A Saint for Aids

The author earned a PhD in social anthropology at the London School of Economics and is currently a coordinator for the Associazione Solidarietai AIDS, Milan. Recently a 16th century saint has been in the news in Italy not because any new miracles have been attributed to him but because it has been suggested that he be assigned a new role. The saint in question is Luigi Gonzaga and the new job which has been proposed is that of patron saint of people with AIDS. The purpose of this paper is to offer some thoughts on this curious proposal from the perspective of someone currently working with an Italian AIDS service organization. Like Catholicism in general, saints are part of the cultural fabric of daily life in contemporary Italy. This is sometimes expressed as personal devotion to a particular saint but also takes the form of a social-civic recognition of the persona of the saint. Thus the local saint's day is celebrated not only in small towns where his/her statue may be paraded around the streets in solemn procession, but also in large cities. In Milan, St Ambrose's feast day is a public holiday in the city, indulgences are offered to those who visit the saint's tomb in the crypt of the eponymous city centre church, and an important fair is held in the surrounding streets. The saint is also a mythical character, something good to think with. Discussion of miracles associated with saints and their places of pilgrimage is not uncommon in the media in Italy: from testimony about the well-known stigmatist Padre Pio to television investigations into the liquefaction of San Gennaro's blood. The prominence and significance of the saints are not fixed but vary according to the social uses to which they can be put and according to the imagination of those people for whom the figure of the saint is real and who promote the saint as a figure with relevance to individual and social life. In Christian tradition the role of patron, or protector, is one of the most important functions ascribed, from the earliest times, to the saint.1 Places, individuals, categories of people, even of phenomena, may all enjoy the protection of a patron saint. Patronage may derive from long-standing association or it may be officially announced, sometimes at the time of canonization, or at some later date by request of a particular interest group. There is sometimes a leap of imagination in linking a certain saint with a particular category of person, or phenomenon. St Claire of Assisi for example is the patron of television since, when St Francis set up the first crib during Christmas mass, she was able to see the celebrations even though she was enclosed in her convent some distance away. Sometimes, there is a degree of irony such as that which makes the illiterate and unteachable San Giuseppe da Copertino the patron of students. Most often, the association is quite simple: St Dominic is patron of the city of Bologna where he died and where his bones are now preserved. Although Luigi (Aloysius) Gonzaga (1568-1591, canonized in 1726) is deemed to be 'heroically virtuous' which saintly recognition requires2 he is not particularly prominent nor, it seems, especially likeable. A recently published biography came about after 'Someone, probably a highly placed prelate, managed to persuade the author with the words: don't like this saint very much. Try to make me like him.'3 Luigi was born into a noble family and destined to succeed his father as Marquis of Castiglione. However, he was precocious in his ascetic devotion, and against his father's will entered the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1534. As a Jesuit student he was noted for his piety and his extreme penitences. When in 1590 a typhoid plague struck the city of Rome, Luigi volunteered to care for the sick and dying. He contracted the disease himself and died in June the following year. His death is presented almost as a form of martyrdom in that he willingly chose to care for victims of the plague, which eventually claimed him. San Luigi Gonzaga is already patron saint of young people. Here the logic is clear: he died at the age of 23 after a life devoted to the Church and the pursuit of sanctity, spuming the wealth and power he was to inherit. These attributes the Church would clearly like to foster in its followers. Like many other young saints, Luigi is also celebrated for his heroic chastity. While the Church often claims that saints are created and feted in response to pressure from the people,4 it is also clear that particular devotions have been used by the hierarchy to particular ends5 and that factions within the Church also use saints for their own political purposes.6 It is not clear how or where the idea of proclaiming San Luigi protector of people with AIDS originated, nor what success the proposal will have. However, the Jesuit order seems to be instrumental in the campaign. Two points are worth noting here. First Luigi Gonzaga was, of course, a Jesuit; and religious orders derive great kudos from the celestial prominence of their members. Second, the official proclamation of a patron saint probably needs the support and lobbying of a powerful pressure group, such as a religious order, if that idea is to be successfully manoeuvred through Vatican bureaucracy. A Jesuit leader, Giuseppe Pittau, is reported in the Milan paper Corriere della Sera (10.11.91) as saying that 'numerous associations of HIV+ people and people with AIDS, in the USA, France, Germany and Italy, have requested the nomination of San Luigi Gonzaga as protector of those with AIDS'. The same article goes on to say 'The idea came 3 years ago to Father Giulio Li Bianchi, also a Jesuit and the leader of a youth group which is involved in AIDS'. An Italian AIDS activist and Roman politician, Luigi Cerina, himself HIV positive, reacted strongly against the suggestion that organizations of HIV positive people and people with AIDS promoted the idea of a patron saint for AIDS. 'I deny this and declare publicly that ... those [associations of HIV+ people] that I know would never dream of making a request like this.'7 In view of the Catholic church's publicly proclaimed opposition to homosexual acts and condemnation of the idea of a 'homosexual lifestyle', it is certainly difficult to imagine that the coalitions of HIV+ people in Britain or the USA which originated within the homosexual community would have petitioned the Vatican to nominate one of its saints as their special protector. However, in Italy, AIDS is associated both epidemiologically and popularly mainly with injecting drug use. (About 60% of AIDS cases are attributed to injecting drug behaviour.) Catholic individuals and or

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