Blogging The Religion
T
he nun with the most prominent voice in Italy told today, for the first time, in the studio on Verissimo, a program broadcast on Canale 5 hosted by Silvia Toffanin, that she does not intend to abandon her journey of faith and that she is grateful for everything that he has lived up to now.
A path, the one within the religious world, which began when she was very young: “I chose consecrated life when I was nineteen when I met the Ursuline nuns playing the role of Sister Rosa, the founder of the congregation, in the musical organized in occasion of their centenary. My mom learned of this possibility and, of the desire to get closer to the Church, she proposed this thing to me. At first, I said no, I didn’t want to deal with nuns and priests, with any religious figure, then in a second moment, I thought that doing nothing at the time could be an opportunity to sing and learn new things. When we presented the musical for the first time in 2008, something lit up in me; I looked at the nuns and felt that something in me was changing. Then came the call.”
The success Leaped to the headlines after her participation and victory in The Voice of Italy in 2013, Sister Cristina Scuccia had become a celebrity on the Italian recording scene, duetting with the big names in international music, recording two albums, and participating in various television broadcasts. After years of great success, however, a period away from the scene, the latest news about Cristina dates back to just before the pandemic with her participation in Dancing with the stars in 2019. In the same year, the information of having taken final vows, definitive entry into the religious order of the Ursuline Sisters of the Holy Family. Today things have changed, and, as a guest in the Sunday 20 November episode of Verissimo, the Canale 5 talk hosted by Silvia Toffanin, Cristina is back in the spotlight for the first time with a new look or, better, without a dress. In a long face-to-face interview with the presenter, the woman, now 34, revealed that she had definitively abandoned her vows: “It’s been almost fifteen years of religious life, I think the best years of my life, because in any case, it’s an important and intense life experience that made me grow a lot, and I believe that what happened is nothing, in particular, there wasn’t anything in particular, but it was a change of mine, a growth.”
In 2013 her decision was taken by mutual agreement with the other sisters to participate in the Rai 2 talent show, where J-Ax chose her in her team to win the victory. From there, then television and success: “I’ve never seen the conflict between these two realities, because I did my novitiate in Brazil and there seeing nuns, priests, religious singing on stage is very natural, also because when you meet God you want to dance, sing, praise, thank him. Brazil has somewhat purified that passion of mine; it has become that gift to give. I still believe today in the power of music to transfer important messages like this”. Two opposing worlds which, despite the attempts to reconcile them, have repeatedly put her in difficulty: “The nuns have tried to protect me, but probably the excess of protection for me was starting to turn into a limitation towards that idea that I had some religious life. Success hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t put my vocation in crisis. It was an inner change that made me do it as if all this exposure to success had placed me before the enormous responsibility of being exposed throughout the world as a witness of God. This made me come to terms with myself and make a transition to adult life. For me, The Voice paved the way for a change in my growth.”
Winter 2022 - 23 - The ispirational issue
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