Art historian Elizabeth Lev, who lives in Rome, has a spirited column on Zenit (back to publishing after the August break) – she admits to being in "high dudgeon" of late, inspired first, by Madonna’s concert in Rome and the approving audience:

Rome houses the memories of many women and men who were tortured and killed for their belief in Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. Piazza Navona, where St. Agnes (not "like," but really, a virgin) was stripped and humiliated before being beheaded, or Santa Cecilia, where the material-girl-turned-martyr gave away all her clothes and jewels, are but two of scores of places where Christians can find role models that offered a freedom more authentic than Madonna’s tired mantra of sexual promiscuity.

In this city, we tread in the footsteps of apostles, saints and martyrs who taught us to "express yourself" as believers in Christ even unto persecution and death. And yet, on Aug. 6, modern Rome allowed their memory to be mocked without even a word from her citizens.

Several clerics spoke out against the show, asking Madonna to at least abstain from the crucifixion number. Father Manfredo Leone of the city’s Santa Maria Liberatrice Church warned Romans that it was "disrespectful."

"A blasphemous challenge to the faith," was the comment by Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, speaking with the approval of Benedict XVI.

But what about the lay people? Strangely silent throughout. Pop culture is part of the secular world, a world that lay people in particular are called to evangelize. If lay people really want more "responsibility" in the Church, a good start would be learning to take responsibility for how their own actions affect the culture. Buying the tickets, the CD and the videos isn’t neutral or harmless; it tells the world that Catholics don’t take their own religion seriously.

Yet Rome’s Christians seemed only too happy to separate their faith from their entertainment on Aug. 6. One celebrity attendee of the show was Francesco Totti, the Roman soccer star still basking in the glory of the Italian World Cup victory. Totti has made much of his Catholic faith, with public vows at the shrine of Divino Amore. Yet after witnessing Madonna’s onstage antics, he didn’t say a word. No objection, no regret. If the idol of every Italian child won’t speak up for his faith, who will?

(I think the DVC film did very well in Italy as well, breaking some records.)

She has more to say – about the huge poster advertising Madonna’s concert that was hung from the duomo in Milan, as well as about the new book about St. Peter’s Basilica. About which she knows a bit.