this is the role of catholic piety and devotion was -- devotionalism during the immigrant era. i mean non-liturgical forms of prayer,n novenas, stations of the cross, rosary, pilgrimages benediction, particular saints, and so forth. it is important to remember these euro catholics brought different types of catholicism to america. by way of analogy, we can say latinos can also bring different types of catholicism to the contemporary american experiences. in terms of old immigration, there were stark contrast between irish-american catholicism and italian-american catholicism. many of the irish recoiled at what was taken as some of the "pagan and casual practices of catholic immigrants from southern and eastern europe." italian catholicism had a deep-seated distrust of formal institutional religion and church hierarchy. one group was quite anticlerical. the experience in southern italy was that of a landlord that extracted high rent, exercised power that retarded italian unification, and so forth. in the latter regard, it is also important to recognize these different ethnic gro