Italians are “programmed” more for perceiving sanctity than other populations.

The conclusion is that Italians are more often regarded as saints than others. We are led to ask ourselves why? In fact, we are in the presence of a phenomenon having to do with social perception. Italians are more often perceived as saints than say the French. But it is also necessary to ask ourselves by whom are they perceived as saints? The answer is by the Italians themselves. Italians are “programmed” more for perceiving sanctity than other populations. (Pierre Delooz, Sociologie et Canonisations page 179)

Which reminds me – I added a bunch of new quotes to the Smoky Words site, including a whole section on Magna Graecia, whose culture and religious traditions are a strong modifying influence on our form of Bacchic Orphism. There’s a lot of sources on chthonic stuff, nymph worship, music, dance and madness as spiritual cures and the virtue of τρυφἠ in this collection, as well as material on folk Catholicism demonstrating the continuity of our tradition from colonization up to the early modern era. If anyone was curious as to why Saint Paul and John the Baptist were included in the list of the thiasos of the Starry Bull’s heroes this will hopefully answer some of your questions.

One quote that I did not include because I want to keep it to primary sources as much as possible, but really like because it emphasizes some of the uniquely distinctive characteristics these figures took on in Southern Italy, is this:

 In her study of supernatural patrons in Sicilia, Gower reports that … patronal relationships can also be established with groups that are distinguished only by common behaviors, and these need not be behaviors that carry the approval of the Church. Thus in Palermo, San Pantaleone was the patron of those who played the lottery, while in the commune of Casteltermini, San Paolo (Saint Paul) was the patron of those who practiced cunnilingus. (Michael P. Carroll, Madonnas That Maim: Popular Catholicism in Italy Since the Fifteenth Century pg. 38)

So the next time you’re going down on a lady friend give thanks to our Bacchic Orphic hero, Saint Paul of Galatina!