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Suor Cristina Scuccia

April Fools

Austin Rios is an alumnus of Seminary of the Southwest currently serving as the rector for St. Paul's Within-the-Walls, Rome, Italy.  Austin was born in Texas and grew up in Texas, Louisiana, and Wisconsin.  Austin describes his life's journey as a journey in "adapting to new cultures and growing in faith through the Episcopal Church in all its wonderful manifestations."

Over the last few weeks, Italy and the world have been abuzz about Suor Cristina Scuccia, a 25 year old Sicilian nun, whose YouTube clip is the new world record holder for “fastest to 10,000,000 views.” Her rendition of Alicia Keys’ No One on the Italian version of The Voice passed that mark in a mere 3 days, and has risen to over 38 million views since March 19. It’s hard to tell if viewers are drawn to the clip because of its popularity, are impressed by the performance itself, or simply intrigued by the format of the show. In this first, “blind,” stage of competition, judges were positioned with their backs to the habit-clad nun about to erupt on stage, unaware of her true identity. Once the judges decided that they liked Suor Cristina’s voice, they turned their chairs around and came face to face with the diminutive, R & B belting sister. They stared. Their mouths hung open. And when they interviewed her, asking why a real nun would choose to sing on The Voice, she responded by saying that Pope Francis “says we should go out and evangelize, proclaiming that God doesn’t want to rob us of things, but to give us more.” In short, Suor Cristina felt bold enough to risk making a fool of herself because she was convinced that spreading the Gospel widely was worth that risk.

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