Posted on 04/27/2005 5:15:51 PM PDT by ConservativeStLouisGuy
April 14 -- The Longest Week – EVER
I am firmly convinced that all Italians take a class in elementary school called, “How One Person Can Obstruct a Sidewalk So As To Impede Anyone From Passing.” And they all get perfect scores. Patience is a virtue of which I am not possessed and it is my spiritual combat of every day to live in a city where the simplest things that Americans take for granted are so much more complicated than they really need be. Francesco has a habit that drives me to the fury of a thousand suns of tripping all over me as we walk together, to which I invariably question at least once a day, “Can you people not walk in a straight line ever?” To which he inevitably responds with a patriotic defence of how Italian irregularity has made them the paragons of culture and that they were in the fullness of the Renaissance while we were living in teepees, that while Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel, we had, what again? Va bene. But the Italian penchant for blocking entire sidewalks means that getting anywhere is not easy, and the concept of a queue is foreign.
The other day the Vatican Post Office debuted the sede vacante stamps. Philatelists are all into this kind of thing, and so they are evidently a collector’s item. I get emails from the States, Please get some sede vacante stamps and so I wait in the queue relatively patiently (I was having a good day in the spiritual combat), since I was out of stamps anyway. The police control the traffic and after a couple of decades of the rosary I am led into the Post Office to wait in yes, another queue. The Calabrese who just cut in front of me pretends not to notice that he just did so, and I grip my beads with extra force as I am not successful in the attempt to avoid calling to mind all of the nasty words I have learned in these years of living with the Italians for people like him. I buy my stamps, think for a minute about trying to get in to see the tomb of the recently deceased pontiff to pray for the miracle of becoming a patient shepherd of the flock when I look at my watch and realise that I will be terribly late for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the seminary, that daily hour of prayer which keeps us all from becoming savages (even more than we already are). By the way, one of the Scots scoffed at me for not using my magic words: when he went to the Post Office in Saint Peter’s Square, the queue was immense and there was one person working, Inside the Vatican itself, a queue of three people, and four attendants working.
I run under the sottopassaggio hoping to catch the 571 from Porta Cavallegeri to the Lateran and am accosted by the gypsies as usual. I do not why they make the mental association of Roman collar with free ATM, especially as one of the regulars has no shame stretched out on the ground like Paulina Borghese with a cel phone and cigarette in one hand and holding out her other hand for alms. It reminds me of the young kid whose leg contortions were so convincing that I nearly gave him money, but didn’t get a chance to since he had to sprint like a gazelle to catch the 85 that he got on without a ticket, of course. The zingara in front of the Lateran Baptistery has a new sign in English: “I am old and fat and nobody will hire me.” Points for originality.
Yes, life is beginning to go back to normal. Each Mass in Saint Peter’s, there is a mass for the novemdiales, the mourning for the pope, and on Sunday we went for Cardinal Ruini’s mass, which was the tribute of the Diocese of Rome. I would like to go to the others, especially the Eastern Rite Mass today, but I have so many other things to do. The Roman deacons are on retreat preparing for their ordination which will be, who knows when? The rest of us are all frantically trying to do organise everything for our ordinations: picking up the ordination alb, planning the menu for the formal dinners, will the Mayor be there and where should he sit, how do you incense the altar properly again, will my chalice be back in time from the restorers, will I have enough money to go to my classmates’ ordination in Bulgaria, when am I going to open the books again?
We go to the Giuseppine sisters on the Lungotevere. If you have ever wondered who takes care of all of the linens at Saint Peter’s, you have to talk to the sisters whose house is down the Tiber. Roberto and I stop by to empty our bank accounts and ask, Come va? We’re there about an hour and half as they recount the stories of what it is like to wash, dry and iron albs, amices, and purificators every day for some 600 odd priests. They do it all with joy and prayer, but even the indomitable nuns admit of being a little tired after endless days and nights in cotton and starch and detergent.
The Rector of our seminary is not pleased that amidst all of these extraordinary events, the guys are not just going about the ordinary business of seminary life. It is true that virtue is proved by fidelity to “the little things,” so the word of the day is Get back to your daily duties. I am waiter in the refectory at lunch and dinner. I have spent more hours of my five years in the seminary in the kitchen working than I have in the chapel and am determined to open a nice trattoria in my parish. The people in the streets are filled with stories that they want to share about the Pope, speculations about the future of the Church, and are willing to share them with anyone in a collar who is willing (or not) to listen. And of course, the seminary grapevine invents, revises, and transmits the fruit of similar mental gymnastics, between courses at pranzo or on the walk to the Gregorian University.
Ratzinger seems to be ahead, Schönborn has made a bella figura around the city, the cardinals have all been visiting their titular churches and national colleges, and the North American College on the Janiculum Hill has been a media circus. The Latin Americans are supposed to vote as one bloc (that could be decisive) but it seems that more than one of them is much more independent minded than the others are banking on. The newspapers are pitting Ratzinger versus Sodano, Ruini, Tettamanzi; The Italians loved the Pole, but they want the papacy back, but they just may fumble it, as they are too divided to present a united bloc. Foreign journalists want to be the kingmakers and the clergy from those same nations scoff at their predictions. American journalists show a regrettable ignorance reading every event in the light of Bernard Law, showing a pitiful lack of knowledge of how anything works in this city. All eyes and ears are on Rome, and the Roman Seminary is sure that none of those eyes and ears sense her inmates, except when they are on the altar.
Monday conclave begins, and of course, we will be there. In what capacity, who knows? We are plotting already how we can get to Saint Peter’s the fastest way from the Lateran when the white smoke comes out of the stufa and the bells ring. He just can’t be elected on Tuesday morning because I have class, and won’t hear the news. I’m reading about the process of conclave in the days of the Pontifical States. Perhaps I should open my textbooks, but this is so much more interesting right now.
A journal entry of no import at all, but enough to show that even in sede vacante, life goes on. The Church goes on. And I am off to Vespers.
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