In Italy,
goliard-style blasphemy rides again...
In Medieval Europe, the “goliards” were a class of
clergy who roamed from town to town singing ribald Latin verse, living a
debaucherous lifestyle steeped in the pleasures of the flesh, and amusing
themselves by staging blasphemous versions of the Church’s sacred rites.
Ostensibly there was a serious edge to the satires, as
the goliards saw themselves lampooning the corruption and double standards of
Medieval clergy. Often, however, one has the impression that shocking people’s
sensibilities was an end in itself.
Many goliards were second or third sons of land-owning
families who stood to inherit nothing under the Medieval system of
primogeniture, in which everything went to the first-born son in order to hold
estates together, and so they were shipped off to monasteries or seminaries,
even though they had little interest in the faith.
They received exceptional educations by Medieval
standards, but rarely found work – in part because they had no interest in
serving as pastors or confessors, and in part because even if they did, there
was a chronic surfeit of people running around with theology degrees.
In other words, they were the classic illustration in
their day of a bunch of people with far too much time on their hands.
A story out of Italy in mid-April suggests that the
goliards are back in business, because it turns out that one of the most
beautiful Catholic churches in the Emilia-Romagna region, the Church of San
Genesio, which stands in a field outside the hamlet of Vigoleno, has been
repeatedly hijacked to stage grotesque parodies of the sacraments.
According to local reports, 64 people have been
charged with a criminal offense under Italian law for “offenses to a religious
confession through contempt.” Specifically, the accusation holds that between
2013 and 2015, they organized fake marriage ceremonies and baptisms at the
church, which involved, among other things:
Parodies of
Catholic liturgical vestments
Pieces of
salami in place of the consecrated Eucharistic host
A toilet brush
in place of the aspergillum to dispense “holy water”
A commander in the Italian carabinieri, or military
police, carried out the investigation, and all 64 people – reportedly between
20 and 35 years old – have been released pending arraignment. Reportedly, the
investigation got underway after a parishioner at San Genesio discovered images
of the fake ceremonies on social media, including a fairly extensive collection
of photos. Police were able to identify pretty much everyone involved on the
basis of those posts.
It would seem there was precious little effort to hide
what was going on, since invitations were distributed well in advance via text
messages on mobile phones and closed groups on Facebook.
According to
reports in the local media, the group would get together for a drink in a
nearby bar, then head off to the church to stage their event. The “priest” who
led the rite would arrive on the back of a pick-up truck, wearing a set of
horns and dispensing “holy water” using the toilet brush.
Those images, too, were posted on Facebook.
(As a footnote, it’s interesting how similar social
conditions in Italy today are to those that bred the original goliards. Then as
now, il bel paese had a glut of over-educated, under-employed young people,
with a youth unemployment rate hovering around 40 percent. Granted, their
degrees for the most part aren’t in theology anymore, but other than that the
situation is strikingly similar.)
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