Song of the day: Changes by Tupac This song made it on the Vatican’s MySpace playlist in 2009 alongside Mozart and Muse, to name a few. Lyrics include “Is life worth living, should I blast myself?” “Give the crack to the kids, who the hell cares, one less hungry mouth on the welfare,” and “My stomach hurts, so I’m looking for a purse to snatch. At another point, Tupac sings “Cause both black and white are smokin’ crack tonight.” :-)))))) Catholicism is weird.
Today was a holy one – we explored the minds of some employees of the Vatican’s media facility, which is incredibly extensive. A fellow USA-er employee was present and took us through his whole journey coming to Rome from the US. The one female employee that was present seemed to have very interesting stories to tell about her ethnic background and experience with photography, but she didn’t speak nearly as much as I wished she would have, and seemed to be rather overpowered by the other male employees present. It was compelling to explore the ethics of the Vatican as far as journalism goes. The Pope has a substantial team behind him who does all of his communicating for him, essentially. This is a very (understatement) interesting country to be a journalist.
Before our full-blown Vatican visit, we filled up on food at a lovely little lunch spot. Feast thine eyes below.
Then, the Vatican! Wowza! Lots of fancy bobbles and bells. And the Sistine Chapel. And a gift shop composed strictly of crucifixes, miniature bottles of holy water, and magnets with the pope’s face plastered on them.
True life: I jested that they worshiped this “pinecone,” but then found it truly is supposed to represent a real life pinecone and that where we were standing was quite literally referred to as “Pinecone Square.” You can’t make that stuff up, folks.
As a nondenominational Protestant Christian who attends a rather small, urban church in the city, this day was one big shock after another for me. To see so much opulence concentrated in one geographic location was overwhelming in a way that I’m not so sure I liked. It’s a hard pill to swallow for a fellow Christian to see how much empty money is stuffed into so little square inches. The Sistine Chapel (I found out some weird stuff about Michelangelo and that was really wild) was so packed with tourists that we could barely breathe or move. I don’t think that’s how church should feel ever, even if it is an artistic heirloom. You could send your gift shop knick knacks away to be “blessed,” and they would then be delivered the next day to an Italian address. Lots of this day just felt like a scheme to acquire as much money as humanly possible and as quickly as possible.
Our night ended with cramming ourselves into a tiny corner while it poured the rain, and more pizza (no one is surprised). It should also be noted that at this point in our journey, we are delirious thanks to a lack of sleep and are probably all going to keel over very soon. (This is not a cry for help.)
Thanks for reading this weird rambles! Ciao!
Affectionately,
Em