{"id":5157,"date":"2006-10-20T00:51:07","date_gmt":"2006-10-20T00:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/cylinders-firing.html"},"modified":"2006-10-20T00:51:07","modified_gmt":"2006-10-20T00:51:07","slug":"cylinders-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/cylinders-firing.html","title":{"rendered":"Cylinders, Firing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Lev’s column on constrasting sites in Rome this week:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Talk about angels and demons \u2026 this week has treated us to a fascinating study in the sacred and profane life of the Eternal City. <\/p>\n

The first odd coupling this week was the juxtaposition of Rome’s first international film festival the same week as the canonization ceremony of Bishop Rafael Gu\u00edzar Valencia, Mother Th\u00e9odore Gu\u00e9rin, Father Filippo Smaldone and Sister Rosa Venerini. <\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

As newspaper headlines assaulted Romans with the burning dilemma of who had more sex appeal — the Nordic Nicole Kidman or the Mediterranean Monica Bellucci — another kind of beauty was being showcased at St. Peter’s. <\/p>\n

From a certain point of view, there exist certain similarities between the saints and the stars. Like Mother Th\u00e9odore, Nicole Kidman left her native country to find success in the United States. Like Kidman, Mother Th\u00e9odore had to deal with an unhappy and unfruitful relationship with a man possessed of unsound religious views. Kidman was, of course, married to Scientologist Tom Cruise, and Mother Th\u00e9odore had endless difficulties with the bipolar bishop of Vincennes. <\/p>\n

But while many may argue that Kidman has found the fountain of youth with her teen-age good looks at the age of 40, Mother Th\u00e9odore has found eternal life in heaven and left a greater legacy today in her schools and Christian witness than any filmography will ever match. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

…and the other contrast?<\/p>\n

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A more sobering form of this urban schizophrenia manifested itself elsewhere in Rome this week. As lawyers, doctors, theologians and scientists gathered in the shadow of St. Peter’s dome to discuss the dignity of motherhood and the practice of obstetrics, a little further up the road, the International Federation of Professional Abortion and Contraception Associates was meeting. <\/p>\n

MORE<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Lev’s column on constrasting sites in Rome this week: Talk about angels and demons \u2026 this week has treated us to a fascinating study in the sacred and profane life of the Eternal City. The first odd coupling this week was the juxtaposition of Rome’s first international film festival the same week as the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCylinders, Firing - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/cylinders-firing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cylinders, Firing - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Elizabeth Lev’s column on constrasting sites in Rome this week: Talk about angels and demons \u2026 this week has treated us to a fascinating study in the sacred and profane life of the Eternal City. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}