ITALY’S CATHOLICS IGNORANT OF BIBLE
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/news-detailed.asp?newsid=9354
Rome – April 28th
Summary: This Italian article written in Rome discussed the devotion/faith of Italian Catholics. These surveys included the percentage of people who attended church, who believed God was watching over them, knowledge of the Bible, and how often they read the Bible. In every single survey, United States percentages fared higher, while the other two major Catholic countries of France and Spain had even lower! The article revealed a major decrease in active participation in religion in Italy.
A) This article relates to the AP World History Theme, Development and Interaction of Cultures, because it involves the religion/belief system of Roman Catholic Christianity. It also involves how the Italian faith developed into something that is not often considered in daily life.
B) Italy is the country from which Roman Catholicism was founded, and it is still centered at Vatican City today. For whatever reason, perhaps the new age of tight schedules and limited downtime, Italians are becoming less interested and/or devoted to their faith, however you would think that the people would be as religious as they used to be.
C) The person writing this article is most likely a male/female Italian journalist. He/she would be an insider to the situation if they had surveyed the Catholics, probably being a Catholic him or her self.
D) Most likely being Catholic, the author may have added an irritated or annoyed tone in the article because they would feel that his/her fellow people have disgraced the religion. This may have led to exaggerated language “…just 14% of Italians were able to correctly answer basic questions…” and “This disregard for traditional signs of devotion…”
E) One point of view missing in the article is the opinion of an Italian Catholic being surveyed, because they might feel differently about their lack of knowledge on the Bible or Catholicism in general. That person may believe that it’s not necessary to know the information or that they follow their faith by adjusting it to modern life.
F) Reading this article, I would have been surprised if I didn’t hear it already, but it’s definitely shocking to think that the percentage of people living in the birthplace of Roman Catholicism would be less religiously devout than people in the United States or Poland. When I went to Italy I noticed that there were very few truly Italian people in the churches (maybe 1-3 or none), and the majority of people were tourists such as myself. It was a very strange thing to see empty pews and lots of camera flashes.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
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2 comments:
Hi,
Just the title of the article really shows bias in this piece. I like that you found this article from a website not many people have heard of, since we all seem to use the same websites. As far as the decrease of religousness in Italy, I think that the millenium will bring about alot of change in religion and this is just the beginning. However I dont think that they are necessarily ignorant, as much as careless. You can still belive in a religion and god yet not know much about the religion becasue you have no desire to learn. Everyone veiws religion differently and if they are making a trip to church and belive in god, i wouldb elive that they are still christians. However, this is very similar to how buddhsim traveled from India to china, where it has lost its poplarity in India, its birthplace, and grown in places such as the U.S. great job, i really liked your article.
Tay =]
i deffinetly agree with tayler that is peice is very bias. it shocked me though to hear that in the most holyest regions in the world are less religious then the diverse United States. Well anyways, people show their devoltion or belief in their faith in many differnt and unconventional ways so really a simiple suvery could possible not account for a large percentage of the Chathlic faith in Italy. Also i agreed with the great connection taylor made about the buddhist religion spreading and gaining more popularity in China. Its just human nature for beliefs and faiths to change its really just the way people express themselves and its probably alot different from how they used to centuries before. interesting article, good job
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