Ciao, Italia! I had a brief tiff with Italy when its national airline deliberately kept me away from my family an extra night a few weeks ago, but now it's on my good side again: mass attendance and religious vocations on the upswing.
Sister Cristina is one of 550 young Italian women who joined the country's 7,500 cloistered nuns in 2005 - a dramatic increase from the 350 who became nuns in 2003. Vatican officials say the sudden rise in Italian monasticism mirrors a resurgence in Catholicism among young Italians during recent years.
