Seeing “Angels & Demons” did for me the same thing that my visit to Rome did: reveal Catholic church’s worldwide significance and how deeply rooted in tradition the Catholic population remains today. Even with Catholics making up about one in four people in the U.S., it seems like we typically think of them as disenchanted rather than devout. Not so in La Citta Eterna, where Catholic piety is so glaringly unmissable. Where Catholic pilgrims fill the city’s churches—impressive, symbol-laden buildings with mosaics and sculptures. Where nuns and monks walk through the streets in their robes—black, grey, blue and brown. In the movie, Catholics gather in St. Peter’s square to await the selection of a new pope while inside the Vatican’s walls, the church’s leadership and dozens of cardinals wonder what to do after four of the possible candidates for the office have been kidnapped. “Angels & Demons” may go here and there with technology and traitors, but the central to its storyline is the idea of the church as a community. Without this focus, the rest of the movie—the concern over the community’s next highest leader, the draw to witness his debut in Rome—wouldn’t make sense. Tom Hanks, as symbologist Robert Langdon speeds around the city, to look for clues in popular religious sites: St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, Castel St. Angelo. Anyone who has visited Rome can appreciate “Angels & Demons” as a two-hour vacation, a chance to briefly revisit the streets with herky-jerky traffic, cobblestone piazzas and countless churches. As Vatican police take Langdon to the church’s archives, I think back to my class’ tour of the catacombs beneath the Vatican accompanied by a security guard who mumbled to himself in Italian. As he runs through Castel St. Angelo, I remember wandering slowly through its stairwells, chambers and hallways on a Sunday afternoon. And as the new pope steps out to greet the huge, cheering crowd, I remember watching the people who packed the sidewalks along Via Merulana watching adoringly as Pope Benedict processed down the street, then singing together in Italian. Being in Rome, or watching Rome on the big screen of “Angels & Demons,” offers a glimpse of the religion from the inside. From the outside, it’s easy to reduce Catholicism to political issues and clichés (i.e. conservative values, anti-abortion stance, big families), but seeing Catholicism in the context of its historic places and its highest leadership , it’s a more authentic picture of how powerful, organized, community-based the Church is.
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Kate Shellnutt
I’m a freelance religion reporter and blogger for the Little Things. I majored in religion and journalism as an undergrad, and I'm now completing my master's in journalism at Medill.
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