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It is one of the oldest and most revered religions in the world, and no I’m not talking about Scientology, it is the Catholic Church. Anyone remember that one? In the book Seventy Times Seven, first time author Salvatore Sapienza takes us on a spiritual, emotional and sometimes erotic journey into the heart and soul of the church itself, the priesthood.
To this very day, I can still hear the bells and the smell of the incense rushes across my nostrils every once in a while, taking me back to that all too familiar place; the Catholic Church. When I was young, I was a squirmy child and so to keep me under control during church my mother would pinch the side of my stomach when my body wouldn’t stay still. This is how we taught children to respect the traditions, physical punishment. Many of my friends attended Catholic school and all have stories of nuns smacking them on the wrist with rulers to instill education and knowledge. When you’re a gay man in the Catholic Church, you hope and pray that someone will come by and pinch your sides or smack your wrist once the night time comes and you’re left all alone in your room, alone with your physical body and your sinful thoughts. It astonishes me how many of our early masturbatory fantasies often collide with our spiritual thoughts. The moment we have our first feelings of exhilaration, God’s all knowing eyes haunt us. Especially in a Catholic home where the crucifix hangs over your bed, the same place where many of us fear hell the most. At least, that is, if you’re a pubescent Catholic boy. In Seventy Times Seven, Sapienza takes us into that all too familiar place again. It’s as if he opens the enormous doors of the church and takes us on a journey that, at times uncomfortable, brings us back to the familiarity of the comfort we once received from the messages themselves. You know; the one’s that are all full of hope rather than hate. The book chronicles the journey of Brother Vito Fortunato and his experiences teaching in a Catholic high school. Midway through the book he takes a job at an AIDS Center in San Francisco. Before he performs his final vows he must confront that all too familiar battle between spirituality and his life as an openly gay man. Sapienza writes in a unique style that brings out the sentiment and honesty of the modern times that can often conflict with archaic traditions. By using quotes from popular songs, transfused with biblical messages, he poignantly and carefully captures the essence of a young man who clings desperately to a tradition that is slowly fading. The journey, although told from his point of view, is all too familiar for those of us who still have the marks of the rosary around our necks. Some of us cast the church aside for years and then return, some of us never return, and some of us give our lives over to the buildings that seem like nothing more but a museum of saint statues by becoming priest or nuns. Sapienza captures this journey and lets us know that no matter what we choose to do with our souls, we will be alright. A message that is both comforting and sometimes lost in the Catholic world of apparitions and visions, saints and miscreants.
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