Old Calabria By Norman Douglas














































































 -  There are indications that this
state of affairs is now ending.

The position is this. The records show that the - Page 404
Old Calabria By Norman Douglas - Page 404 of 488 - First - Home

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There Are Indications That This State Of Affairs Is Now Ending.

The position is this.

The records show that the common people never took their saints to heart in the northern fashion - as moral exemplars; from beginning to end, they have only utilized them as a pretext for fun and festivals, a means of brightening the cata-combic, the essentially sunless, character of Christianity. So much for the popular saints, the patrons and heroes. The others, the ecclesiastical ones, are an artificial product of monkish institutions. These monkeries were established in the land by virtue of civil authority. Their continued existence, however, was contingent upon the goodwill of the Vatican. One of the surest and cheapest methods of obtaining this goodwill was to produce a satisfactory crop of saints whose beatification swelled the Vatican treasury with the millions collected from a deluded populace for that end. The monks paid nothing; they only furnished the saint and, in due course, the people's money. Can we wonder that they discovered saints galore? Can we wonder that the Popes were gratified by their pious zeal?

So things went on till yesterday. But now a large proportion of the ten thousand (?) churches and monasteries of Naples are closed or actually in ruins; wayside sanctuaries crumble to dust in picturesque fashion; the price of holy books has fallen to zero, and the godly brethren have emigrated to establish their saint-manufactories elsewhere. Not without hope of success; for they will find purchasers of their wares wherever mankind can be interested in that queer disrespect of the body which is taught by the metaphysical ascetics of the East.

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