Relative Strangers

An Italian American investigates his family’s mixed religious roots in northern Italy and Sicily in this fascinating memoir.

Italian Protestants? Few people seem to have heard of them, but the author’s mother’s immigrant Italian family was Protestant while his father’s were Catholic immigrants from Sicily. On his father’s side, with dozens of aunts, uncles and numerous cousins, Catholic family gatherings were loud, often profane, with drinking, smoking and raucous celebrations of weddings, births, holidays, and other occasions as well as the mystical rituals inherent in the Catholic faith.

By contrast, on his mother’s side, family gatherings were small and quiet, with no smoking or drinking; and religion was the core of most family celebrations. But the author had little understanding of the ancient origins of his maternal grandparents’ very different Protestant faith which marked the keen differences between the two sides of the family.

Relative Strangers describes the author’s search for the religious roots of his parents’ families in northern Italy and Sicily. He traces the history of the Waldensians, the Protestant sect which began in Lyon, France, in the twelfth century, often suffering persecution, but surviving to this day both in Europe and America.