Filmed in Chorio, Italy, March 2008 by Michael Frierson, UNC-Greensboro.

Today is best remembered as romantic holiday named for St. Valentine, a Roman martyr who lived a few hundred years after Christ and about whom very little is known (except that he died on Feb. 14). I prefer to remember this as the birthday of a saint — St. Gaetano Catanoso, born Feb. 14, 1879 in the village of Chorio in southern Italy. Happy birthday, Gaetano. (The video here was shot in Calabria last March by Michael Frierson, a film professor at UNC-Greensboro)

This video was shot on a hill above Chorio, the Calabrian village where my grandfather, and the saint, were born in the late 1800s. It was shot and produced by Michael Frierson, a film professor at UNC-Greensboro.

If you ever travel to Reggio Calabria, you will of course want to see the world-famous Riace bronzes in the national museum downtown. But you will also want to travel uphill to the neighborhood Santo Spirito to the church of Padre Gaetano Catanoso. On the ground floor, just inside the courtyard, are two rooms — both of which he used, one of which he slept in and died in — preserved to honor the memory of the saint.

This video was shot and produced in Reggio by Michael Frierson, documentary film professor at UNC-Grreensboro

This video on sacred Catholic relics offers elements of faith and mircles, shot on location mostly in Reggio Calabria and Chorio in Italy, and also in Greensboro, N.C. Surprising scenes at the end. UNC-Greensboro film professor Michael Frierson filmed and produced.