My Sardinia

Sardinia is predominantly Roman Catholic, much like the rest of Italy. However, many of their traditions, rituals and festivals can be traced back to an older, pagan past. Most Sardinians still remember those days when fear of retribution (whether human or divine) was a constant element especially for those who live in rural villages where a family’s honor demanded that wrongs be avenged through vendetta. These have been tempered by modern beliefs and discouraged by a younger, open-minded and even-tempered generation (but the stories told by elders and passed on to children should be interesting).

What defies the effect of modernization is the Sardinian’s fierce loyalty to their sacred religious celebrations. Some of which reflect the long centuries of Iberian domination specially the Easter celebrations: Castelsardo, Iglesias and Tempio Ausania. These all feature solemn night processions with the ominously hooded members of religious brotherhoods more readily associated with Spain.

At the end of WWII, church attendance decidedly went down all across Italy but they still fill up regularly for Mass, even during weekdays in many parts of Sardinia. There are other religious ways and customs more particular to the island. Across Sardinia are scattered chiese novenari. These are small countryside chapels that are the object one or more times through the year of nine-day pilgrimages. These chiese novenari are generally surrounded by cumbessias (also known as muristenes) which provide simple lodgings for pilgrims who come to venerate the saint honored in the church and are the object of the their nine-day pilgrimage.