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Dear Readers,
Among the many August festivals in Italy and the USA are those in honor of St. Rocco. St. Rocco and his dog, always pictured together on religious pictures cards, distributed on his feast day August 16th, was heaven's first animal rights activist, if the stories we believe, in a leap of faith, are true.

St. Rocco, with his faithful canine companion Roquet by his side is venerated throughout Italy for his intercession, and service to the plague-stricken in the early 1320s AD., and celebrated in Calabria with Italian gingerbread figures called Panepati.

These represent various parts of the people whose arms, legs or various organs are protected by the saint. He is often considered the patron saint of the wool carders and cooks. However, I am sure you'll agree that San Rocco deserves to be known as the original animal rights activist.

St. Rocco (Roch) was born with a birthmark shaped like a cross imprinted on his breast, in Montpellier, France. As soon as he was of age, he gave his earthly possessions to the poor, took up the life of a monk and began to wander, accompanied by a little dog named Roquet. He served the plague stricken in Italy while on a pilgrimage of devotion to Rome.

This was the time of the Black Death (bubonic plague); and when Rocco discovered that he could heal the stricken with his touch, he devoted himself to their cure. Finally infected with the disease himself, he withdrew, dragging himself to an isolated cave in the woods.

While he lay there exhausted, his dog Roquet found his way to the castle of a nearby nobleman where he managed to snatch a loaf of bread from the table.
Returning day after day to find food for his master, the dog aroused the interest of the nobleman, who followed him to the cave.

The sight of Rocco, now dying, moved the nobleman to abandon his wealth and follow the path of the dying Saint who died August 16, 1327 A.D.

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St. Rocco ascended to Heaven, where he was welcomed by St. Peter, the Celestial Gatekeeper. When St. Peter refused to admit Roquet, St. Rocco insisted that the dog had saved his life.

St. Peter replied that a rooster had saved his soul, but that he had never even imagined taking him along to Heaven.
Refusing to abandon his faithful companion, St. Rocco sent news of this conflict and reached the ears of God the Father, who commanded that St. Rocco and Roquet be admitted to Heaven together.

When St. Peter complained about the neglect of his rooster and threatened to resign his post, the heavenly Father agreed that the bird should also enter.
Then the other Saints all made a claim for the animals that had served them - St. Jerome for his lion, St. Calm for his cat, St. Agnes for her lamb, and St. Francis for all the other birds and beasts.

And the Heavenly Father saw that he had no choice. He ordered St. Peter to throw open the Gates of Heaven to every creature who had servers His will.
And it was all the doing of St. Rocco and his little dog.

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St. Rocco's Feast Day, August 16th is celebrated with great enthusiasm in many small town in Southern Italy. Visiting bands are hired by the “Comitato della Festa di San Rocco” and special foods are baked. In the U.S.A. one of the oldest celebrations in honor of Saint Rocco takes place in Chicago.

The San Rocco di Potenza Society was founded in 1902, by an Italian-born barber, who came to Chicago, and made a personal promise to celebrate the saint's feast day for the rest of his life.

He gathered his family, friends and “paesani” together and formed a society to perpetuate the old-world celebration.
Founder Paul Carelli passed away (1960) but the celebration has continued for over one-hundred years.

In the U.S.A. as in Potenza, Basilicata's regional capital, the celebration begins with Mass. Following the Mass, the statue of Saint Rocco is removed from his nave, carried outside by eight members of the society who then place the statue of San Rocco on a cart which will precede the devotees as the procession winds its way through the streets of the parish community and back to the church.
Then it’s on to Italian food, beef, sausage, desserts, beverages and entertainment available nearby, where all are welcome…

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The San Rocco Montescaglioso Society in Patterson, New Jersey was founded in 1928 by Italian immigrants from Montescaglioso, a town in the province of Matera, in the Lucania region of Italy.

The region is also known as “Basilicata”. I thought it was because of the abundance of Basil (basilico) that grows there but it turns out that during the Byzantine occupation, (a term for the eastern part of the Roman Empire, whose separate existence was foreshadowed by the foundation of Constantinople as the center of Christendom by the emperor Constantine in 330 A.D. on the site of the earlier city of Byzantium to replace old Rome as the capital of the Empire) a governor resided in Montescaglioso, who was a delegate from Byzantium (Constantinople) and he was the representative of their leader, Basileus (King of Greek) and centuries later Basilicata in Italian.

The San Rocco Montescaglioso Society founded in 1928, in Patterson, New Jersey, was also a Mutual Aid Society, founded to maintain social ties among recent arrivals from their region, and in particular aid women who became widows, due to work related accidents, helping them to continue feeding their children and also raising funds to help them continue at schools any studies they had begun before the death of their parent.

The society also helped their members find work or housing and navigate the socio-economic terrain in their newly adopted land.

At its peak more than 100 families were members of the San Rocco di Montescaglioso Society and by 1963, they constructed a meeting hall at 147-49 Lewis Street, Patterson, New Jersey, where they still continue to meet, have social dinner reunions, and house their library and archives.

They also maintain close ties with the San Rocco Festival Committee in Italy and their annual San Rocco celebration makes the local news. In Italy both on television and newspapers, i.e. “Tanti i devoti di San Rocco nel New Jersey”, “La fede degli emigrati” and no surprise, they proclaim that the Patterson, New Jersey, San Rocco Mass and celebration is “senza dubbio” the best.

Montescaglioso - Quella di Patterson nel New Jersey degli Stati Uniti e' senza dubbio la piu' numerosa cominita' di lucani, con in maggioranza emigrati giunti da Montescaglioso e da Pisticci prima della seconda guerra mondiale e negli anni a venire, che e' diventata, per le regole, per i costumi, per le iniziative di ogni genere, per la compattezza, modello anche per altre comunita' italiane in America.

Una comunita' quella lucana che pur essendo in terre lontane, tra gente straniera da tanti anni, non ha mai dimenticato le sue origini, le sue usanze, i suoi riti, i suoi santi.

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Montescaglioso, is a short distance from the provincial capital of Matera by railway.
The hilltop town of Montescaglioso was once a Greek settlement and is now the site of a magnificent ruined eleventh-century Benedictine abbey, the Abbazia di Sant'Angelo. On the same line is the lively-medieval town of Miglionico with a finely preserved fifteenth century bastion.

It was here in 1481 that the “congiura dei baroni” held a meeting of rebellious barons who formed a league in opposition to Ferdinand II of Aragon, from which the castle assumed the name “Castello del Malconsiglio” (Castle of Bad Advice).

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