Multimedia by Bogdan Mohora

Mira Kostich, Zoran's aunt, and her daughter Dana. Mira holds an icon of Saint Nicholas who is the patron saint of Italy and highly venerated in the Eastern Orthodox faith. | Photo by Bogdan Mohora

ROME — Claudio Betti weaves through a throng of people, both young and old, who have gathered  outside an old Catholic convent  in the Trastevere section of this ancient city. Traces of different languages — Italian, Romanian, Serbian — blend into nondescript words, ultimately drowned out by the nearby street noise.  The people come from many different places but they all are united under the title of Roma, popularly known as gypsies. Here in Rome, as elsewhere in Europe, they are among the poorest of the poor.

Pausing every few steps, Betti struggles to ultimately reach the door. He greets almost each person by name — like a party host making small talk with friends he has lost touch with and ushering others inside his home.

Betti knows many things about these Roma — their age, medical conditions and family members’ names — personal things he easily spouts off when questioned.

Betti reaches Daniel, a boy in his gawky and shy pre-adolescent days. Daniel’s hooded eyes immediately perk up when Betti vigorously shakes his hand and questions him about playing football.

Daniel’s aunt, Shafika, stands smiling a toothless grin. She has raised Daniel for years since his parents abandoned him because they had no way to support him. Shafika took him in despite being severely ill with cancer. Without any form of health care and fear of their illegal status, Daniel had to watch his aunt grow increasingly sick and fragile, until the members of Sant’Egidio welcomed her to their center.

Now, Daniel and his aunt, along with 14 others, live in an apartment above the Comunita di Sant’Egidio receiving free and constant medical care from doctors and Sant’Egidio members who have volunteered their time and resources to care for the Roma and other of Italy’s needy.

For the volunteers, it is the Gospel calling them to help the poor and downtrodden. And for Daniel and Shafika, and the hundreds of other Roma — many illegal, and all poor — who come to Trastevere, the Catholic lay organization of Sant’Egidio is one of the few places in Rome where being Roma does not matter.

It is a place where Betti — the assistant president and a founding member of Sant’Egidio, a born and raised Italian citizen and a devout Catholic — can befriend a group of people who are historically Italy’s most marginalized, hated, victimized and poor neighbors, no matter their religion or immigration status.

Sant’Egidio provides common grounds for the Roma despite even religious differences. Here, some are Catholic, Orthodox and others Muslim, but it does not matter to the Roma and matters even less to Betti.

“These are poor people, and the Gospel calls us to be close to the poor,” Betti says. “Once you become friends you discover very clearly there is no difference.” Betti acknowledges what every Italian seems to know, that the Roma are often involved in crimes, ranging from pickpocketing to organized theft. But he is sympathetic to their plight. “In the conditions they are living I would do exactly the same. If you live in a shantytown all your life and you have no possibility of [improvement], I would steal. Anyone of us would.”

“But this is something that doesn’t touch the ordinary mind of a person,” Betti says. “They think all the gypsies steal, they all are criminals, and many of them are, but they have never been given any other option. So I think this is one of the reasons why we work with them.

Many of the Roma who now frequent Sant’Egidio are now forced to travel from their new encampments in places like Ardea — a suburb an hour outside the city — for their social services because the villages provide even less resources and more neglect than ever before.

Approximately 1,500 gypsies live in this Ardea camp, the largest government-made Roma village near Rome.  Chain link fences surround the territory creating a distinct boundary between Roma and Italian — not dissimilar from the borders between feuding countries.

Trash cascades from dumpsters and pools on the ground nearby. Laundry hangs from multicolor clothespins on cables and washing machines sit outdoors accompanying propane tanks. Puppies run back and forth chasing children and loose trash tumbling through paved roads. Boxy caravans form zigzag rows for what seems like miles.

The rows of caravans are separated by wrought-iron fences and lay in three sections —the first section houses the Catholic Roma, in the second the Orthodox, and in the third section the Muslim. Much unlike Sant’Egidio where religion comes secondary and resources come first, in this camp, the Roma have aligned themselves on ethnic and religious lines as a way to protect and distribute the minimal resources they receive from the government.

Among the trailers is one where Mira Kostich, an Orthodox woman, and her two daughters live.  The couch on which one of her daughter’s lays sprawled and sleeping juts awkwardly into the entrance space. Kostich’s other daughter Dana runs circles outside, like a dog freed from its unfit cage.

Kostich stands in her shoebox kitchen, a cross hangs from the wall that is covered in rose wallpaper. She is the mother of two, and like all mothers, she finds herself sacrificing things for the betterment of her children.

But this evening Mira had to be selfish.

Because she showered that evening, her daughter did not have enough water to wash herself.

“Life in the camps is atrocious… it’s a bit like the concentration camps in the Holocaust,” says Ian (Xulaj) Hancock, the representative to the United Nations and UNICEF for the Romani people. “People are scrambling for anything they can get. Any type of group loyalty takes second place; the main concern becomes family. And religious differences are exacerbated by the situation.”

Dragan, a community leader and activist within the Roma camp, and an Orthodox Roma, says his family was split up when they were forced to leave Rome (many Roma have several generations living together). Since coming to the camps, he has been trying to contact Amnesty International to help deal with the significant lack of resources, mainly water and electricity, offered to the people within the government encampments.

The Roma also find transportation to and from the camps difficult — the nearest bus stop is 5 kilometers away, and even there, the bus rarely stops to pick up Roma, Dragan says. Because of this, Dragan has created a system for purchasing groceries where his family members often buy food in bulk to resell to other camp members who can’t make it to the city to purchase certain items.

But it is the violence between the different religions Dragan finds most alarming and dangerous for the families living within the camps. Dragan says tensions grow so rapidly within the camps that often squabbles over water will quickly turn into 500-person gang fights involving Roma from other camps as well.

Dragan says when everyone lived in Rome he and the other Orthodox “elders” had good relations and a mutual understanding with the Muslim elders, and this violence was never a concern. He blames the new violence on the younger Muslim generations in the new camps trying to assert some power or dominion over the land and resources.

Betti assigns these violent struggles not to any type of religious bigotry between Muslims, Orthodox and Catholic Roma, but more so a battle of necessity — and ultimately, he says, the fault rests at the feet of the Italian government which has segregated the Roma in the camps.

“These people have been interreligious, interethnic and without borders forever,” Betti says. “They have lived with their neighbors and they have not had issues of religion [in the past]. We are creating those issues.”

“They have created a situation of extreme need,” Betti says of the Italian government. “You will not find two families that will say they don’t have issues with each other. When you have to survive the crisis, you tend to protect what you have, and what you can eventually get…the territory, and you can get violent in that.”

“The war between the poor is always worse than the war between the rich,” he says.

And this war is manifesting itself in several stereotypes within and outside the camps’ lines. Zoran Maksimovic, an Orthodox Roma, used to live in the camps, but moved his family to a home outside the encampment because of the increasing violence. Maksimovic says when living in the camp, his children began getting involved with crimes and drugs. The problem, Maksimovic says, was instigated only by the Muslim Roma in the camps.

One day this past spring, Maksimovic returns to visit his other family members who remain in the camps. As he walks through the Orthodox section of the camp, introducing many onlookers as cousins or aunts and uncles, he stops to point out the Muslim section just visible through the slits in the fence.

“Only their side of the camp has all that,” he says, pointing to graffiti and trash. He defiantly disregards the similar conditions on his side of the fence.

Sant’Egidio — often noted for its facilitating of peace talks and dialogues throughout the world — has not stepped in within the camps to help ease any ethnic or religious uprisings. Betti said conflict resolution is this situation would bring about minimal impact, because there needs to be a much larger paradigm shift in the attitude toward the Roma on the outside as well as a betterment in their overall circumstances before the Roma within the camps can stop feuding themselves.

Though Sant’Egidio hasn’t interceded in any official capacity, Dragan said they were previously a large help in arranging meetings with various Italian institutions to discuss the future of the camps. Dragan was currently preparing to meet with a member of Rome’s mayoral office to discuss the Roma’s desire to build another camp in Ardea, which would allow the Orthodox and Muslims to be separated and stop competing for limited resources.

Rome’s Mayoral office did not respond for comment on their willingness to build another camp.

***

Sant’Egidio, though it is not working to provide conflict resolution, has concerned itself with simply bringing the Roma the basic necessities given to all Italian residents.

“Forcing people to live in conditions as animals in a Western European country is a breach of human rights,” Betti says.

Previously, Sant’Egidio traveled to the camps to provide schooling for Rom children, legal care and even used a caravan to transport medical equipment to tend to the sick in their own homes. Maksimovic noted that Sant’Egidio educated almost all of his children and he feels a great respect for them despite their religious differences.

After realizing the quickly and exponentially expanding needs of the Rome people in the camps, Sant’Egidio brought the resources, community volunteers and Rom together in a centralized location in Trastevere, Rome. The center allowed numerous other facilities that Sant’Egidio couldn’t provide by traveling to the camps. (Sant’Egidio still travels to camps in cities other than Rome, where it would be impossible for the Roma to travel to the center located far away.)

Today, the visitors browse through racks of clothing and shelves of shoes, launder their clothes and pick up bags of pasta and cheese at no cost.

The only requirement Sant’Egidio places on the services is that the Roma register in their system.

The registration cards, Betti says, provide some of the only documentation many of these people will ever have, since several are illegal citizens of Rome. The cards show simple details like birthdays and small photos, and come as a welcome respite from the fingerprinting the government began requiring of the Roma years earlier to help identify them. Betti adds since Sant’Egidio has the largest database of the Roma in the city (the actual computers containing the information are hidden from the Italian government for the protection of the Roma, Betti says), police often turn to him and the other community members for help when identifying dead bodies of Roma or suspected Roma criminals.

The services at Sant’Egidio are plentiful, but not exhaustive; the center turns away many medical patients each week because of limited supplies. Food bags are limited to one per person — children can receive supplies but must be accompanied by a parent — and the clothes which stack the shelves are only opened up to the community at certain times, not constantly.

The center relies on unpaid volunteers — all members of the Sant’Egidio community — as well as donations from shops and mainly public institutions like the European Union, and is heavily financially supported by the Italian Bishops Conference and the Foreign Bishops Conference (each conference supports different Sant’Egidio projects).

Sant’Egidio does not receive the Italian’s government’s otto per mille (eight per thousand), unless taxpayers specifically indicate on tax forms to donate their annual income tax to Sant’Egidio as a recipient. Even then, the community can only receive cinque per mille (five per thousand), as per Italian tax law.

But the donors, whether they come from the tax or store donations, are not notified of whom exactly their funds or items are assisting, Betti says. And Sant’Egidio feels no need to specify.

“If a person takes a stand of helping they do not make a difference between helping a gypsy or an immigrant or an Italian homeless,” Betti says.

But in a country so plagued by negative sentiment toward the Roma people, Betti agrees the donors would be “more wary” to help the gypsy community. Sant’Egidio has faced severe backlash throughout the country for openly helping the people ostracized by majority groups. Betti says Sant’Egidio has been called “not Catholic enough” for their non-proselyting approach.  Sant’Egidio invites all faiths and ethnicities into its’ centers and extends help with a secular hand. The center, which was built as a testament to the Second Vatican’s call for more involvement of lay people in church and good works, showcases no outward religious symbols.

Unlike many public areas of Italy, crucifixes are not found hanging on walls and there is no mandatory religious participation of the people who accept the help. Their symbol is simply a white dove flying over a rainbow.

The center even stands separated from the church in which the members celebrate traditional Catholic services.

Sant’Egidio — a lay organization officially recognized by the Vatican — it seems, is attempting a separation of church and state in a country that has historically tangled and twisted the two.

Hancock, the Unicef representative concerned with the Roma, says that historically “established religions,” — he notes Christianity and Islam as the main perpetrators — have not been welcoming to the Roma community, even excluding them from prayer services or excommunicating priests for performing marriages between Roma couples. Situations like this, Hancock says, have led Roma to shy from being resolute in their religious practices and instead align their spirituality with that of the country’s dominant population.

“It’s a means of survival to at least appear to be part of the society,” Hancock says.

The Holy See Office for the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People provides the Catholic Church with guidelines on how the Roma should be treated, integrated and evangelized. Its last statement on the subject, released in 2005, includes some harsh words and advice on Roma culture. It says in part:

“The Church recognizes [Roma] right to have their own identity, and works to achieve a greater justice for them, respecting their culture and healthy traditions. But rights and duties go together, and therefore also the Gypsies have duties towards other peoples.

Moreover, education, professional training and personal initiatives and responsibility are indispensable prerequisites for achieving a dignified quality of life for Gypsies, all elements of human promotion. Equal rights for men and women should likewise be promoted, eliminating all forms of discrimination… In this sense, any attempt to assimilate the Gypsy culture, and dissolve it in that of the majority, should be rejected.”

Dragan largely dismissed the document.  “The Vatican only cares about the Catholics, he says. As an Orthodox, he says the major Orthodox Church in Rome does not have enough resources to provide help to the Roma at the capacity that Sant’Egidio is able to. Additionally, Dragan says there are no specifically Roma priests in the area to educate children about their faith. The Roma community is particularly worried that traditions and customs will slowly begin to die down, he adds.

Cassim, the Muslim Roma camp leader, says that it is for their own house of worship that these Roma wish for, somewhere, that won’t elicit stares of pity or whispers of racism when families wish to pray together. At some point, in the struggles to worship, even the denomination of the higher being loses its significance to the Roma.

“It is important for the kids to believe in God,” he says. “Whether they believe in Orthodoxy or Islam, they need to believe in something.”

***

It is into this somewhat religious vacuum that Sant’Egidio has stepped in to offer some form of religious and spiritual presence to the Roma.

Betti says on major feast days, especially the feast of Saint George — a saint worshipped largely by Roma worldwide —Sant’Egidio members (all Catholic) will perform an Orthodox mass in the camps, where Betti says, often several of the Muslim Roma will also be in attendance to celebrate the day. To Betti, this peaceful coexistence should be emulated in all parts of the world. To others, the blatant disregard for doctrinal rules of worship could seem borderline blasphemous.

To Maksimovic, Sant’Egidio, he says, is one of the only places he and his family have been allowed to “be themselves” — a task achieved by a community which is sewn from the same societal fabric that so doggedly and stubbornly has woven a country that inherently rejects immigrant assimilation, especially that of the Roma.

“Racism against gypsies, it is compared to anti-Semitism,” Betti says. “Anti-gytism, it is called in Italy, is extremely strong. It matches, or is even more powerful than, anti-Semitism. “The judgment against gypsies is so bad they face difficulties on all levels… It’s a mentality, it’s a culture that they think gypsies are so different from everyone. It’s a hatred for what is different.

“We live in a myth that [gypsies] want to roam around. They are forced to do it because nobody wants to settle down next to them. They would love to integrate but they just cannot.

“Try to find a house as a gypsy, try to find a job,” Betti says. “You can’t.”

***

Maksimovic and his family have long faced these problems of joblessness and racism. His son recently lost his job as a chef because he was discovered to be a Roma and his son-in-law was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit,  Maksimovic says. Maksimovic was born in Serbia and has lived in Italy for the past four decades. His children were all born and raised in Italy and some of them have even married Italians.

He is still not considered a legal Italian citizen.

Pablo Naso, an Italian activist for immigrant rights, says the negative attitudes toward gypsies stem in part from the stringent anti-immigration policies of the former Prime Minister Silvo Berlusconi. These were built on the idea that if immigrants were given opportunities and assistance to integrate it would encourage more immigrants to enter the country. Instead, Berlusconi’s government made any assimilation nearly impossible.

But with the days of Berlusconi’s government behind it, Italy is en route for a gradual, but nonetheless, significant transformation. Naso says the right-winged Northern League is now in opposition, allowing for a much more free public discourse, especially about the Roma.

He adds he is optimistic for the future of the Roma’s social inclusion, saying he sees dramatic differences possible in the next 10 years as long as the Roma also create a “mutual bilateral process” of integration, ultimately being committed to sending children to schools, learning Italian and getting regular jobs.

Sant’Egidio is integral in shaping this new public discourse. In November 2011, Andrea Riccardi, the founder of Sant’Egidio was appointed minister for International Cooperation and Integration Policies within Mario Monti’s new government.

Riccardi’s presence within the government already points toward a new era of social Catholicism and open-mindedness nearly nonexistent before. Though Naso says Riccardi has already opened up several doors to immigrant integration, including visiting the Mosque of Rome, Riccardi’s efforts to rally support to change policy surrounding the Roma community has been near impossible to achieve, Betti says.

Riccardi has attempted, on more than one occasion, Betti says, to introduce legislation or a dialogue about the integration of Roma into society; it has repeatedly faced strong opposition. There would be a public outcry against politicians for putting services into place or providing funding for Roma housing before the needs of the Italian homeless and needy, Betti says.

So for the time being, Riccardi’s involvement with the Roma is limited to the resources and social services that grow out of Trastevere each Friday.

***

Aside from the social services that Sant’Egidio provides, it offers one other tradition to all who pass its gates in Trastevere. As 6 p.m. arrives each night, members and visitors alike stand still and observe a moment of silence.

For 60 seconds, all activity ceases, only church bells clamor throughout the city. The solitary minute acts as a universal call to pause and remember the poor and needy among us. It is a moment that all people, Roma or Italian, rich and poor, need.

Students at the Pontifical North American College in Rome pray during Sunday Mass. | Photo by Anam Siddiq.

I’m not a Catholic. I’m not a Christian. I’m not a man. But after our class tour of Pontifical North American College, a seminarian school in Rome, I’ve decided to join the priesthood. In any capacity they may take me — be it a gardener for their orange trees or a ball fetcher for their tennis court.

The one problem I’ve found in my years traveling is you begin to disregard the beauty in the world and history around you. Desensitized to the art, architecture and sculpted nature, you take for granted the beauty in the ornate and complex structures popping up in each corner.

North American College woke me up from that slumber.

When we passed through the doors into the courtyard, it was impossible not to smell the roses. This place seemed to smell holy or maybe I’ve just become accustomed to the New York City smells of garbage bags lining the streets and the halal cart food seeping into every sniff.

A cat strolled past our class, it lazed every now and then under the arching trees lining the pathway — even the animal seemed to know it had been given the keys to heaven in this peaceful and humbling place. The tolling bells summoned us to Mass; they seemed weirdly tranquil, as though they were finally in a place where they were free to chime, as they wanted, accepted and even welcomed at any hour.

We’ve also become numb to the sight of places of worship and people worshiping. There are only so many times you can listen to the recitation of the “Our Father” and still feel moved by sentiment and belief as opposed to becoming entranced by the pattern and flow of the words.

Mass with the seminarians at North American College was again something of an awakening.

It was simply beautiful to watch these men, so eager to learn and devote their lives to God, pray. The sacrament of Mass, no matter the fact that most of them attended Mass daily, seemed to invoke something invigorating and inspired in each of them. To watch each of them kneel and recite the “Our Father” in unison made me really hear the words I had heard for years before:

Thy kingdom come

thy will be done

on Earth as it is in Heaven

A few students pose on the rooftop of North American College overlooking St. Peter's Basilica. Taking in the sweeping view of Rome was a religious experience in itself. | Photo by Anam Siddiq.

It would make any nonbeliever have a glimmer of belief in God’s message, or at least in the devotion and spirituality each of these men sought in being one of God’s messengers.

That type of devotion cannot be taught, but only experienced.

On a side note: the seminary students eat their meals together in a gigantic cafeteria reminiscent of a summer camp mess hall that would shame our to-go meals from Brad’s. If that’s not enough to make you start your admission application, their luxurious library actually smells like books and does not have the incessant sounds of keyboards clacking or frustrated students cursing at editing equipment like the Stabile Student Center does— imagine the bliss.

Later, our tour guide John Paul Mitchell, a seminarian student, and coincidentally an alumnus of Columbia Journalism School, told us about the education each student at the school receives. They get “trained” in four areas, he said: academic, pastoral, spiritual and balance.

The fourth caught a few confused gazes, so Mitchell explained further.

It seems seminary school finds it important for their students to find balance in life and seek growth in their humanity.

I suddenly discovered what J-school was missing from their rigorous master’s schedule: a class in how to be a person.

So often as journalists, we only think of getting clips and quotes, shots and soundbytes. But just imagine for one moment, thinking about how we could be growing as people. And for one moment, standing on the rooftop of North American College overlooking St. Peter’s Basilica, I decided seminary school was the best education a person could receive, because it teaches you to appreciate life, humanity and yourself.

North American College wasn’t such a beautiful place because of its aesthetic nature, but because of the human nature fostered there.

So even if the seminarian school won’t accept me (Mitchell may have capped their quota for stressed out J-schoolers seeking peace), I’m adding a course in balance to the rest of my J-school days.

Zoran Maximuric in his home in Ardea. He and his family moved away from a Roman gypsy camp to escape violence but still relate strongly with the culture.

It began with a road trip.

In the time it took Bogdan Mohora, Francesca Trianni and I to rent a Fiat and make our way to the small city of Ardea on the outskirts of Rome, the three of us had exhausted the conversation of gypsy stereotypes.

“What even makes a gypsy a gypsy?” I asked.

My fellow reporters stood silent.

“What do they like to be called?” Bogdan questioned.

Over the days researching and speaking to people in Italy we had heard the gypsy community be referred to as “Rom,” “Roma,” “Zingari,” “Rom e ciniti” and nomads. We could not discern a derogative name from a linguistic expression.

None of us had similar upbringings. I was an Indian raised in a small Maryland town, Bogdan a Romanian raised in Washington and Francesca an Italian brought up in the northern region of Modena. We had crafted a broken puzzle on this group of people, based on small fragments of limited and divergent knowledge.

Francesca told us how the prejudice toward gypsies seeped into her subconscious in her upbringing in an Italian household. How she had heard the only reason gypsies moved from place to place was because they were hiding from the people they often stole from.

Bogdan’s many trips to Romania left him with the impression that gypsies only excel in accordion playing and manipulating steel.

And for me, my association with gypsies began and ended with the Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Esmeralda, a tambourine-shaking, crafty gypsy in France.

Before our trip, the three of us had read about the gypsy community in Italy — mostly negative press. In Italian media, gypsies were reduced to a subculture of theft and thievery, often scapegoats for violent acts. Months before our visit, the story of an Italian girl who falsely accused a gypsy of raping her widely circulated in local papers. Residents of the girl’s town burned the gypsy camp to the ground soon after.

Bogdan Mohora navigates the streets of Rome on our road trip to Ardea to meet a gypsy family. | Photo by Neha Prakash.

It seemed the more research we did and questions we asked, the more lost we became in a world loosely defined according to stereotypes.

With these thoughts of skepticism, nervousness and racism in our head, we entered the home of Zoran Maximuric and were immediately shocked.

What we saw, and experienced, was the true feeling of home and family.

The modest one-bedroom abode, painted the color of tangerine sherbet, held a gypsy family, sprawling in size — it seemed a new daughter, son-in law or relative barged through the door each minute.

They immediately sat us down and showered us with conversation and treats. The rickety card table that served as their dining room table shook and heaved with the weight of the food. Coffee and wine, cookies and biscuits, as each tray emptied another was filled. Calling them boisterous is an understatement, calling them simply funny is an insult, and only calling them inviting is wrong.

We learned how Zoran has lived in Italy for 41 years (he is originally from Serbia) but was still never treated as an Italian citizen; how the family left the gypsy camp because some of the kids were getting involved with drugs and gangs; how they can never hold a job because of the racism of Italian employers, how women must be virgins upon marriage because they believe non-virgins can con a man out of his money.

But the information they told us was nothing in comparison to what we saw: The unyielding connection between the family members and their eagerness to share their life experiences without the pretenses of discrimination. They appreciated our lack of knowledge because they weren’t scared of judgment. The more time we spent, the closer our worlds became until suddenly I realized that one of the daughters was  sporting a pair of shorts with “Yankees” splashed across the backside.

The most inspiring part was their resilience. For so long, their people have lived a borderless life and have been run out of homes and countries without reason. Nonetheless, Zoran’s family still stay true to their roots and heritage — they even read our coffee grinds to predict if Francesca and I would find husbands. (For the record the grinds were inconclusive… )

Before entering Zoran’s home, I was extremely nervous. Francesca shared her Italian language with the entire family and Bogdan could communicate with them in Romanian. I thought without a common language, the family wouldn’t be able to connect with me or feel open speaking through translation.

I was proved wrong. Zoran’s family took one look at me and smiled. They said I was one of them, and that we came from the same place. Confused, I asked Francesca to have them explain.

They said that gypsies originated from India, and because of that we shared blood and were family.

With that thought, I smiled and took a deep breath at the thought of finding family and a home away from home with the gypsies.

A shrine to Padre Pio sits alone in a Brooklyn neighborhood | Photo by Anam Siddiq.

If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

The Catholic priest recites a passage from the Gospel according to Mark.

But, this house stands divided between two men.

In the front, above all else, as a sign of eternal sacrifice, hangs the Cross portraying Jesus’ body. It casts a shadow high and inspiring, not so large to occupy the entire wall, but nonetheless daunting. When Irish Decastro enters the chapel she immediately genuflects to Him. She has entered His, and only His, house of worship.

She recites the Rosary while awaiting mass. During the prayers, her attention is focused and guided.

Glory be to the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

It is only after receiving Communion — the body of the savior — does Decastro’s attention turn to the other man occupying this house.

Because, it is said, God himself has allowed this man into His house — St. John the Baptist Church at 210 W. 31^st St. in Manhattan.

You gave Padre Pio the singular grace of sharing in the Cross of your Son.

While images of Jesus are found encircling the church in the form of carvings and paintings, Pio’s likeness stands in only two places.

In the rear, surrounded by red and white flickering candles, he stands tall and inviting to patrons who have come to worship at the feet of the Lord; the savior he also shares. He is also venerated in a shrine along the wall. Beneath intricately carved scenes of Christ’s Passion, his bust sits draped in deep brown wooden robes awaiting his own visitors.

After eating the bread of the Eucharist, Decastro crosses herself and then moves to the side of the room where the bust sits, to meet with her old friend, Padre Pio. His bust sits lower then her, not large in size, but his presence is large enough to encompass the entire chapel. She must bend to reach him.

She approaches her acquaintance eagerly. Though she has been meeting with him for years, her excitement is enduring.

Many do the same; they come to him in droves, because he is said to grant all. He is the patron saint of those who suffer. And who among us doesn’t suffer?

Decastro stands in front of him for a moment and gazes. She looks with the familiarity of a family member, but still the astonishment one may exhibit when being in the presence of a celebrity.

He returns the stare with powerfully wise eyes, painted on with intricacy, matched with life-like painted wrinkles in his brow. It cannot be mistaken that he has heard her prayer during mass, for many years, and relayed them to Christ the Lord.

She believes he already senses what is in her heart — a request, a wish, a hope. To speak the words aloud is a formality, a custom of tradition more than of necessity.

She reaches out and brushes her hand against a ruby sunburst on his chest and crosses herself. It is a sign of respect for his heart.

His heart is what has brought her back to this place for so long.

Then — just as a small child may whisper to Santa Claus what she longs for— Decastro leans forward and places her mouth to his ear.

She speaks, inaudibly, for several seconds. It is a conversation that must be had, to reveal the thoughts and secrets and desires that have been bubbling inside her since their last encounter. These words are meant only for her old friend.

One almost expects to see Pio’s head nod in acknowledgement and his concerned, hooded eyes blink in understanding. But he remains still in movement, outwardly unaffected by the words. In his years, he has heard prayers to heal every ailment, anxiety, fear or wound, physically, mentally and emotionally.

Her lips back away from his ear and move to his forehead. Familiar and quick, the kiss is a fleeting goodbye — until next week, when she comes to visit a friend, a mentor, and most literally a “padre” (father).

She moves to the case sitting to his left. Beneath a gold and bronze painted arch is a box unimpressive and unadorned. The container though holds something of great significance to the worshippers: Pio’s sock.

Considered a “second class relic,” something possessed by the saint, it is holy in itself. But the sock is stained with the blood of the great man, making it a “first class relic” and to the people of the church the closest they reach to meeting the man they revere.

She touches the box and crosses herself. She repeats the action to the box on Pio’s right, holding his bloodstained glove.

Then, once she feels she has spent the time she needed with Pio, Decastro’s gaze returns to his eyes.

“He is here to ask for your wishes, for the hopeless cases,” Irish says. “My sister asked for a baby for so many years, and now she has a baby.

“My wish? I don’t want to say…I can’t say.”

Because it is a secret, shared only between the two, spoken in a house shared by two.

The Catholic Holy Ghost Church has been in Williamsburg for 99 years. It has become home to many generations of Ukrainians.