Wake Forest Magazine, December 2004 - Past Issues - Wake Forest ...

E S S A Y
My cousin,
the saint
Istood before the glass tomb in
the back corner of the church
and peered inside. Who was
this man, dead now more than forty
years, resting silently and well preserved
in his priestly robes like so
many ancient popes in St. Peter’s
Basilica? Yes, I could see it in the
shape of his head, the line of his
jaw and, in a nearby portrait, in
his warm, expressive eyes. This is
Father Gaetano Catanoso, declared
blessed by Pope John Paul II and
soon to be canonized. This is my
cousin, nearly a saint.
Gaetano was a contemporary of
my grandfather, Carmelo Catanoso.
Both were born in the late 1800s
in the village of Chorio, just above
Reggio Calabria in the toe of Italy’s
boot. The region was remote, mountainous,
and desperately poor. Like
millions of other southern Italians,
my grandfather sailed for America
to escape poverty and hardship. His
22 WAKE FOREST MAGAZINE
By Justin Catanoso
(MALS ’93)
A statue of father Gaetano Catanoso, soon to be canonized.
cousin Gaetano, ordained a priest in
1902, made an equally courageous
decision. He stayed behind to ease
the pain of those who remained.With
that rending, the family divided, ties
were unbound.
Now I was standing in a contemporary
Reggio Calabria in the
modest but beautiful church that
Gaetano built high on a hill. All
around were nuns in the order he
founded in 1930, continuing his
mission to the poor and aged. A
cousin is responsible for all this, I
kept thinking. But how do I make
sense of it?
As a second-generation Italian-
American growing up in a close
family in North Wildwood, New
Jersey, I know well my own grandfather’s
legacy. He married a native
of Sicily in Philadelphia. They had
nine children, all of whom married
and prospered to varying degrees.