Oratories and Confraternities

Oratory of San Nicola: liturgical notes

Oratories were born from confraternity cults of worship, and starting from the 17th century assumed ever greater importance, giving the religious association which had chosen a "private" place where to meet and pray an identity of its own. They were generally built after the birth of the confraternity, which after a first devotional stage at an altar or a particular chapel in the church of origin, had a separate building erected as a special place for meetings and celebrations.
It is the "private" character of these places of worship that must be emphasised, an element which had an exact correspondence with the ideal of a "chosen" faith, shared with a limited number of people who in a period of religious awakening, as for example the post-Council of Trent period, stood opposed to the faith of the masses, which was not the result of free choice but the need to belong.
The wish to differ from the parishes can be seen not only in the concrete efforts of the confraternity to be independent from the attention of the parish priests or whoever stood for them in the city (the regular clergy), but also in the fact that they were strictly a town phenomenon, whereas in the small country centres the identity of the ecclesiastical community was without doubt much stronger
It was indeed in the small groups, held alive by personal and reciprocal links, that the spirit of brotherhood and sharing was forged, leading to a devotional development and organisation of works of charity which were effective and wholehearted, even if the risk remained that this identification might change going from the religious to the social plane.

By Luca Sinigallia (Arts Office of the Diocese of Vicenza)