If Piety Is Always Political, Who Then Is A Saint?

On the outskirts of Naples, in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, lies the sanctuary of Madonna dell’Arco in Sant’Anastasia.

The walls of the shrine are covered in painted, votive tavolette — little, painted boards given as an offering in fulfillment of a vow (ex voto) and featuring devotional scenes and images of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ.

One of my favorites features a man in bed, with a heavily bandaged leg, his small children and wife praying to the Virgin and Child as they appear amidst a veil of clouds from their throne in heaven.

It is, in many ways, a visual embodiment of traditional notions of piety, defined as dutiful devotion to the divine.

But as I teach in my religious studies courses, piety can take a variety of forms.

It can be visual and sartorial, both highly personal and politically charged. More than an individual’s particular practice of religious reverence, piety is a socially defined and structured response to one’s emotional, social and material context. And in a time of political upheaval, social uncertainty and ecological anxiety, it might do well to revisit piety and its varieties.