Molly managed to haul us lapsed, collapsed and non-Catholics off to mass again on Sunday. And when you're in Rome, where do you go? To Saint Peter's Basilica of course!
Sunday morning saw us tromping the 2.5 kilometres alongside the Tiber River to the Vatican.
We stood in a long, but fast moving line to get into Saint Peter's. Once we were inside the basilica, it was a mad dash to the cordoned off area where we would eventually sit.
The ushers kept saying to people, "One hour. One hour. You must stay one hour." I don't think half of the tourists even understood what the ushers were saying. They just wanted to take part in the experience. Needless to say, most of them left after 15 minutes. Which was quite disruptive for the rest of us.
The young woman next to me put all of her camera equipment on the chair between us. Even while others had to stand. I looked at the chair, looked at her, and then at all the people standing behind us. The girl just stared at me blankly. She then proceeded to pick and chew on her fingernails throughout the entire mass, and left early.
Molly was disappointed with the experience. She said it wasn't very spiritual at all, more like a tourist trap.
I;m with Molly. I find that it is so over the top at Vatican City that there is a profound disconnect between the opulence and how people in the predominantly poor third world countries that are Catholic.
ReplyDeleteI have never been that happy with my time there, except when we went on the very funny "behind the scenes" tour, and learned some of the Vatican dirt.
I loved the Vatican, even as a lapsed Catholic. But I too left St. Peter's with a bit of a grump on. People cutting ahead in the long line and pretending like they didn't know a thing. People pushing, people taking pictures when you aren't supposed to. Pushing in front of la Pieta... come on people!Perhaps it was the combo of my bad foot and my bad mood, but I left... mad and sad at humanity.
ReplyDeleteMelissa