What Does the Popes 25th Anniversary Mean for Italian Catholics?
Our Paesani by Francesca Di Meglio I turned 25 on October 14, 2003, and I feel like everything has come full circle. While my mamma was in labor delivering me, instead of begging for drugs, she was asking for the baseball scores and news on the new pope. Twenty-five years later, my mamma’s Yankees again are in the World Series after beating the Boston Red Sox in dramatic fashion. And Pope John Paul II spent the last week celebrating his silver anniversary in the Vatican. Not much has changed since I was born, I guess. Or has it? While mamma and I are still praying for another Yankees win, our relationship with the Church certainly has evolved. Like so many others, we no longer go to church every Sunday. And I have a difficult time justifying donations to an embattled church that might be protecting predatory priests who sexually abused children. The Church is also facing the Pope’s ailing health, turmoil in the Middle East and famine in the Third World. But those might not even be our
