Bryce & Damon in Europe
by Pertinax Carrus
Chapter 21: Rome and Naples
First Dinner with Father Long
Bryce and Damon arrived at the Casa Santa Maria shortly before seven that evening. They asked for Father Long, but again had to wait about twenty minutes before he appeared. When he did, he was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, open at the throat, looking much younger than Bryce remembered him in his Roman collar back in Lincoln. He apologized, but said he could not control his own time as a theology student, as there were certain obligations he had to fulfill. The guys dismissed it, saying they did not mind spending time in each other’s company. The three young men (Father Long was only 31, but sometimes seemed much older to the two nineteen year olds) made their way past the Quirinal Palace to the Via Nazionale. Along the way, Father Long invited Bryce and Damon to call him Gil, as he was at this time also a student, like them. Damon took to that right away, but Bryce was a little hesitant to address a priest, even a young one in jeans, by his given name. He could hear his mother saying, “It’s not appropriate.” A short distance along the Via Nazionale they passed another large structure, which Gil told them was the Palazzo delle Esposizione, a kind of museum of changing exhibits, currently featuring an artist none of them had heard of, so they passed on without pausing. Very nearby, they encountered the small church of San Vitale. To reach the entrance, one had to go down a series of about twenty steps. Gil pointed this out as an example of how the street level in parts of Rome have shifted over the ages.
A few blocks further on, they turned to the left, and came to a small restaurant, which Gil said was one of his favorites. As usual, there were tables outside, so Gil teased the boys, “If you guys are not so spoiled that you can’t stand a little heat, we can eat out here, but it is air conditioned inside.”
Bryce and Damon both gave him the evil eye. “We’ve been eating outside just about every place we’ve been since we landed in Lisbon almost six weeks ago,” Bryce retorted.
Gil broke out laughing. “Sorry, Guys. I was kidding, but the expressions on your faces were priceless.”
“That does it,” Bryce said. “No more diffidence towards the clergy. You are definitely Gil from now on.”
“Good,” Gil answered. “Let’s just talk and have a good dinner.”
They settled down at a table, and their waiter immediately appeared. While looking over the menu, Bryce ordered a carafe of red house wine, saying he assumed everyone would be having some kind of meat for dinner. He also informed the other two that they were his guests for the evening. Damon was used to this by now, but Gil began to object.
“You know my family, Gil. I have a credit card. Just cool it,” Bryce insisted.
“I’m glad to see you’ve gone back to treating me with kid gloves,” Gil joked, but he did know that the Winslows were quite well off, so he accepted Bryce’s offer.
The priest ordered a lasagna dish, while Damon tried lamb again, and Bryce had a veal offering. Before the entree, however, they indulged in an antepasto platter with an assortment of raw vegetables, cheeses, and sausages. While consuming this, they got to know each other better, especially as Gil and Damon had not met until the previous Saturday, and the relationship between Gil and Bryce was quite different when Bryce was a high school student and Gil was an associate pastor at the rectory.
Gil was asking about where they had been, and what they had seen on their trip. After some discussion of their visit to Paris, Gil said, “You seem to have visited a lot of churches for a couple of college students.”
“Yeah,” Damon replied, “but one of the reasons for this trip is for me to get to know the
Catholic background of my boyfriend here.”
There was a moment of silence when all three let that sink in.
Damon looked distraught. “Oops. Sorry, Bryce.”
Bryce just sighed, and looked towards Gil.
Gil spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t think you need to tell me too much more about that, but don’t get all anxious. I had my suspicions from the time I saw you two on Saturday. Does your family know, Bryce?”
“Yes. I came out to them last Thanksgiving, when Damon visited the first time,” Bryce answered.
“The first time? That means there has been a second time, so I assume things are at least tolerable?” Gil asked.
“Better than tolerable,” Damon spoke up. “Bryce’s mother and sister have been really great, but his dad does kind of tolerate me.”
Gil grinned. “I can see that, having known them all.”
Bryce added, “Damon very diplomatically did not mention my brother, who is being ....”
Gil interrupted. “Let’s be charitable, and leave it as Damon left it.”
“What about you?” Bryce asked. “At least, you’re not running away from us, or trying to exorcize us.”
Gil chuckled. “I’m not all that much older than you guys. Most of the exorcists are the generation of my parents, or even my grandparents. Since Vatican II, the minor office of exorcist has not been automatically conferred on seminarians on the way to the priesthood. Maybe I missed something.”
“So, you’re not going to tell us we’re going to hell?” Damon asked, only half joking.
“No. My job is to help people get to heaven, not send them to hell. Seriously, Guys, I know this is a hot topic, and I know what the various pronouncements from here and from the bishops at home sound like, but the jury is still out, and probably always will be. We have to make do with what we have,” Gil said.
“What do you mean ‘it probably always will be’?” Bryce asked.
“If you look at the history of the Church, I can’t think of a single official doctrine which is binding in conscience on all Catholics which falls into the category of moral actions,” Gil responded. “I know the declaration on papal infallibility at Vatican I said it covered ‘faith and morals,’ but there is no precedent for an infallible decree from pope or council in the area of morals, and I think the matter of homosexuality and homosexual relations falls into that category. I assume you two are not just platonic?”
Both Bryce and Damon blushed at that. They looked at each other, and giggled. Bryce shook his head in the negative.
“Interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black person blush before,” Gil teased them.
“Oh, I have,” Bryce assured him. “But,” he ruefully added, “not as often as me.”
“Bryce had such a sheltered upbringing,” Damon inserted.
“Not what I remember from my last year at St. Thérèse,” Gil commented.
Bryce blushed again, but pulled himself together. “Seriously, I was trying to deny what you now know is my natural condition, and I very nearly killed myself in the process. I’m not denying it anymore.”
“When your mother first wrote to me about your trip this summer, I was a little hesitant to commit myself to assisting. The Bryce I remembered was not the sort I wanted to sponsor for a tour of St. Peter’s. Your mother kind of set me straight, at least to the extent of saying you had ‘outgrown your difficult phase,’” Gil reported, using his fingers to put quotation marks around the phrase ‘outgrown your difficult phase.’
Bryce blushed again.
“See,” Damon immediately jumped in. “He does that a lot better than I do.”
Bryce attacked his boyfriend. It was a way of alleviating the embarrassment. But a waiter appeared with their main dishes, and asked whether there were a problem, causing Bryce to blush even more, and both Damon and Gil to laugh uproariously.
When the waiter had departed with an order for another carafe of wine, Gil said, “Okay, Guys, I won’t probe any further. Let’s just say I am aware of the science on the subject, and of the Christian admonition to charity, so I will say nothing, nothing to anyone. Who was it who used to say that? Some comedian?”
After a couple of wrong guesses, Damon remembered some of the late night re-runs he had seen. “Sergeant Schultz on ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’” he announced, snapping his fingers. Then he adopted a silly pseudo-German accent and said, “I know nothing, nothing.”
“That’s it!” Gil agreed. “So, what shall we talk about now that I have thoroughly embarrassed my host for the evening,” he asked, indicating Bryce.
“I have a question,” Damon said.
“Shoot,” Gil invited.
“What is involved in becoming a Catholic if you start out as a nothing, like me?”
Bryce gave his boyfriend a curious look, which Damon ignored.
Gil paused a moment, then answered, “There is a program called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, or RCIA for short. It’s a modern version of the ancient catechumenate, or period of probation before baptism. Unless there is some emergency, like danger of dying, for example, this is the usual route. It begins in the fall and lasts until Easter, usually consisting of classes once each week. We do want people to know what is expected, and to be sure of their commitment before we admit them. The classes cover a variety of topics, but basically involve what it means to be Catholic as far as our beliefs and practices are concerned. Then, at some point, the catechumen will be asked to make a commitment, and will be presented at Mass to the congregation. Finally, on Easter, he or she will be asked to make a profession of faith, and, assuming he or she has never been baptized, will receive this sacrament, and thus become a member of the Catholic Church. Is this what you were asking about?”
“Yeah. What’s that bit about being presented to the congregation?” Damon asked. “Does this have to be done at some neighborhood church?”
“Well, not necessarily,” Gil hedged. “We like the person to be received at the parish where he or she will be a member, but it can be done at a campus site for students, or at a post chapel for military personnel, for example. In ancient times, this was done so that anyone who was a known idolater, or perhaps suspected of being a spy for the Roman government in times of persecution, could be confronted by members of the congregation, but in modern times it’s pretty much pro forma. I have never heard of anyone raising a question at this time.”
“Okay. Just asking,” Damon said, with a sly smile. He knew he was driving Bryce mad with these questions, but had no intention of discussing it further at this time.
Sure enough, after making plans to have dinner with Gil again in a week, and parting from him at the Casa Sancta Maria, Bryce began a series of questions as they walked back to the Hotel Cicerone, and even as they sat at the bar for a last drink, and then prepared for bed, but Damon merely smiled and refused to be drawn. He was enjoying having the upper hand with his partner, so he simply said he was curious, and refused to say anything more.
San Lorenzo fuori le Mura
The next morning Bryce confirmed with the management of the Hotel Cicerone the original arrangements, whereby their excess baggage would remain safely there at the hotel, and they were guaranteed their room back when they returned after two days in the Naples area. Then they took off, but not immediately for Naples. First they were going to visit another of the pilgrimage churches lying some distance from the center of Rome, namely San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, or Saint Lawrence outside the Walls, again referring to the mid-third century Aurelian Walls built between 271 and 275. They stopped to take some pictures of the massive walls as they passed through the Porta San Sebastiano, where the Appian Way began. They had begun their explorations here the previous day as well.
Arriving at the church, they were given a tour by a guide in the form of a friendly cleric. The original monument on the spot was erected by Emperor Constantine in honor of Saint Lawrence, who was martyred under Valerian in 258, more or less at the same time as some of the saints they had encountered the day before in the catacombs. Lawrence was a deacon of the church at Rome, and had among his responsibilities keeping the records of the church, for which reason he is regarded as the patron saint of librarians and archivists. When he was arrested by the Romans, he was ordered to turn over to the emperor all the jewels of the church. He asked for three days to gather everything, and then gave away to the poor everything he could lay his hands on. After three days, when the jewels were demanded of him, he presented to the prefect of the city the poor, the blind, and the lame who were being supported by the Church. This act of defiance led to his martyrdom. A later tradition says he was roasted to death on a grill, but this is probably a misreading of the account of his death, where the usual phrase passus est (he suffered) was read as assus est (he was roasted). Still, based on this tradition, Lawrence is also the patron saint of chefs. This legend says that while he was being roasted, he joked with his executioners, saying, “turn me over, I’m done on this side.” This story explains why he is also the patron saint of comedians. In the sixteenth century, after the Spanish forces of King Philip II won a major victory over the French on the Feast of St. Lawrence (August 10), Philip had his new palace outside Madrid constructed in the pattern of a grill and dedicated to Saint Lawrence, San Lorenzo del Escorial. Half a century later, when Jacques Cartier discovered a mighty river flowing out of the North American continent on that same day, he named it the Saint Lawrence River.
As they were led through the church, Damon said to Bryce, “Even if some of your stories are not true, I love them all. You have such a rich heritage with so many connections. I especially want to talk to Caroline Koehler when we see her again, and tell her about the patron saint of chefs being grilled.”
“You be careful,” Bryce warned him. “If you tick off Caroline, we may never get Bourbon balls again. Maybe later we can visit the Church of Saint Cecilia, who is the patron saint of musicians, and you can tell her about that. It’s in the Trastevere district, not too far from St. Peter’s.”
“Any interesting stories connected to Saint Cecilia?’ Damon asked.
“As I recall, she is supposed to have sung when they tried to kill her,” Bryce said.
Damon though about that, then shook his head. “Naw, Lawrence’s is a much better story.”
In addition to the tomb of St. Lawrence, their guide showed them what purported to be the tomb of St. Stephen Protomartyr. He claimed that the relics of the saint were brought to Rome from the East in the sixth century. Damon looked at Bryce, who gave him a look which meant “maybe, maybe not.” Damon grinned. “In doubtful matters ...?” Bryce nodded agreement. More credibly, the church contains the tombs of the fifth century Pope Hilarius and the nineteenth century Pope Pius IX, as well as Alcide de Gasperi (1881-1954), founder of the Christian Democratic Party, Prime Minister of Italy from 1945 to 1953, and one of the founders of Italy’s revival after World War II. He collaborated closely with Konrad Adenauer of Germany and Robert Schuman of France in the effort to unite the West and insure that there would be no repeat of the horrors of the war.
Only after completing their visit to San Lorenzo did Bryce and Damon leave Rome for their brief stay in Naples.
Arriving in Naples
It is about 140 miles from Rome to Naples, most of it on the Autostrada del Sole, or the A1. About half way, they paused to visit Monte Cassino and change drivers. The Abbey of Monte Cassino was founded in the year 529 by St. Benedict (480-543), the father of Western monasticism, whose tomb is there, along with that of St. Scholastica, his sister, foundress of the Benedictine nuns. Naturally, they had to visit the monastery. Because of its strategic location between Naples and Rome, the monastery has been besieged numerous times, most recently during World War II. From mid January to mid May of 1944 the battle raged, with destruction of the monastery by American bombing. It was a Polish detachment which finally captured from the Germans the high point where the monastery is located, a fitting eventuality.
Bryce explained that, prior to Benedict, monasticism had tended to extremes, with harsh practices such as long vigils, minimal diets, and flagellations. The Rule of St. Benedict stressed moderation, the monks being enjoined to eat regularly, sleep regularly, and avoid extreme penances. They followed the practice of gathering in community every three hours for prayer, also recognizing the value of association with others, rather than isolation. The Benedictine motto is ora et labora – pray and work, making up the typical monastic day. Eventually, “work’ came to include intellectual labor, including copying manuscripts. About 85% of what we have from the Roman past we have because some medieval monk copied it.
After their visit to the monastery, the travelers resumed their journey to the south with Bryce at the wheel. He managed to negotiate the streets of Naples, one of the largest of Italian cities, locating the bed & breakfast place called Donna Adelina, not far from the main train station, at Piazza Nolana 13. They had reserved their room well in advance, of course, as there were only a handful of rooms in this small establishment presided over by a woman known to the guys only as Francesca. As they approached, Damon commented that it looked familiar. The area reminded him of home in the Chicago projects, as there was trash on the sidewalks and beggars and other ne’er-do-wells slouching in the doorways. Definitely not one of the more exclusive parts of town. But any anxieties were alleviated when they checked in, as the staff was courteous and the room was commodious and clean. Internet was not available in the room, but in the lounge, where Bryce would later send notice of their safe arrival, and an account of their visits to Monte Cassino and Capri, to his family and selected others. Also lacking was any parking for the car, but the very helpful young man, Cristofero, some kind of connection to the proprietress, suggested that parking was available at the train station, only a five minute walk away. That would have to do. They were early, but checked in and checked their luggage, then immediately took off in order to make it to the next attraction booked by Bryce ahead of time.
Capri
They rushed from the Donna Adelina to the coast, where they caught a boat to the famed isle of Capri. The ferry ride from Naples to Capri cost sixteen Euros, and lasted 40 minutes. They arrived in time to catch their scheduled tour of the island by sea, an adventure which would take about two hours, but this tight schedule meant they missed lunch. Bryce ruefully admitted he should have planned checking into the B&B after the visit to Capri, or they should have done St. Lawrence another day, but it was too late now. They grabbed a few snacks on the ferry.
Arriving at the Marina Grande, they caught their sea tour at the same place. This guided visit around the coasts of Capri included all the significant places, most spectacularly the Blue Grotto. There, they transferred to small wooden rowboats to enter the narrow mouth of the grotto, which then opened into a magnificent cave. It was dark as they entered, but after they turned around to face the entrance the sight was breathtaking. Their guide informed them that the sunlight filtered through the narrow entrance, and actually lit the waters by being reflected from below, causing the unique color. He related stories about the ancient myths of sirens and sea monsters living in the grotto, and also the historical facts concerning the uses made of the place by Emperor Tiberius, who, at least in his later years when he lived on Capri, was a truly disgusting and dissipated old reprobate.
After their return to the Marina Grande, Bryce and Damon took the funicula up to the center of the town of Capri. Along the way, Bryce sang a Neapolitan song in its English version:
“Some say the world is made for fun and frolic,
and so do I, and so do I.
Some think it well to be all melancholic,
to pine and sigh, to pine and sigh.
But I, I love to spend my time in singing
a merry tune, a merry tune.
To set the air with music joyfully ringing
is far from wrong, is far from wrong.
Harken, harken, music sounds afar.
Harken, harken, music sounds afar,
funiculi, funicula, funiculi, funicula.
Music sounds afar, funiculi, funicula.”
Damon forbore remarking on Bryce’s vocal abilities.
Although they had snacked here and there, Bryce decided something special was needed to compensate for missing a real lunch, so after their arrival in the Piazetta Umberto I he led Damon to Buonocore’s, famous for its ice cream desserts. They make their own waffle cones, and offered ice cream in a wide variety of flavors. There, they indulged in a manner almost rivaling that of Tiberius. Well, not really, but they enjoyed themselves greatly.
After this refreshment, they took off walking, taking up the rest of the afternoon. They visited the cathedral and the Gardens of Caesar Augustus near the Piazetta, and then, further afield, the Villa Jovis, residence of Emperor Tiberius, located on the northeast tip of the island, and quite a hike from town. Tiberius basically lived at the Villa Jovis for the last ten years of his life, ruling autocratically and losing any contact he had with the Roman people. According to Suetonius, it was here that Tiberius indulged in most of his wild debaucheries. Even if exaggerated, these stories paint a lurid picture of the moral decline of the Romans from the times of the Republic. It’s at the opposite end of the island from the Blue Grotto, so the stories about the use Tiberius made of the grotto may be apocryphal. There are a series of levels to the ruin, which give only a faint idea of what the palace would have been like in ancient times. The primary benefits of the trip were the spectacular views as the two made their way there and back.
Back in the town, Bryce led Damon to the Ristorante da Paolino, where they had reservations for the evening meal. There, they dined beneath the lemon trees, which gave off an intoxicating aroma, surrounding everyone. This was a restaurant run by the De Martino family for decades, and one of the places sought out by the international chic when they visited Capri, so it was an indulgence for certain. They enjoyed a great seafood dinner, accompanied by a local white wine.
After dinner, it was a short walk back to the Marina Grande, and thence by ferry back to Naples, where they collected their car and drove to a parking facility near the main train station, where they made arrangements to leave the car overnight. Then, it was a walk through a rather undesirable area to their B&B. Although neither said anything on the way, they both were relieved when they arrived at the Donna Adelina without incident. They truly appreciated their bed that night.