Students Study Martyrs and Saints in Italy
In Colorado College’s Martyrs and Saints course, students don’t just read about history or religion. They explore it firsthand—studying within historic churches and basilicas, admiring mosaics in Rome, and witnessing the Feast of Saint Agatha in Sicily.
Dr. Pamela Reaves, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion, Culture, Power, taught Martyrs and Saints (Italy) in 2019, 2023, 2024, and 2025. The course is fully enrolled for Block 6 in 2026.
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For this course, we don’t have a typical classroom. Much of our learning and discussions happen at the sites we visit and, on occasion, over meals. Many sites are compelling in ways that that one cannot fully appreciate through readings or images. Reading, of course, prepares us for our visits to sites, but students discern more about the experiences of those in the past by walking through ancient catacombs, standing before the gorgeous mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore, and hearing from a Franciscan friar about the movement’s origins in Assisi.
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The 2024 and 2025 classes got to attend the Feast of Saint Agatha, which takes place in Catania, Italy, and is one of the largest religious festivals in the world. There, students learned about the cultural impact of martyrs and saints in Roman Catholicism.
A crowd gathers for the Feast of St. Agatha on Feb. 5, 2024.
A crowd gathers for the Feast of St. Agatha on Feb. 5, 2024.
The Teatro Massimo Bellini, an opera house, in Catania, Italy.
The Teatro Massimo Bellini, an opera house, in Catania, Italy.
The Block 5 2024 Topics in Religion: Martyrs and Saints class at The Colosseum in Rome, Italy.
The Block 5 2024 Topics in Religion: Martyrs and Saints class at The Colosseum in Rome, Italy.
Leah Samuels '27, Abi Anderson '26, and Caroline Woods '27 at a pasta making class on a night out in Florence during Block 5 2025.
Leah Samuels '27, Abi Anderson '26, and Caroline Woods '27 at a pasta making class on a night out in Florence during Block 5 2025.
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The opportunity to have our lectures in the basilicas and churches dedicated to the saints and martyrs made the class feel very hands on. I felt very immersed in the topics we were learning about, as we were able to see the living and celebrated impact of what we were learning.
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Rosenbaum says that the Block Plan is partly what made this class so memorable and meaningful.
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It was the twelve of us going to churches and basilicas every day. The Block Plan allowed us to essentially have a month-long tour of Rome and Catania that was focused on the history of Saints, Martyrs, and Catholicism in the area. I was able to learn so much about Catholicism, and really come to appreciate it, because we were in Rome and visiting significant sites to Catholicism's history every day. I don't think this class could work on a semester-based schedule at all; Pam really made the block special as she used every day to its fullest.
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I love this course because of how immersive the education and cultural experience was. This class definitely represents experiential learning. We would often read an article about the site we are going to visit and the relics we will be seeing the day before our visit at the actual site. This was super helpful context in addition to Pam's lecture regarding the space, objects, and history while we were there, and then we had time to look around the site. I loved this immersive learning style, way more than just sitting and listening to a lecture.
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Leah Samuels ’27 appreciated how this class allowed her to visit the sites they had read about.
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It is so much more impactful to visit a church and see the stained glass windows in person instead of just seeing pictures. It makes the learning experience feel so much more real and contextualizes the readings. We got to visit churches, museums, the Vatican, cities, a festival, and more. Each of these individual experiences combined to offer us a more robust, holistic view of the course content that we would not have been able to see from being in a classroom on campus.
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