líbranos Señor Dios nuestro.” By the sign of the Holy Cross, free us from our enemies, Oh God.

As she spoke the words, she made the sign of the cross three times—once over her forehead, an invocation to the Holy Spirit to show one’s belief in the Gospel; secondly over her lips as a mark of respect to the Gospel and to prevent hypocrisy and blasphemy from one’s mouth; and finally, over her chest, to show one’s desire to keep the Gospel in one’s heart, an act of blessing the self.

There was a structured rhythm in the way del Castillo said her novena. She began her prayer by reading the Nicene Creed, and then followed it with a short prayer which is common for all nine days of the novena. A prayer directed to the Holy Virgin was next, which started with specific prayers invoking the Holy Father and the Blessed Virgin, and ended with a quiet rendition of the Gloria hymn.

Pulling up the page in the book referring to the fifth day of the novena, del Castillo then recited the fifth day prayer in a slow, solemn fashion. After a short series of couplets to the Virgin Mary called the gozos, del Castillo said the final prayer to the Infant Jesus, in whose name the prayer book was dedicated.

Once the prayer was over, she closed her eyes and chanted:

“Jesús, José y María, bendecid nuestros hogares.

Jesús, José y María, libradnos de todo mal.

Jesús, José y María, salvad nuestras almas. Amén, Aleluya.

En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo. Amén.”

Jesus, Joseph and Mary, bless our homes.

Jesus, Joseph and Mary, free us from all evil.

Jesus, Joseph and Mary, save our souls. Amen, Hallelujah.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Amen.

Del Castillo opened her eyes, a flicker of a smile now on her face. She felt calmer, she felt a sort of peace with herself and her surroundings. She placed the book back on her desk and switched off the lights.

It was finally time to sleep.

Trinna Leong & Anam Siddiq contributed reporting.

Outside view of the Community Worship Center Church of the Nazarene. | Photo by Raya Jalabi.

It was the morning of the Super Bowl, and that fact was not lost on the people who had gathered for the Sunday services at the Community Worship Center Church of the Nazarene on Bedford Avenue. The words “Go Giants!!!” in red letters streamed across the church’s digital display outside the building, even as jubilant songs of praise to God resounded from inside the church.

Provider, Defender

Master of the universe

You know me

You are an awesome wonder

O, what a wonder you are

O, you are an awesome wonder

Marlyn Clifford stood by the doors of the church, smiling and greeting everyone who walked in.

“Hello, welcome to our church!” she said, her eyes bright and perky behind gold-framed spectacles.

She was wearing a white suit, with a white and golden sash that identified her as an usher at the church. Her welcoming vibe was hard to ignore.

“No matter who comes through the door, and no matter what attitude they are in, I have to welcome them with a pleasant smile. And a pleasant attitude,” Clifford  said.

When asked why she does it, Clifford gave a look of surprise.

“Because of who I serve,” she answered, matter-of-factly.  “Because He is in me, He lives in me, I have to show His love to everyone who comes in here.”

Marlyn’s zeal was reflected in the rest of the congregation.

Dressed in their Sunday best, they sang along with the choir and their loud shouts of “Hallelujah” and “Praise God” were peppered throughout the sermon by the pastor of the church, the Rev. Dr. Elmer Gillett.

Gillett was cheerful and excited, his energy clearly visible as he wildly gesticulated at the pulpit in a crisp grey suit. “There is no God like Him,” he said, nodding and pointing to the sky. “We have a relationship with God, Jesus Christ. There is one God!”

“Hallelujah,” he said.

“Hallelujah!” the congregation repeated, clapping profusely.

The congregation numbers 200 to 250 on any given Sunday, said Ludwig Jones, a dapper gentleman and one of the church’s oldest members.

Ludwig, who turns 70 years old in September, has been active in the church since 1957 and posits himself as an informal historian of the church. He has held many roles within the church, but currently serves as the Sunday school teacher as well as the leader of the men’s chorus.

While the church has changed locations several times since its inception, it has maintained its black identity throughout the years, despite an influx of immigrants from the Caribbean, Asia and Latin America.

“It’s a more cosmopolitan community now,” Ludwig said.

The change in the racial and ethnic composition of the local community hasn’t gone unnoticed in the other churches on the block.

“This neighborhood used to be all African-American,” said Bishop Joseph B. Crooms of the Faith Worship Praise and Deliverance Tabernacle, located on the corner of Bedford and Putnam Avenues.

However, with gentrification rife in the neighborhood, there’s been a stream of young white professionals moving in, said Bishop Crooms.

“But, we don’t stress black church versus white church,” he added, as he welcomed Gregory Keith, the lone white congregant come to worship on that day.

Keith, a freelance photo assistant originally from Philadelphia, has been attending the Faith, Worship, Deliverance and Worship Tabernacle since 2010.

“What drew me in was the music,” he said. “And then what had me come back was the people here.”

“They just accepted me right away … And there was just this love and compassion towards one another without even knowing me,” Keith added. “They wanted to know who I was. Genuinely.”

But it is precisely this spirit of candor which typifies the Faith Worship Praise and Deliverance Tabernacle, said Bishop Crooms’ wife, Sheryl.

Ludwig Jones, sporting his Kente cloth bowtie, in homage to Black History Month. | Photo by Anam Siddiq

“We’re very open to everyone. We’re an outreach ministry,” she said, a thought echoed by her husband.

“It’s the responsibility of the Church to integrate the different communities,” he said.

With the influx of immigrants in mind, Ludwig has also been thinking of ways to integrate the new community residents in the Community Worship Center Church of the Nazarene.

“We’re seeing now the need to reach out to other communities,” Ludwig said. “They’ll have different needs that we’ll need to serve.”

He listed new outreach initiatives that are being thought of to attract and integrate immigrants to his church, including the creation of opportunities for employment and housing, issues of interest to the new residents.

Ludwig is personally in charge of one of the Church’s main outreach initiatives, the school supply drive, a project that was started eight years ago.

“We’ve given out over 300 bags of school supplies since we began,” said Jones.

This sense of wanting to do more for the community seems to be consistent with the different churches on Bedford Avenue.

“In the community, we do reach out to the homeless,” said the Rev. Naomi Harper of the Zion House of Prayer, located on Bedford and Jefferson Avenues.

“We feed them right in front of the church; sometimes we feed up to 500, sometimes up to 300,” she said. “We go to the shelter on Atlantic Avenue; we go to a lot of shelters with parents and children.”

Faith Worship Praise and Deliverance Tabernacle’s outreach initiatives have taken on a more interactive approach. Sheryl serves as its resident playwright and organizes community drama workshops. Each production usually has between 10 and  20 participants in each workshop, with ages varying from 15 to 30.

“We write about what happens in our community,” she said. “Family, poverty, rape, drug and alcohol addiction… We write stories that hit home.”

While Bishop Crooms believes that these plays help empower the community, he is emphatically rooted in his ministry.

“In times of trouble, I’m their pastor,” he said, a message he hoped to maintain despite the changing landscape of Brooklyn, the Borough of Churches.