What centuries-old religion celebrates the birth of its spiritual leader on December 25th?

Here’s another hint: it has rituals that include baptism and breaking of the bread.

Yes, it’s Christianity. But this also describes Mithraism — a mysterious Ancient Roman cult that predated Christianity.

In Rome, there are thought to be dozens of remains of temples to the God Mithras (pronounced MITH’-russ). The largest one, in Rome, just reopened to the public after years of restoration work. It lies underneath Rome’s sprawling Caracalla baths.

It’s no ordinary house of Mithrean worship, according to Teresa di Iorio, a guide here.

“This is the biggest, largest Mithraeum that they found in Rome and the only one where they found the “fossa sanguinis.”

More on that in a moment.

Di Iorio stands under the vaulted ceiling of a cold marble room that was once accessed through a secret side-entrance in the baths above. A delicate black-and-white mosaic spreads across the floor. Along the walls are raised platforms for the men who once reclined here while taking part in banquets.

Archeologists say this was one of Rome’s most important temples of Mithras, the ancient Persian god worshiped in Rome between the second and forth centuries.

Mithraism was a male-only fertility cult that stressed secrecy and loyalty. It was a kind of ancient, macho version of a Masonic cult — or a frat.

In the middle of the room is the fossa sanguinis that our guide mentioned. It’s a large pit that, along with a sacrificed bull, was gruesomely central to a new member’s initiation. Di Iorio says the initiate, who would have been naked, would first step into a bath of icy water, then he would walk over a very hot piece of marble.

“After this, he would go down into this hole that was covered with a grill. And on top of the grill, they killed the bull,” she says.

That’s when the cult’s new member would be showered by the bull’s dripping blood.

Not far from the bull pit is an ancient sculpture of Mithras holding a globe. His head is missing, likely lopped off later by Christians who were no fans of his cult.

Olivia Ercoli, a historian, says Mithras is always depicted looking up toward the sun. But below, things get a little unpleasant.

“Below him are different animals, usually a dog and a snake licking up the blood of the bull and a scorpion clutching at the bull’s testicles,” Ercoli says. “So that would be how Mithraism explained the passage of evil into the world.”

The issue of where evil comes from was one that early Christians grappled with as well. The jury is out on whether Christianity snuffed out Mithraism or whether the cult simply faded away on its own.

But Ercoli says many rites and rituals of Mithraism were likely folded into Christianity – among them December 25th as the birth of its leader, and the Eucharist.

“Mithraism with its idea of a communal meal seems to have some similarities with Christianity,” she says. “Early Christians used to meet up for an Agape, a sort of banquet of love. This has something in common with the idea of sharing of food that the Mithraic followers observed.”

Among other things to be thankful for this December 25th is the fact that a shared meal — rather than a shower of bull’s blood — is the tradition that’s withstood the test of time.

Berlusconi also said he would run for a fifth term as prime minister.

Reporter Megan Williams, in Rome, said most Italians, while no fans of Berlusconi, have had a hard time with Monti’s government’s austerity measures and higher taxes.

He was sentenced by a court in Milan to four years in prison, but the sentence was later reduced to just one.

But, there’s no jail time for Berlusconi just yet.

His lawyers will appeal.

Berlusconi thinks he’s “the most persecuted man in history” for this and other charges.

But also, most people, even on the right, just want him to go away.

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Marco Werman: Now to another story about a leader accused of improperly enriching himself. A former leader, actually. Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi found guilty of tax fraud today. He was also sentenced by a court in Milan to four years in prison, later reduced to just one, but no jail time for Silvio yet, pending appeals. Reporting Megan Williams is in Rome, and Megan, first of all, tell us what Berlusconi was convicted of exactly.

Megan Williams: As you mentioned, he was convicted of tax fraud. He and ten others were accused of buying US film rights to air on his private television networks, and so what he did was buy the US film rights at inflated prices, through two offshore companies that he controlled, and prosecutors allege that part of the money declared for buying the rights to the movies he siphoned off and created these illegal slush funds to the tune of about 400 million dollars. And this also meant that he paid fewer taxes as a result.

Werman: Now the trial began six years ago when he was still in office, right?

Williams: That’s right.

Werman: Why did it take so long?

Williams: Well, I mean, it’s been sort of an obstacle course, this whole trial, because Berlusconi at the time the trial began was in office. He was the prime minister. And many observers in Italy point out that the reason(?) for Berlusconi going into politics was to protect himself from prosecution for these sorts of cases. So he passed laws providing immunity from prosecution for himself. And so that stalled the case for a number of years, and then that law was struck down, but he was allowed to say that he couldn’t show up in court because he was dealing with affairs of the state. So that delayed it even further. Well, you know, it’s vintage Berlusconi.

Werman: Right. And what about all the other trials and charges that he faced during his time in office? Was this one the, the tax fraud charge, the last of the charges he’ll face, or are there more to come?

Williams: Oh, no. He has more to come. The most recent one is the sex trial, that’s known sort of as the Boonga Boonga(?) trial “¦those parties that he had with these very young women, one at least of whom, was underage. It was part of his overall corruption when he was in office.

Werman: Right. Now when he was in office, Berlusconi was such a polarizing figure. I guess he still is in a certain way in Italy. Managed to hold onto power for years, but for many Italians, he kind of sullied their country. What’s been the reaction today to the conviction?

Williams: Typically, his supporters, and he owns a number of newspapers, so the headlines in those papers are the kind of headlines that we’ve been reading for many years and [speaks Italian] which means the judges just won’t go away, and Berlusconi himself says that he is the most persecuted man in history, and that he spent 500 million dollars in lawyers’ fees to defend himself against this left-wing plot to get rid of him.

Werman: Well, the trial did have a political component. The court banned Berlusconi from holding public office for several years. Could this really be the end of Berlusconi? We keep hearing that.

Williams: The end of Berlusconi politically has already come two days before this trial. He announced that he would not be running for the premiership of Italy in elections that are coming up soon. His numbers in the polls are so low. Even people who were really diehard supporters of him have a bad taste in their mouth because the economy is in shambles, the unemployment rate is high, there are a lot of Italians who are really hurting politically. And he is not proposing anything new. You know, he is 76 years old. I think most people, even on the right, just want him to go away.

Werman: The sentence he has received has already been reduced from four years to one. Is he gonna do any jail time?

Williams: I doubt very much, and the reason for that is he has the right to two appeals. His lawyers have already said that they were going to appeal, and the statute of limitations applied to the appeals. So I think he has one more year before the statute of limitations runs out for this case, and two appeals in that time in Italy, which is infamous for these court cases that go on and on and on. And his lawyers are extremely adept at prolonging cases, so I doubt very much Berlusconi is going to go behind bars, at least for this case.

Werman: Right, but there is still the sex with an underage prostitute case that’s still lingering. I suppose that could result in some jail time.

Williams: Yes, that case is still pending and he could well do time for that, depending on whether or not they find him guilty.

Werman: Megan Williams speaking with us from Rome. Thanks so much.

Williams: Thanks, Marco.

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You must have sprinkled it on your pasta more than once.

The city is in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region, south of Milan, north of Florence.

Parma is the answer to the Geo Quiz. It is the city where the first World Pasta Championship was held. The competition put a spotlight on how Italian food is cooked and consumed outside of Italy.

The first Pasta World Championship was held in Parma, Italy this month. 26 top Italian chefs from restaurants scattered from Kiev to Jakarta took part in the competition.

The assignment was the same for each chef: prepare and present the pasta dish most popular with customers of their respective restaurants around the globe, in 40 minutes or less.

Gabriele Paganelli, a chef based in Toronto, gamely worked the hot pans around his shiny chrome cooking station during the event.

He said he knew Canadians had finally begun to understand Italian food when customers started requesting a dish he could hardly move out the kitchen door at first. It’s called ‘ravioli burro salvia’ or ravioli with butter and sage.

“The first three, four years I couldn’t sell it,” said Paganelli. He says costumers didn’t fully understand the dish. They thought it was too simple. “In Canada, the mentality was: many ingredients, better is the dish.”

Most of the chefs in the competition said their customers have grown more sophisticated over the years. Gone are the days when they were forced to entice patrons with bastardized concoctions like spaghetti with meatballs, or horror of horrors, cream-soaked and mushy Fettuccine Alfredo.

But some still feel the pressure to compromise — like Salvatore De Vivo who cooks for Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs in Kiev.

“Many times they ask me to change the recipe to white sauce, creamy sauce,” said De Vivo. If my first first chef, my teacher, saw me cooking something with cream, he would kill me! But sometimes, with special guests, I close my eyes and adapt.”

Creamy or not, the point of the cook-off was to see what Italian chefs are doing outside of Italy.

“Basically we want to see what dishes are they actually successful cooking … how Italian cuisine is evolving and try to identify who has interpreted the dishes the best according to an Italian jury,” said Gianluigi Zenti, head of Academia Barilla, the Parma-based food academy that organized the event.

He said the dishes were judged by appearance, taste, how al dente the pasta was and, most important of all, how Italian it was. “We have a bonus on Italianity,” said Zenti.

Chef Yoshi Yamada. (Photo: Megan Williams)

Yamada is Japanese, but he was trained near Naples. So he jokingly calls himself a ‘Japolitano.’ He says what won him over to Italian food was the culture.

“I just simply love it,” said Yamada. “The culture, the lifestyle, the people. Not only the food, but very slow style, slow life, slow food. It’s the atmosphere, the lifestyle, they look after their families.

Yamada’s love of Italy clearly shone through to the judges. And full disclosure here, I was one of them. We awarded the ‘Japolitano’ top prize.

The ultimate proof that you don’t have to be Italian to cook good pasta.

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The project is the removal of the capsized cruise ship “Costa Concordia.” It ran aground on Giglio island, off the coast of Tuscany, in January. 32 passengers were killed.

Italian authorities are still investigating the accident and the ship’s captain, who is accused of causing it. Now island residents can’t wait for the massive hulk to be gone.

“On these hills, (there is) honey that is produced, because you can see there are lots of flowers,” said a local tour guide to a goup of journalists recently, as their minivan climbed the main road on the island.

The tour is part of a plan to promote all the positives Giglio has to offer, and to counteract what most of the world now associates with the small Mediterranean island.

Mayor Sergio Ortelli says there’s a need to counteract global press coverage of the Costa Concordia disaster. He wants people to associate his island with tourism, not death.

Tourist bookings on Giglio are way down this year, though the mayor concedes it’s tough to tell whether that’s a result of the economic recession in Italy or the wreck.

So it’s good news for residents that the American company Titan Salvage will team with Italian contractor Micoperi to tow away the ship in one piece. The two companies will work together to tug the 114,000-ton ship upright onto an underwater platform, where they’ll repair the gash on its side.

They’ll then attach two air-filled flotation devices to keep the vessel buoyant as it’s towed to a nearby port. The year-long, $300 million removal project is set to start this month.

Mayor Ortilli says the plans respects the community’s wishes. “It respects the environment,” says Ortilli. “It won’t interfere with tourism, and it will keep the ship whole, so any contaminated liquids will not be spilled.”

Those liquids include paint, cleaners and cooking oil normally used on the cruise ship. They’re still held in plastic and metal containers aboard the ship.

Marcello Mossa Verre, the head of Tuscany’s Environmental Protection Agency, is worried that those containers which could begin to degrade in the corrosive sea water.

“If they can remove the ship quickly, and by quickly, I mean months or a year at the most,” says Mossa Verre, “then the containers can hold. But they can’t hold indefinitely. We’ve analyzed the plastics and know that if the ship stays there longer, it will be a problem.”

A problem both for the sea around the ship, which teems with dolphins, fish and coral life, and for the local inhabitants, who want to put the Costa Concordia tragedy behind them so their island can once again be associated with pleasure, not tragedy.

That would diminish the power of professional guilds that currently control who can and who cannot practice certain types of jobs.

Reporter Megan Williams in Rome offers two points of view: a young pharmacist who favors liberalization and a taxi guild leader who prefers to keep strict controls on his industry.

So actors and performers have taken over the venue and are holding open mic poetry readings, skits and musical performances to save the theater from the chopping block.

Megan Williams reports from Rome.