More Than Just the Architecture

For me, visiting the cathedrals of Europe as an adult was an artistic, historical and cultural experience, but not a religious one. I admired flying buttresses, marveled at the time and effort expended to construct these monuments, and examined votive offerings and reliquaries containing pieces of long-dead saints. I oohed at Notre Dame, coohed at Westminster Abbey, aahed at the Cathedral of Seville. But to me, they might just as well have been museums, houses of parliament, or obelisks of extraordinary dimensions and beauty.

The product of a marriage between a non-practicing Cuban Catholic mother and an occasionally practicing American Jewish father, I was brought up as a Reform Jew. I can remember celebrating Christmas as a child, but I rarely attended a Christian Mass. There was a period when I viewed churches with suspicion--as a symbol of the religion that, dominant in my home country, the U.S., seemed to crowd my own beliefs and to want me to practice theirs.

As a college graduate bumming around Europe with my roommate, I traipsed in and out of churches with an educated sophistication that allowed me to remain indifferent to their spiritual significance. I was far more comfortable seeing them as works of art than as actual places of worship. So inured was I that when my friend, a Catholic, suggested we attend Mass at the Vatican while we were in Rome, I didn't hesitate. It would be a good cultural experience, I thought; one more story to add to the tales of my European travels.

I had actually been in St. Peter's Cathedral before, on a previous trip, so I was prepared to be awed by the enormous nave, the ethereal sunlight staining the gilded lettering around the dome, the papal tombs, and the lists of languages on the confessional booths.

Despite my five years of required Latin in high school, I understood little of what was going on. Although my friend couldn't have understood much more of the language than I did, she was familiar with the service and seemed to be following attentively. I settled myself into the attitude of an observer, trying not to appear too obviously bored.

It occurred to me that I must be witnessing the same service that my mother had heard as a girl in Cuba. I wondered how much of the version she knew had been in Latin, and how much in Spanish. I remembered the only other time, aside from weddings, that I had attended a service in a church. We had accompanied my grandmother, visiting from Florida, to the Sunday Mass in our neighboring church. As I was very young then, the only thing I remember is being bored and wishing I had a book to read. That service, in English, must have been almost as incomprehensible to my Cuban grandmother as this Latin was to me--as incomprehensible as an Orthodox Jewish service, all in Hebrew, would be to me, as well.

On our way in through the plaza I had considered buying a rosary for my aunt from one of the street vendors, deciding between the pink and crystal, coral, or black with painted red roses. She would love it, I thought, a rosary straight from the Vatican. But I had decided I didn't want to bond with her through Christianity.

The rhythm of the murmuring around me changed. My friend turned and embraced me, and, though caught off guard, I hugged her back. People all around us were shaking hands, smiling at each other. I looked around and shook away my thoughts, getting ready to leave, but my friend had already turned her attention back to the priest, and the service was starting again. The sense of being out of step was familiar. I remembered being caught by the same moment, relaxing into informality before the service was actually over, some years earlier at the Confirmation of a friend--one more time that I had attended a service in a church. Despite my childhood reluctance, I had been unable to avoid having some experiences with the dominant religion in my country.

Watching the multi-ethnic faces of the worshipers around me, I realized that although Christianity might not be my religion, that didn't mean I had to ignore or invalidate it in order to protect my own beliefs. Neither my relatives, nor my friends, nor anyone in any of the churches I had entered, had ever managed to convert me. My Catholic relations had accepted my Jewish father and his religion, sent us Christmas presents and cards but never tried to convince us that our religion was wrong. Some of my aunts had even come to my Bat Mitzvah (ceremony in which a person accepts the responsibilities and privileges of an adult member of the Jewish community), and one of my cousins had sent me a beautiful Star of David. Why shouldn't I buy a crucifix for my aunt, if it was something that would have meaning for her?

The service finally ended, and my friend took my arm with renewed warmth. "Thanks for coming with me," she said.

"It was my pleasure," I replied. "When you're done in here, I want to go buy something outside."