We spent Wednesday touring Vatican City. Our first stop was a General Audience with Pope Benedict XVI in the Pope Paul VI Auditorium. We lined up outside the gate to the auditorium about 7:45 AM, where a crowd had already gathered. We got through the gates (and the metal detectors) and made it inside the auditorium around 8:30 AM.
Because we got our invitations through the Bishop’s Office for United States Visitors to the Vatican, we had really good seats, about five rows away from the stage. This picture shows the sculpture that formed the backdrop for the papal presentation. There was a two-hour wait between when we arrived and when the general audience began, so we spent the time looking at the cardinals as they arrived and listening to all the chants, songs, and cheers from the Roman Catholic pilgrims of many nationalities.
And then Pope Benedict XVI arrived. When the General Audience was described to us as a “papal pep rally,” they were not kidding. The audience started with a prayer, followed by a reading of the letter of St. Paul to the Philippians in seven different languages: Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian. The Pope then continued a series of lessons about prayer that he started earlier this year. Then pilgrims were introduced to the Pope in each of the seven native languages, and the Pope returned a greeting in each language. A final prayer was read in Latin, and the Pope gave his blessing to all who attended, their families, and their friends. So please consider yourself blessed!
The Pope also blessed any religious item brought by any member of the audience. This included this gold-colored statue that was sitting on the stage to the left of the Pope. We happened to run into it again after lunch when this picture was snapped.
We spent a little time in St. Peter’s Square, taking pictures of the Egyptian obelisk and the two fountains on the other side. Here is a picture of Connie Badger in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. Continuing once again on the “Angels and Demons” theme, St. Peter’s Basilica and Square was what Dan Brown used to symbolize the Air-based Altar of Science.
We then went on a guided tour of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. It was a rather hectic tour, as the Vatican Museum hosts a number of amazing art pieces, but was built to allow only 30 viewers in a room at a time. For a museum that gets over 13,000 visitors a day, it leads to a crowded museum all day long. The Sistine Chapel was just as busy, but the paintings that cover the walls and ceiling of the chapel are breathtaking. Unfortunately, they did not allow any photography within the Sistine Chapel, so we do not have any photos from there.
We finished our day walking around St. Peter’s Basilica, which is the main church in Vatican City. This photograph shows the high altar in the distance under rays of light, under which St. Peter is buried. The dome above the altar, which Michelangelo started in 1546, and Della Porta and Fontana finished in 1589, is huge, stretching out 92 meters into the sky.
A shot straight up the dome. You can tell that I really like having rays of light in my pictures.
Located in the first nave on the right from the entrance is Michelangelo’s “Pieta.” The statue of the murdered Jesus stretched across the Virgin Mary’s lap was sculpted between 1498 and 1499, and Michelangelo signed the work across the Virgin Mary’s sash. We took plenty of pictures within St. Peter’s Basilica, but after a hard week of phototaking, my camera batteries decided that enough was enough.
So the camera batteries are now charging as we prepare for an all-day trip to Assisi on Thursday. Stay tuned…
