The Pious Come Marching In

In 1295, according to legend, the house of the Virgin Mary landed in what is now the Italian town of Loreto after a miraculous flight from Nazareth. That association with air travel has been enough to make the town of 9,500 a profitable center of jet-age piety. Last week at least 50,000 pilgrims crammed in to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a papal proclamation designating the Madonna of Loreto as protector of aviators; they overflowed the 20 hotels and dozen boarding houses that have gone up in Loreto in recent years. Prosperity from tourism has helped Loreto entrepreneurs to finance several small factories producing souvenirs and religious objects on the periphery of the town.

Many other Italian towns have also reaped a bonanza from the piety of pilgrims. Isola del Gran Sasso is an island of noisy prosperity in the depressed area of the Abruzzi Mountains because of the shrine of San Gabriele dell' Ad-dolorato, who is revered for his patience and submission to the will of superiors. On the saint's feast day, Feb, 21, the piazza in front of the shrine rings with the din of jukeboxes and shooting galleries and the cries of vendors selling rosaries and cold beer. Some 300,000 pilgrims yearly visit the shrine of St. Philomena in Mugnano del Cardinale, near Naples--even though Philomena was removed from the Catholic liturgical calendar in 1961.

As a business, though, playing host to pilgrims has its ups and downs. As many as 35,000 visitors yearly packed into San Giovanni Rotondo during the life of Padre Pio di Pietreleina, a friar who was said to have received the stigmata; some paid up to $30 for bandages he was said to have worn. His death in 1968 brought deep recession: the town's taxicab fleet, for example, dwindled from 15 to three. Residents' spirits perked up in February, when proceedings for Padre Pio's canonization began, and local authorities started building such projects as a "Way of the Cross," in the hope of eventually attracting a new flood of pilgrims.

The 2,000 residents of Sotto il Monte hope that the late Pope John XXIII will one day be formally recognized as a saint. That, they feel sure, would increase the budding pilgrimage boom to the village where John was born. Already there is a sufficient rush of weekend visitors to support three new restaurants, and the anniversary of the Pope's death last June 3 attracted a crowd of 15,000--more than seven times the village's population.

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