A Visit to Catholicism Ground Zero

[A note to readers: I know that many of you are especially interested right now in news and analysis about President Morales’ move to “nationalize” Bolivia’s gas and oil. We’ll have plenty of that this week. A special caution to journalists -- before you write stories about how radical a move this is on Bolivia’s part, wait for the details. You’ll find that the decree issued last week is as much bluster as it is radical. Meanwhile, I offer this posting from Rome, where I have been visiting this week on the tail end of a work trip to Italy.]

This posting begins with a bit of personal disclosure. I am not a Catholic. I am not even a Christian of any other stripe. If you need a label go with this one: Jew who never practiced Judaism but once briefly flirted with a Methodist church in San Francisco because I helped start a homeless shelter there. Any impulse toward Christianity got quite beaten out of me, however, by the experience of serving as President of a Bolivian orphanage that also happened to be financed by US Christians.

I am, however, surrounded by Catholics, even in my house. My teenage daughter made the decision to go through confirmation when I took her to see Guadalupe in Mexico a few years ago, telling me proudly, “I have Catholic blood, just like Mommy. You don’t.” Of course my supposedly Catholic wife only goes to mass in Bolivia about once a year, which according to one analysis I heard makes her a Protestant.

In any event, all this personal digression aside, on Saturday I paid a visit to “ground zero “ of global Catholicism and I thought I’d offer up a special report.

Catholicism’s Ground Zero

When I am in Washington, riding the subway, I can always tell when we are getting near the Pentagon. The number of passengers in military uniforms shoots up dramatically. In Rome, as you near the Vatican, you get the same effect, except it is all about nuns and priests.

The Vatican seems to especially be on Rome’s mind this week, amidst a flurry of huge posters promoting the anticipated opening of the movie version of the DiVinci Code. Bookstores here have stacks of the novel piled up, in half a dozen languages, along with some knockoff versions. My favorite of the latter was one I spotted called, The Asti-Spimanti Code. I love publishing.

The first thing you need to know about visiting the Vatican is that it is a lot about waiting in line – really long lines that wind around the block – and at the end there is neither wine nor wafer awaiting you. Just the first of many opportunities that the Vatican offers to fork over large sums of money to see the inside. Entrance to the Vatican Museum, $16. The museum has more ancient relics than it can handle – Egyptian mummies, Roman statues, and paintings of all types (all types with Jesus in them). A friend of mine euphemistically noted that the Vatican has received many “presents” over the years, the kind of presents that participation in conquest tends to deliver.

Today was some sort of special anniversary for the Swiss Guards that are the official army/police force of the world’s tiniest nation-state. Actually I freaked a bit while in line, worrying that at the end I might get rejected for lack of a passport (which I failed to bring with me). No problem – all you need is the $16. In any event, the guards have very snappy uniforms with blue and gold vertical stripes and seemed happy to be having their 500th birthday party.

The Vatican is also very, very good at merchandizing. I think maybe the Disney people picked up a few tips here. At every little corner there is an opportunity to buy everything from art replicas, to special rosaries, to jewel encrusted crosses that sell for many hundreds of dollars. I don’t recall any references to jewel encrusted crucifixes in any parts of the bible I have read (The version I bought years back was used, purchased at a Haight Street bookstore, and the words “In the beginning” had been crossed out and replaced with “Once upon a time” in purple ink.). They must be in there though, somewhere.

The rock star, of course, of any visit to the Vatican is the Sistine Chapel. There is a really long line for that. But it is worth it. To get there you walk down a long and narrow stairway as a loud recording repeats itself over and over again in six languages, “No photographs please and no taking of video, and please be silent while in the chapel.” To be honest, it reminded me a lot of the experience of entering, with an equally packed crowd, the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. There the repeated announcement (just in English) warns, “There are no windows and no doors so you have to find a way out!”

I spent my half hour in the Sistine Chapel sitting on a long wooden bench, stretching my neck backwards to fully study the masterpiece of ceiling that Michelangelo delivered up centuries ago working on his back. At the very center is the image we have all seen reprinted a hundred times, a gray-bearded and surprisingly buff God reaching out to touch the fingertip of an equally buff (and naked to prove it) “man”. If God really did create us in his own image and the paintings here are right, God really wants us to do a lot, I mean a lot, of working out.

As I stared respectfully up at the ceiling I noticed out the corner of my eye that not everyone was taking the “no photos” rule” too seriously, and periodically the voice level would rise enough to provoke the grouchy Italian guards to yell (interestingly, almost exclusively in English) SILENCE!

That was, apparently, not enough so the Vatican guards brought in the big guns. Suddenly out of the semi-silence a giant BING-BONG echoes through the chapel. The guards once again yelled, SILENCE, but this time so that we would all be attentive to a recorded announcement that came booming from some kind of hidden speakers behind Michelangelo’s masterpiece – in a voice so loud it was easy to imagine it was God himself. In six languages God told us once again to PLEASE BE SILENT IN THE CHAPEL. Interestingly, when God speaks in English she is a woman with a British accent, just like all the CNN anchors. The German God is a man. I am pretty sure that the Japanese God added in there somewhere a warning that those who were not appropriately silent would be struck by lightening. But my Japanese isn’t very good so I could easily be wrong on that.

It struck me during my time in Europe this week that Europeans spend a good deal of energy having a good look at what Europe used to be. Americans seem most preoccupied these days about proclaiming to the world what we pretend to be now. People in Bolivia basically just aim to get through the day and are happy when the trufi bus runs reasonably on time.

I am glad to be going home.