From nationalism to internationalism: civil religion and the festival of Saint Catherine of Siena, 1940-2003.

INTRODUCTION

Despite the fact that Robert Bellah concluded his seminal essay of 1967 on "Civil Religion in America" with the hope that, in time a "vital international symbolism" might be incorporated into American civil religion, or even that American civil religion might become "one part of a new civil religion of the world," it is nevertheless still sometimes assumed that "civil religion" will tend to promote the celebration of narrowly national and even militaristic interests. Thus, for example, Stjepan Mestrovic has asserted that civil religion is neither "bona fide religion nor ordinary patriotism, but a new alloy formed by blending religion with nationalism." If civil religions were bona fide religions, Mestrovic continues, then "one would expect to find a soft side" to them, teaching love of neighbor and upholding peace and compassion. But this, he asserts, is not the case. (1) That civil religion can function as Mestrovic argues is hardly to be doubted: clearly it can be the means of fostering and sustaining narrowly and aggressively sectarian and communal interests, either at the national or communal level. (2) It is also clear, however, that civil religion can function, as Bellah argued, as a means of sustaining and fostering forms of pluralism, as Thomas Hase's recent study of American civil religion has once again affirmed. (3)

What is, perhaps, much less common is to find an example of civil religion moving from a narrowly nationalistic--and even militaristic-stance to one of overt and explicit internationalism. In Italy, however, the modern cult of Saint Catherine of Siena has exhibited just such a process. Between 1940 and 2003, the figure of Saint Catherine of Siena became, first, the focus of an intensely nationalistic and militaristic national festival; then the focus of a still national but no longer overtly militaristic festival; and finally, the focus of an explicitly international festival. It is the aim of this essay to examine the four stages in this historical process and consider its significance. First, it examines the origins of the national festival of Saint Catherine of Siena in the late 1930s and its character until 1944. Second, it examines the stages in the reconstruction of the cult and national festival of Saint Catherine in the decades after the Second World War. The third major section examines the internationalization of the festival and cult of Saint Catherine of Siena from the late 1980s until the beginning of the third millennium. (4) Finally, a brief conclusion reflects on the significance of these successive stages in the development of the modern cult of Saint Catherine.

THE "FESTA NAZIONALE" OF SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA, 1940-1944

Catherine of Siena was officially proclaimed Co-Patron Saint of Italy--together with Francis of Assisi--by Pope Pius XII on 18 June 1939. For the Sienese and for the Dominican Order, the proclamation was the climax of a twenty-year campaign for Catherine's elevation to this status. A fourteenth-century female mystic and ascetic born in 1347, Caterina Benincasa was the daughter of a dyer whose family lived in the section of Siena known as Fontebranda. She became a lay member of the Dominican Order, worked with the poor and with victims of the plague, wrote letters to various prominent contemporary figures, dictated a series of mystical Dialogues to her confessor, drew a religious community around her and, crucially, travelled to Avignon to persuade Pope Gregory XI to end the papal exile there and return to Rome. She died in Rome in 1380, having exhausted herself in extreme forms of fasting and prayer for the unity and peace of the church. She was canonized only eighty years later by Pope Pius II, who was also Sienese. (5)

During the next four hundred years, both the Sienese and the Dominican order promoted the cult of Catherine of Siena. Her body remained in Rome--where it is still kept in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the principal Roman church of the Dominican Order. (6) The relics of her head and index finger, however, were taken to Siena in 1384, where they were, and still are, housed in the church of San Domenico. (7) The house in Siena in which her family had lived--itself located close to the church of San Domenico--was turned into a Sanctuary dedicated to Catherine. (8) Within Siena, Catherine quickly became firmly established as one of the leading figures within the Sienese "pantheon" of civic saints, (9) while beyond Siena her cult was fostered by the Dominican Order and she became an influential model for the cults of other Dominican female mystics and ascetics. 10 It was in the mid-nineteenth century, however, that Catherine of Siena and her cult began to assume a much greater and broader significance, prominence, and status. In 1866, in the wake of Italian Unification, Pope Pius IX proclaimed Catherine a Co-Patron Saint of Rome--which was, by then, all that remained of the papacy's temporal possessions. In 1909, Catherine was then made patron saint of the women's section of Azione Cattolica, the Italian Catholic social movement--thus initiating what her modern devotees sometimes refer to as the "great Caterinian century." (11)

In the early 1920s, especially in Siena and throughout the Dominican Order, a concerted campaign was begun to raise the profile and reputation of Saint Catherine and to promote her cult. In 1920, the "Societal Internazionale di Studi Cateriniani" was formed in Siena and under its auspices a periodical entitled "Studi Cateriniani," devoted to the study of her life and teaching, began publication in 1923. In 1926, the Society obtained permission to found an institute for research into the history of Saint Catherine at the University of Siena which in the 1930s became known as the "Cattedra Cateriniana." (12) In 1932, over 25,000 signatures were gathered in Siena for a petition to be presented to Pope Pius XI in support of the proposal that Catherine should be proclaimed the official Patron Saint of Italy. The petition was eventually presented to Pope Pius XI by the then Archbishop of Siena, Gustavo Matteoni, in 1934, together with the supporting signatures of over 130 Italian cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. (13)