Italians, a people of saints, poets and navigators it was once said, but also of people who pray online. Those who follow Google trends will have noticed that today, May 8, many have put Eurovision aside and are focusing on Supplication to the Madonna of Pompeii, highly sought after on the web so much so that user searches on Google skyrocket (with an average monthly search volume of 18,100). This religious tradition is held twice a year, i.e October 7date of the Madonna of the Rosary, but also precisely theMay 8th, in which the apparition of St. Michael the Archangel is also celebrated. The dates were chosen by Blessed Bartolo Longo, the religious man who started devotion to the Madonna in the Campania town at the end of the 19th century. And it is precisely in Pompeii that this supplication has been celebrated for over a century and is also broadcast on television (at a national level, for example, live from 10am on Tv2000the TV of the Italian Episcopal Conference).
It is not strange that religious observances like this also result in a spike in online searches. Indeed, religious trends have been spreading decisively on social media in recent years, conveyed above all by platforms such as TikTok. Priests and nuns are becoming creators, with their community of followers, live broadcasts in which we pray together and videos in which we answer the questions and doubts of the faithful. A bit like in previous decades the success in terms of television audiences was sanctioned rosaries live or by TelePadrePio, today Christianity is looking for new followers among the meanders of the reels, perhaps in an attempt to intercept the gen Z who is increasingly elusive to dogmas and unshakable beliefs. In the meantime, a mix of old faithful and new curious ones crowds the search engines to revive increasingly rarefied traditions in the analogue world.
