Benedicaria - Relationship With Stregheria and Stregoneria

Relationship With Stregheria and Stregoneria

There is much discussion on the subject of what exactly is entailed by the terms Benedicaria, Stregoneria, and Stregheria. However, the one thing upon which all parties agree is that these three things are all different from one another. In 2005, a poster on Mystic Wicks asked Raven Grimassi his opinion concerning Benedicaria, and Grimassi responded that he had read Quattrocchi's book, that it seemed authentic in the material it covered, and that it neither has nor claims any relationship with Italian Witchcraft. In response to this, Quattrocchi expressed his thanks that all sides of the debate acknowledge Stregheria and Benedicaria as two entirely separate and unrelated practices.

The relationship between Stregoneria and Benedicaria is more confounded entirely since in their purest forms the two are completely distinct. However, most practitioners make use of elements from both traditions, and many practitioners were raised with or taught elements of both traditions, so much so that over the course of centuries, it has become impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. In many cases, even the practitioner herself is not certain as to the distinctions.

This confusion between the two practices became an object of contention between Rue Roselli and Vito Quattrocchi in May 2007, when Quattrocchi posted two videos on YouTube featuring an interview between himself and a sympathetic priest regarding the subject. In these videos, the priest (a mutual friend of both Roselli and Quattrocchi) stressed the fact that Benedicaria is not witchcraft, that it is entirely separate from witchcraft, and that the practitioner of Benedicaria is generally a devout Catholic who makes no pretensions of being a witch. Roselli cited the tendency of Benedetti to blend the two practices, which was not mentioned in the videos. The videos have since been removed from YouTube, but this debate comes to show that the relationship between Benedicaria and Stregoneria is one of synthesis and convulution.