17: Deciding not to be lukewarm

Episode 17: A bumper episode in which Giuliana shares her experience of Italian 'cultural Catholicism', deciding to commit more deeply to her faith, the challenges of being both a Catholic and a critical Marxist, and her experience and insights about the terrible situation in Israel and Gaza.

Find out more:
Giuliana's book Media and Peace in the Middle East
Christian Life Community

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Find the transcript: https://kindsofcatholic.buzzsprout.com

Music: Greenleaves from Audionautix.com

Transcript

 You are listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways, we're living our faith today. Pope Francis has used the image of a caravan. A diverse group of people travelling together. On a sometimes chaotic journey together.  That's an image that has helped shape this podcast. I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed and maybe challenged at times. I am too in these conversations. 

So I'm joined today by Giuliana who is in the Diocese of Nottingham, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation today, Giuliana. Thanks for making some time to talk.

Thank you, Theresa.

 So I wonder if we can start, Giuliana. I know that you are not originally from the UK. You're from Italy. And just tell us a bit about Italy, obviously, is a country that I think, of as being a Catholic country. So I'm kinda thinking you must have been born into a Catholic family and brought up as a Catholic as a child. Is that right? 

Yes. I was brought up in a Catholic, family in Italy. But in Italy, everyone is a Catholic.

So I was thinking about what education looks like in Italy because here, Catholic families, you know, might choose to send their child to a Catholic school or not. But maybe in Italy, is do they have Catholic education in all schools or in no schools? What happens there? 

So initially, in education, you have, Catholic education, in every school, but there is a bit of Catholic education given to everyone. That's kind of the standard approach. So it's a bit different from here where you have to decide where to go, and that could determine what you believe in, who you engage with, and what you are told, as well. 

Yes. Exactly. 

So can you give us a flavour then of your childhood and your family background? 

Yes. So my family background is that I am from a working class background, and I received the usual Catholic education, which consisted of 2 different parts. One, this was the typical hour in the in the school. There will be someone coming. It could be a teacher, someone from the diocese being sent. It could be a nun. It could be a priest or, a monk, someone from a Jesuit community coming in the school to teach, and they would teach us, an hour a week about religion. Parallel to this, we would go to the church for the catechism once a week and then engage with the priest and other kids in our own local community. So that's how everyone initially would get an education, which is a religious education. People still tend to do it because there is a social pressure to do it. There is a strong culture around this. It's more cultural than religious. Everyone does it. So if you don't do it, you have to kind of justify with your family. You have to go against some expectations, justify with the priest, to the school, get an exemption, and so on. And I grew up in this working class family, I will say, of my dad working in a factory initially and my mom working as a cleaner after a little while when I was a bit older. And just to finish this this story, you know, narrating this story about my background; my parents were both divorced. So they had a previous marriage, then they meet, they made me, and that was 1974,/75, and it was really, really hard for them. And they had to move from a small village to the big city in Florence just because I was born and I was a problem. I was a problem for the community. So we moved to Florence, the bigger city where no one knew them. I grew up happily in this lovely place. Yes, with the priest and the church, but also many other lovely things in Tuscany. And they also had a, I would say, also a bit of a happy life there or a better life than in a small village because there was this very strict cultural, sort of set of expectations about how people should behave, which was also tied to the religion. 

So there was some stigma for them around them happening to be divorced and having a child in a new marriage. 

Yes.

Okay. And so growing up then, when you were a teenager, was faith important to you in that time of your life, or was it something that you've come to later? 

It's something that I came to later. So during I received this education, which is a religious education. So they kind of, I would say, the Italian society put the seeds in. So if you are to flourish into a Catholic or a Christian or religious person, you will flourish in it. My grandmother was also important because she kept bringing me to church. So some relatives are also important, but I only came to came back to the faith after, when I was in my thirties. Simply one day, I look at myself in the mirror and I say, do I want to keep following this? Like every Italian person I know, in this lukewarm way. So I don't know if I believe something. So I look at myself in the mirror, and I simply made a choice, which was not based on faith. It was based on the fact that I simply decided I didn't want to be an atheist, someone that didn't believe. And I decided, I said, no. I really want to give it a try, and I really want to believe what I've been taught because it's better, it's bigger, it's, powerful, and it's also what I think I feel I have an instinct for, something I couldn't explain. So from that moment onward, then I started to kind of, revisit some things in my life. And then things came as a consequence, like, one after the other, sort of through a magic sort of a thread that, that someone puts there for me. So a choice after another. I didn't have to plan too much after having made that conscious choice, however.

Okay. And I think you mentioned, that being something, this feeling of being a bit lukewarm about the faith, something that's common to Italian people in their thirties. And it's not to do with - you see, it's hard for us to understand that in this country in some ways because it's not the same here, I guess. But because it is part of the culture rather than people choosing to go to church and bring their children up in the faith and choosing a Catholic school, maybe people haven't actually thought about their faith very much and might go through their whole life not thinking about their faith very much. Would that be something that can happen to people in Italy? 

Yes. It happens to many people. Even today, I have to explain to some people why I'm going to Mass every Sunday or as much as I can. And they are very dear friends, people that we, were we were baptised together. We had all the rituals together, but they don't understand. And they ask me, why are you sort of a, I don't know how to say it in English, but it will be something like, how did I know you were such a fundamentalist or a bigoted, or a strong believer, like, implying there is something wrong with me? And that's something that perhaps people from outside Italy don't understand because it's the place where the Pope is, the Vatican is, but this is how the majority of people, think about, sort of feel. There's a sort of, not a shame, but an embarrassment about, being open because also because, perhaps we know about, sort of experiences and testimonies of the religion, which are really a bit too much. So they're really fundamentalist. They're really harsh. They are not progressive. And the region I come from, Tuscany, is a very left wing region. So it's, there is this tension in between being progressive. Everyone is usually progressive in Tuscany, it's one of the left, red, regions in Italy. And the other side is the religious, spiritual side of things, but people struggle a bit because they believe if they say, if they abandon themselves to being fully Catholic, they are abandoning, betraying that need to be progressive. Still today, I have to do some, to give some explanations to some of my best friends when they look at me and say, really? Are you going to Mass every time? Yes. I'm going to Mass every Sunday, whenever I can. I do many other things. 

Now that was really interesting. Many listeners, I think, will find that quite eye opening. Giuliana, thank you. So having made that choice - now some people who have, that I've spoken to on this pod who've come to faith later in life, they have felt drawn, you know, without really knowing why sometimes. Or they've seen something in somebody who has faith that they've kind of wanted to have also. But your decision sounds a bit more, initially at first, a bit more separated from any kind of emotional draw. How have you found it to be since making that decision? Have you found that, does your life feel better, or does it just feel more complicated? I don't know. What difference has it made to your life? 

It made a difference because, as I was saying before, the things start to be clearer. So there was since I made that choice, it was really a conscious choice I made. I'll be a believer, so I'll keep everything. You know? I'll try, in a very deep way. I don't want to be this lukewarm kind of person. So since then, things started to happen in my life, which put myself in front of some choices, apparently very small but very important. And so in the end, I found like a thread in my life. It's not something that's written in any book. It's not something that any priest told me about, but it has, it has sort of acquired a meaning. And once in a while, there is a new thing, I have to make a choice, and there are 2 different choices to be made. I'm led to do the one which is where I feel I'm drawn instead of sort of driven. Not like, I know everything about my life, everything is clear, but it's, there is a sort of a path that every day I can see a bit more about, an extra metre about what the path is, and I can then say, okay. I'm following this path. I have to change, and it's giving me that path. It wasn't there before, but it's not something preorganized by my mind or anything. It's just coming, and it's, like being blind, but knowing where you have to go in a way. And it also sort of took more a deeper meaning, when I went through a sort of a crisis where, I think I was not a very good Christian. So I felt I did something wrong. And in there, I felt that after having made this choice, I could talk to Jesus or God, and no one would be judging me. Even if I knew as a human person I was in the wrong. And since then, I guess it became sort of my best friend thing, or, like, I don't know if we can call God or Jesus as the best friend, but, you know, there is someone or something you believe in, and they're not judging you, and you can really share, and then you can improve, and next time you will make a better choice perhaps, and you feel still loved even if you're doing, you have done, something wrong. So that was a consequence of the choice, and that gave me the sort of energy to keep looking for things, which I'm still doing today. 

You've painted a real picture there. That's amazing. Yes. Sometimes I ask people to think about the times in their life where they didn't know at the time, but they can look back and see how God was working. But you're talking about actually finding a path as you're treading it, that is kind of opening up a tiny bit at a time in front of you. Are there things you can look back and think, well, I can see where God was leading me to this place. Does it look like that when you look back, or are you in in the moment? 

No. I can look back. I can now look back. I do look back, especially thanks to a group of people which I've been working with and praying with since after the pandemic, which is a group of the CLC, Christian Life Community. So it's like Jesuit groups of people that come together in very small group. They really taught me to look back and try to find the path. I’m a person that tends to look a lot at the future, what's in front of me, and making a right choice in a sort of rational way, I would say, mental more than emotional, about what's coming. But they really taught me about looking back, and, thanks to their help and the meetings and the meditation we have done together over the last now 3 years, I was able to see a sort of a path. So to look back and see where God had been in the past. I've mentioned my grandmother, a little but very loving being who really put the seeds in, I guess, my parents, but perhaps also the experience I may already have told you about. A peace camp in 1993. I ended up, for some strange reasons, in a holiday where we were 15 Israeli young people, 15 Palestinian young people, 15 Italian young people, and it was the summer of 1993, a few weeks before they signed the peace agreement, and we didn't know.  And we were all in our 14 to 17 years old, and it was an amazing experience. That, I think, has been a real landmark of, I guess, God putting it there. I don't know. But something that has flourished a bit later on, and I'm still trying to make flourish, even more. And then I think the most recent landmark or point in this path has been related more to decisions about my family. That's when I was struggling, and I looked for something once again, and I found a group of the CLC friends with whom I'm now praying, and they really were very helpful. Now I have, once again, an extra metre which is full of light. I know where I have to go for an extra couple of months, and I'm pretty sure that's the way. And they're helping me for, you know, the longer term decisions as well. 

Okay. And that Christian life community, is that an online group, or do you meet in person?

It started online. We have been going for 3 years now. But because we started as an online group, we could meet with people who are not living too nearby. Without the pandemic, we would have not been able to have this because we would have not looked for such a group. People usually look for the in person meetings. I guess that being virtual as well has a role to play in that because it's letting you focus really just on some things instead of also the things you can share in person. So on the other hand, it's a bit sad sometimes, we can't meet. We try to meet once a year, but it's not easy. That role has been important, I would say, over the last 3 years for me.

Okay. I want to just go back to the holiday you mentioned with the Israeli young people and the Palestinian young people, just because this is such a terrible time for that part of the world. And I kinda wonder how you're coping with what's going on there and how long it's been going on. I started at the beginning thinking, right, I'm gonna do one thing every day for the people of Gaza and the people of Israel. And I'm going to - one day, I'll say a prayer, another day I'm gonna give some money to one of the important charities, another day, I'm gonna, you know, write to my MP. And then the next day, I'm gonna do -but there has been so many days now. And it doesn't seem to get better. It's very difficult to maintain a kind of feeling of hope and action. And I wonder what that's like for you having been involved in meeting young people all those years ago. 

Well, personally, I don't know. I don't think there is much to say about how I feel or my emotions. They're not so important. Not because oh, obviously, I've been worried for my friends, but I've been worried for my friends since the end of the nineties. Because I met these friends in 93, and then things starts to worsen. Social media were not available at the time. So I've been worrying for them perhaps even more when it was in the 2000 when I had news about some of their relatives being put in prison, or I had news about the Israeli friends being afraid of things. And it was difficult in the sense that you have these friends, and you have been old friends so young, and it's, it was amazing. And then you see there, they can't go along anymore or something is wrong. Well, that was difficult, and we're all very worried. And, obviously, I'm worried now as well. I don't live it so much as something that worries me. I live it as something that I think is outrageous, for the age we are living in. It's something outrageous for all the politicians. It's something, I would say, what's another word for outrageous? It's shameful, and it's absurd. It's not possible that our politicians are not able to stand up and say that this is enough, and this has to stop. First of all, all this bombing, and then also all the rest that causes such an anger that people then feel they have to, you know, enrol into some kind of militia and do all these things. There are so many different things that should be said now by the politicians. So I don't know what I can do apart from, you know, my own things, and praying. I'm not sure I can visit a place. I don't want to say I want to boycott because I don't like to boycott anyone. But it's, it would be difficult for me to go in a place just to visit even the holy places, the Catholic holy places, just to know that I'm contributing to something of this kind. So there is very little that I really can say. I have no words because of how terrible the situation is. And, I think we all have to try to do as much as we can in our own different ways. So if you do research about that, try to write more explicitly about that without falling into some traps of the, you know, the political language, but you have to speak out now, or praying, or trying to get support. But I think it's time that some people will have to feel a bit under pressure for some things that are said. We can't not criticise some people because we want to be peaceful. It's the time now. The time has now ended. This is not acceptable, and it was not acceptable even before. This situation should have not happened. It's many years that Gaza is like that. And as far as I know, there had been people in Gaza that also tried a peaceful march a few years ago, and they were shot. They were shot by soldiers looking at the boundaries. So there were people trying to do things peacefully, and they've not been listened to. I will say I want to express all my anger for this, like, a clean cold anger because this is not acceptable. At the same time, I think it's always important to understand that the people that believe that what they're doing like, Israelis who believe they're doing something that is right, they really believe in that. They're not faking it. So there is a problem in that someone has to listen, not in the sense of accepting what is being done, but in the sense of opening a door. And I would say my theory with everything, research, or talking about these things is always: Yes, you push with the boycott. Yes. You can criticise as hard as you can and push with every tool possible and acceptable and peaceful, but you have to leave a little bit of a little space to let the pressure go out - and this is from the Israeli side. There has to be something there, and it could be someone from the Catholic church going and trying to talk to the people that are feeling so scared because of Palestinians in Gaza, because of what's happening or what they think is happening in there. Because if we don't do that, I don't think this is ever going to change because it's the fear that's dominating and the Israeli politicians which are leading now, exploiting this fear, that are able to make this happen. So if we don't give the people sort of an audience somewhere, like listening space, and trying to understand and try to show them that these are fears, and listen, and validate. We have to validate. We have to validate things with kids when they complain about dreaming about a monster at night.  The monster doesn't exist but we have to validate that. Otherwise, they will have a trauma or they will have a -  so I think the same thing has to be applied to Israeli people, and this is very difficult to say this because the Israeli government is doing something terrible, criminal, but we have to, and illegal internationally -  the international law is completely clear that this is illegal - but we have to find some way to to do that. I'm thinking that perhaps, you know, the Pope has been clear about his new and innovative ideas about peace and trying to, you know, bring the dialogue. So I would hope perhaps the Catholic church, or Christians, or religious people could try to make this space, this little space, to a listening space for the Israelis so they can be like a grain of sand in a mechanism, that can undo this mechanism of fear. Because I think that's very important as much as trying to do something to stop the killings of the Palestinians, which I don't think is going to work on its own if we don't consider the other side in a way or in another.

Thank you. Thank you, Giuliana. Many people will feel similarly angry and that this is not acceptable. And how can this be happening? I might just put a link to your book, Media and Peace in the Middle East.

Yes. Thank you. Yes. It's an old book. 

Still relevant because people might be interested to read what you were saying even then about the way the conflict, before it was going through this particularly brutal phase, about how that is framed in the media.

Thank you. 

And the difference that can make. Okay. I was thinking about your Christian Life Community and the prayer and reflection. I was wondering if there are any particular methods that you use with that group? Do you use some scripture reading and, in an Ignatian way, you know, put yourself into the scripture? How do you structure those meetings?

 Yes. We follow a structure where a reading is included usually from the gospel, and then we share. And that sharing is listening. So it's something that perhaps I've mentioned before, but from another perspective. So we will share, and each one of us will say what they've been praying, what they've been living through the last 15 days, and the others have to listen, and it's not allowed for us to engage or reply. We don't immediately go on the defensive or bring ourselves in. We only have to listen, and then we can follow-up, but in a different way, not as a reply, but to tell the others what the thought and listening to the person has stimulated in us. And the overall goal is to get to discern things, so to get to a space where we can reach a sort of a ‘consolation’ in Ignatian terms, instead of ‘desolation’. So a situation in which we can discern why really we are doing something. And this is important. It's about in like terms, so in non- religious terms, I would say ‘being honest with yourself’, being really honest with yourself. And I've discovered through this group how important that is, and that maybe that's a problem we have now in society; climate change, war, but a big cause is that we are not honest with ourselves. So why are we supporting the bombing? Why are we supporting some other party? Why are we supporting? We tend to do perhaps even the right things, but because we are defending an identity, so something human instead of something Godly or spiritual, or if you are not a believer, something higher. So discernment has been a term which I've learned.  And what that means, in case there are, you know, listeners that don't know, it means that that's the kind of understanding, reflections, and review of options you have about something. But it's when you feel like you're at peace and there is silence, and you're just evaluating, and there is no emotionality or emotion-ness in it, and you can see a variety of options, that's when you are perhaps in the consolation, so you have been discerning well. It’s,that's a kind of peace as well, it's a spiritual peace, it's not the same as I  would like to see in Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, and many other countries as well, but it's a very important form of peace as well to be able to be there at least once in a while. I tend to say to my friends in this group very often, I think this will be very, very important even as a nonreligious tool for non believers because it's, I think, what we miss today. And I'm also saying this as a sociologist who believes that there is a missing glue in society because of all the profit focused development and all of that that we see today.  We really need to give people back the ability to really be at peace and not be driven by fears. For example, fear of the immigrant as we have seen recently in this country as well.

So I might call that a sort of inner peace. 

It's about being at peace with who you are, so seeing yourself as God will see you. So God, a God who is love, and then also then deciding on the basis of that, not seeing yourself as someone who can do right or wrong, but being, or seeing, yourself as God will see you, which is not dominated by emotion, sense of guilt, or anything.

Something about when you were talking about listening to each other and not responding directly to each other reminded me of the Synod process and the Conversations in the Spirit people are talking about around this Synod. I was wondering if you've been involved in anything to do with the Synod process in the church?

Yes. So I've been involved very lightly through the parish, just giving some feedback. But also through this group, we were asked to provide insights. And so we had a meeting, and then our feedback went to the regional group, and they created a larger document and they sent it out. But I think much of that, especially from the parish where I physically go, was about the role of the women. So I've been following that, and mostly I've been following a little bit of the synod, but also what I think it's called Reverend James Martin, so someone who is very much about opening up the church. For me, the most important point would have been that of can we open it up to women? Can we open it up? Can we accept people who are not just male? And, I mean, not just women, and can we have a more of a nuanced discussion about all of that? Can we have a more welcoming community? Because there is so much need, and people really are working already to make things better in a Catholic way, now, especially with this Pope. It's been very interesting to contribute. I had this feeling that there's a lot of going on behind curtains, lots of tensions perhaps, in the church. So I hope that in the end, they will, this will kind of deliver what everyone, mostly everyone, is expecting, which is an opening up, an acceptance, more nuanced approach to the problems of women, the problems of protecting life, the problems of gender, and I said it, and so on. 

Again, I think many listeners will share your hopes for some of those things, and there'll be other listeners who honestly will feel differently. I've spoken to people all around that now on the pod. It's interesting to hear, with such a different range of voices. But I think for me, I, like you, I'm following with interest. I think it's very positive that all these things are being spoken of anyway. I have hope too that there will be an opening up of all sorts of things. We've not spoken about the work that you do, but is your faith something you can share in the workplace, or is it something not to share in the workplace where you are? 

Well, I'm starting with this podcast. That's, I think, the main reason for which I accepted sort of coming out, which is perhaps difficult to understand from a perspective of an English Catholic person or British, but for me, it's a bit, it's like the last challenge in sharing my faith. I can share my faith with family, friends, even if they ask lots of questions. But the environment I work in is an environment made of progressive left wing, atheist, Marxist... I'm a pretty progressive left wing, bit Marxist, whatever you want to call me. I come from Tuscany. I'm not right wing or moderate at all, but it is difficult with some colleagues in the sociology, media studies to share this because of many reasons. Yes. The position of the church about gender and some cultural issues is a problem, is difficult; pro-life - how that is managed, not the thing in itself. But in general, there's a sort of link between being a progressive, good professor who is publishing great critical analysis, as I also do, and also being religious. The challenge is that people will just see me differently. And this is worse for me because I come from a culture with being lukewarm and being progressive, left wing, like in Tuscany, is important, not taking too seriously. So it's double challenge for me, but because it's a podcast, it gave me really an opportunity to talk about this in a serious way, but also light. So the format is nice and light, and I can still talk about my work a little bit. It's a very good opportunity. It's like another little bit of an extra metre in this path being enlightened, so it fits in what I'm trying to do because it has not been easy. So the few times I've mentioned God or whatever, just, what? What are you saying? You're a critical Marxist here. Yes. I am, but I can also be that. And this is very typical in Tuscany, actually. There are many great people and priests with wonderful stories to share about how you can be matching the two together and actually that being very powerful, which has some connections with South America and so on. So perhaps that's also why I like the current Pope. 

Thank you for being on the pod for those reasons. And yes, that's a very interesting take on why you like Pope Francis. I also am a huge fan of Pope Francis. For me, I'm liking his concern for people on the margins, and I think he's a great communicator. 

And the other thing is, yeah, I think that Pope Francis has some very innovative ideas that need to be developed more about peace because he's talking about these contrapositions as a range of ideas that we have to say, and have a dialogue about, instead of a polarisation of ideas, which is very central also to the sociology of peace, peace studies, and so on, and to the concept of meta-modernity, which is a concept according to which many different ideas of the real can exist, and we can have a dialogue about those. It's very, very different from what's happening now, but it's being proposed by the Catholic Pope, which is very revolutionary. So we have some seeds on which I think intellectuals and people working, you know, in this mental work of ideas, they really can work to again put a grain of sand in the mechanism and perhaps, you know, have a better society.  So we should do that. We should think about all these things. 

Again, that's really interesting because Pope Francis, in Laudato Si, produced work on climate change that has been really valuable outside the church. And you're saying he's also got some really amazing revolutionary ideas around peace that can be taken up by people outside the church too. 

Yes. This is Let Us Dream, especially, yes, that, and there are also other books, and people are starting to explore. So, yeah, that would be good to follow-up on. 

That's brilliant. Listen, we've had a really good conversation. So thank you. Thanks ever so much, Giuliana.

Okay. Thank you so much. 

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic This Time. I hope today's conversation has resonated with you. A new episode is released each Wednesday. Follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms to be sure of not missing an episode. And follow our X/ Twitter and Facebook accounts, @KindsofCatholic. You can comment on episodes and be part of the dialogue there. You can also text me if you're listening to the podcast although I won’t be able to respond to those texts.