My point was not that it was strange — as it was surely not — but that seeing it in a foreign context that I should realize that it seemed odd that it should be so. In other words, the foreign context enabled me to see something familiar — the response of these American tourists to Catholic images — as something odd. Not unlike when I noticed an Indian from the cold Altiplano pour hot milk on his cornflakes, something that had never occurred to me, though there I realized his odd behavior was in fact quite reasonable.

If a Westerner is to be educated in their own culture they must have at least a superficial familiarity with Catholic imagery. Otherwise, what in the world are they to think when they go into an art museum? What are all those people doing and why was it worthwhile painting a picture of them doing it? Much like the imagery of classical paganism: if you are not familiar with it you have missed something in your education and won’t understand part of your own culture.

And though I am a Broad-Church Episcopalian, I spent my childhood among Pentecostals and heard stories of snake-handling and such like — though always taking place somewhere else — so I appreciate the varieties of religious experience, even in America. But if you are going to go to a deeply Catholic country, you really need to open your mind to that dimension of their world.