Why Italian children love Benedict’s book

By Charles Whittaker
Italians are not generally backward in coming forward. This is highlighted at the feast of All Souls because in the land where tutti sono bravi (“all are good”), tutti sono santi, (“all are saints”), too. Or so it would seem, because the Mass for the faithful departed is actually said on All Saints. On that day the cemeteries are more than usually full.
The raised tombs, brightly lit by fairy lights and surrounded by crowds, could be the counters of a busy department store at Christmas. Massimo took me to see his father, who is buried in a threestorey mall with filing cabinets reaching to the ceiling. The photograph on the tomb is of a man in his Sunday best who has been told he hasn’t long to live. The eyes have a haunted look and the cheeks speak of strong medication. The surrounding drawers were occupied, so I asked where he was going to put his mother. He pointed to what in a shopping mall would be kiosks selling sunglasses, but here are chapels housing up to 10 members of a family for about £30,000 – 10 times the cost of a single tomb. As I turned, Massimo was gone, off to buy a replacement bulb for his father’s temporary tomb.
At the end of Mass in the ossuary chapel, where the skulls and bones of the unknown dead are stacked from floor to ceiling, we read out the list of the “fallen” – the year’s dead – repeating the word presente after each name. As we blessed the tombs after Mass the families made an offering for the missions; while commemorating the saints at home, we are thinking of making new ones abroad. I marvel at the titles of the deceased in one chapel alone: professor, doctor of surgery, doctor of philosophy, General. I remember the “dedicated accountant” whose grave I saw at the Jewish cemetery in Hendon.
I meet Massimo, back from the cemetery shop with a light bulb.
“Everything alright?” I ask.
“Everything alright,” he replies. Until next week, that is, when he’ll be back to replace another light bulb.
Iopped into the diocesan bookshop last week to pick up copies of the new Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the confirma tion class. It really is a very handsome little book. The Italian edition looks like it might be a small address book or the recently discovered reminiscences of someone who liked to press flowers. It would not be out of place in the abbey bookshop next to the pot pourri. A Mister God, This Is Anna, however, it is not. I was immediately struck by the gorgeous pictures, which have arthistory type descriptions that complement the teaching.
I compare the Compendium with my old daily missal, which has potato print pictures and lino cuttings, and I feel like a boy who has passed his eleven-plus and doesn’t have to go to the glass and concrete comprehensive but has been welcomed through the portals of the sandstone grammar school.
The kids love it too, though it is difficult to stop them looking at the pictures in class: an icon of Christ perhaps or Gentile’s “Adoration of the Magi”. The children have been particularly taken with the amount of Latin – not just the prayers, but throughout the text. The reason Giulia gave for wanting to learn her prayers in Latin was so that she could participate in the many papal Masses and audiences where Latin is used. The Salve Regina is her favourite, which she knows from Radio Maria, a station that her bed-ridden grandmother has on all day so that she can follow the Mass and say the rosary.
“How come it is so beautiful?” Tuglio asked when he saw the Compendium. Last summer, when I was thinking about starting a village cricket team, I went to consult that oracle of wisdom who is the secretary at the British Delegation to the Holy See (otherwise known as Pat). I was told she was no longer with the company, as they say, having left before Easter. A pity. When I was stuck as to where to find mince pies or Christmas puddings to make the festive season go with a swing, Pat was the one I would turn to, her cheerful voice at the end of the line coming up trumps with the right address.
Alas, the Embassy can no longer provide the sort of expertise that Pat knocked up over 20 years. The charming, if a little harassed, new girl told me that unfortunately she had no idea, but helpfully suggested I tried Google. She told me that they had lost another member of staff since Pat had left and were now down to just two. I felt sorry for her as she went on to explain that in the circumstances she didn’t have the time to look into it.
You might think me mad for even having asked, but when I was on the missions that is just the sort of thing that the High Commission did do. They were forever giving us presents: cricket kit, instruments for a brass band, a computer or two for the school and a printing press – and that was just for our parish.
When I heard that they were looking for a new ambassador I suggested that “Patricia Gorgeous”, as we knew her, be appointed Her Britannic Majesty’s new representative. Not only would this have saved money but there would never have been that nagging feeling that perhaps the ambassador herself was answering the telephone and pretending to be the secretary.
I respectfully suggest to our new man, Francis Campbell, that he try to drag Pat away from her grandchildren back to where she rightfully belongs.