The State of the Vatican has no aimless, uninvited wanderers.
You sign up for an escorted tour of the gardens, the museums, see the wonders such as the Sistine chapel where Renaissance artists have quarreled, fervent cardinals have elected popes, and hostile armies have encamped.
This “extra” ordinary community is the world’s smallest nation and the seat of all Roman Catholic Church — an unparalleled repository of art and architecture, with moments of high rituals and pageantry, endless crowd and candlelight ceremonies, and countless traditions.
People come to St. Peter’s Basilica, to witness great spiritual events that reflect the full dazzle of a broadcast moment: the canonization of a saint (where lights accent the purple of bishops) or the red tide of the College of Cardinals, swathed in scarlet, to hear the Pope appoint new members to its ranks.
Organized in the 11th century, the college advises the pope and in the event of a pontiff’s resignation or demise, elects a successor.
The scriptural lesson from the words of Simon Peter, Rock of the Church: “There is one thing my friends, that you must never forget, that with the Lord, a day can mean a thousand years, and a thousand years, a day.”
This is the only place (by Peter’s reckoning) that transcends time, as God’s days and man’s millennium mingle. Here, we’re looking at centuries instead of sound bites.
Hours or centuries ago, Michelangelo (who outlived the Renaissance) stood in the rubble, where we are standing now, contemplating the still-unbuilt sky-size dome.
He first showed his ceiling in 1512 and all Rome filled the basilica. Before him, by minutes or eras, the kneeling Charlemagne was receiving his crown as Holy Roman Emperor. Later, his imperial successor reddened this city with the blood of his defenders.
I recall that visit, by turn and at once. Imagine Nero’s orgiastic circus, when he fed the martyrs to the beast and inflamed their bodies to give light to the night.
The Vatican is a sanctuary for saints, a temporal power of war, the goal of medieval pilgrims. It is the center of the world’s largest religious body, the Roman Catholic Church.
The United Nations has declared the Vatican a World Heritage site for its extraordinary cultural importance — thus entitling it to special protection.
No other country has been so designated.
The primary purpose of the Vatican today is to provide political independence to the pope as head of the Catholic Church. As an independent sovereign, the pope is not subject to any government or political power.
We’ve seen the sick and the handicapped at the papal altar. Faces etched by worry become filled with hope. The fingertips of the faithful polish Christ’s knee at a bronze door of the basilica; prayers from millions of Christians who visit the Vatican; larger-than-life figures take part in the Vatican’s Nativity scene; worshippers clutch symbols of their faith — religious objects that are destined for home devotion after the Pope blesses them.
A basilica and the belief it represents focus on papal infallibility — asserting that when a pontiff defines an issue of faith or morals ex cathedra, in his role as supreme pastor, he speaks with infallible authority.
L’Osservatore Romano (The Roman Observer) is the “semi-official” newspaper of the Holy See, published daily in Italian, weekly in five other languages.
The altar boys play and shout and disobey like normal boys, at the sacristy or in their apartments or schools provided by the state.
The swiss guards are irresistible to photographers and young women — their uniforms are multi-colored, paneled like perpendicular Venetian blinds, jaunty and dashing.
Swords and traditional halberdiers (part-pike, part-battle ax mounted on six-foot handles) are the only weapons they carry smartly on patrol. But since the attempted assassination of the Pope in 1981, they have studied karate and judo with a black belt master.
We all remember the Polish Pope John Paul and his incredible energy — the catalyst for change in Europe that made the Solidarity Movement possible. It’s no wonder someone attempted to assassinate him on May 13, 1981.
It was springtime in Rome. More than ten thousand people had gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the weekly papal audience.
The Pope was driven around the square, as people cheered. Then, pistol shots were heard. The pope faltered and fell back, his white clothing became red.
There were shouts, screams and a convulsion of movement.
A way was cleared for a standby ambulance that rushed the Pope to a hospital two miles away.
A moan swept over the square as the news was announced over loud speakers. People knelt on the cobblestone to pray.
Surgeons worked five and a half hours to repair the bullets’ damage to the abdominal cavity, right arm and left hand.
The Pope’s recovery took months and an investigation of a possible Bulgarian Conspiracy came up.
After his recovery, the Pope visited the assassin in prison. Their conversation has never been revealed. Whatever the reasons were for this threat to his life, the pope continued to keep communication lines open with officials in Eastern Europe. He continued to move unflinchingly into crowds of people, blessing the crippled and ill, kissing small children and touching the faithful.
Public audiences continued to be lively. The gardens, curving driveways, the harmony of architecture and terrain, and mostly the people gave this 108.7-acre a sense of peace, faith and in other intimate moments, captured the human side of this age-old institution.
And while we can’t be selective with our temporal history, we are mostly concerned with just one place — this piece of earth enclaved by the Vatican’s Walls that now has a new pope whom “cardinals have elected, but God has chosen.”
