Yes we Vati-CAN: Easter with the Pope

Relevant song title + great guitar playing

As you should've been able to gather by now, I've been in Rome the last week.
Easter was last Sunday.
Last Sunday was part of the last week.
Therefore, I was in Rome during Easter.
Rome is where the Vatican is located.
The Vatican is where the Pope and Catholicism are based.
Easter Sunday is a big deal in Christianity and it is celebrated at the Vatican.
I was there.
It was pretty great.

I realized I'd be in Rome during Easter about a month ago, and the crazy idea of, "what if I went to the Vatican on Easter?" popped in my head. It was nothing but a crazy idea until the night before, when I actually made plans to go with some people from the program.

Imagine this face burning into your eyes
when reading the "Very Lutheran" paragraph

Let me contextualize this a bit by saying that I am very, very protestant (i.e. not Catholic). To say I was brought up in the Lutheran church would be an understatement. My grandfather was a minister for over 50 years, and my aunt and great-grandfather also spent time as ministers. The rest of my maternal family has also been heavily involved in the church for many years. The answer to the question, "how Lutheran am I?" is "VERY LUTHERAN," flashing and blinking in all caps to the point where a hallucination of Martin Luther's face starts to appear between the flashes. (If you didn't know this about me, don't feel bad. I don't like to tell a lot of people)

Despite my obvious biases, I thought it'd be fun. Plus, Catholicism is close enough to Lutheranism that I feel comfortable participating in a lot of it.

Tickets to Easter Sunday mass were free, but you had to reserve them well in advance. People with a ticket could sit in a large area of seats that had been set up in front of the Vatican steps. Anyone else was welcome, but it would be standing room only. Since the plan came together late, we assumed we'd be amongst the crowd. It'd be crazy, but worth it.

I met up with the group at the lovely hour of 6:45 AM, knowing we'd have to get there early if we wanted a good seat. What made it worse is that Europe has Daylight Savings a couple weeks after America, so this year, it happened to land on Easter Sunday, which meant I had even less time to sleep. We stopped for a cappuccino and a croissant and then walked to the Vatican.

The line for the second round of security

We arrived about 8:00 and waited in a line in the long street that led to St. Peter's. Security was everywhere. I had brief, morbid thoughts about a terrorist attack here in the wake of Brussels, but I sincerely doubted security would let anything like that happen at such a high profile event. If anything, it was probably stricter now than it would've been otherwise.

There was only one entrance into St. Peter's plaza and our bags were checked before we went in. We were then shown to another line on the left side of the plaza, in and around the big columns. When we made our way through that line, we had to go through an airport-style security station, where they checked for any metal and X-rayed our bags.

"IT'S TOMMY
TROJAN!" I said
several times, but
no one laughed.

We got through security and, in trying to find a place to stand, were escorted into one of the seating areas. We didn't have tickets, but none of us said a word and there seemed to be no objection. I was happy we didn't have to stand for like 4 hours straight, but I was also shocked that we actually got seats. I thought we'd have to get there at 5:00 AM or something ridiculous like that to get so close. I even started to think it was a mistake. To go to the bathroom, you had to leave the seating area, which meant getting your ticket marked for re-entry by the Vatican's security guards, which, by the way, look like this----------------------------------------->
Since I didn't have a ticket, I just held it in, fearing I wouldn't be let back in if I left.

Our seats. Not bad, right?

The service started about 10:15. Content-wise, it was pretty much what you'd expect from an Easter Sunday service at any church, but on a massive scale and with a huge budget and the Pope.

One of the criticisms I have of the Catholicism is that its worship services are not very participatory. What I mean by that is it's a lot of watching and listening. You don't really get to do anything except for a couple musical responses and prayers. It seems more like I'm watching a performance than worshipping anything. Normally, this makes things dull, but in the context of being at the freaking Vatican, the performance-style worship works perfectly and adds to the spectacle.

The Pope led a procession out the Holy Door (yes, it's really called that) and around the altar, spreading incense before being escorted to a throne-like chair in the back, where he sat for a good portion of the service. He came out again to the altar during Communion, but otherwise remained in the chair. The service was led from a pulpit at the bottom of the staircase. We couldn't see it, but it was shown on the video monitor.

The Pope is the guy in gold in front of the man with red pants.

The crowd was enormous. I was close to the front in a seat, but behind the seating section, it was standing room only throughout all of Vatican City. It was absolutely packed around the fountains and down the street. It was the definition of a sea of people, and it very well might've been the biggest crowd I've ever seen anywhere.

A taste of the crowd

The crowd was also extremely international. I saw and heard Italians, fellow Americans, Germans, Koreans, Russians, and Chinese people sitting around us and flags from Spain and Latin and South America in the crowd behind us. It reminded me how truly wide-spread Catholicism is. You'd be hard-pressed to find many ethnic groups and nationalities that weren't represented.

The Church was obviously aware of this in planning the service. One of the coolest parts was the prayers, which were all read in all different languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Russian, Greek, and Chinese, while the rest of the service was in Latin or Italian. I absolutely loved this and it was so cool to see the Church trying to represent the diversity of its followers. The word "catholic" means "universal," so the Church seems be trying to live up to its name.

The music was amazing. Everyone they had sing at the pulpit had a beautiful voice. While the audience could respond or sing along, the singers they had were the main attraction. I got chills at least a couple times listening to some of their voices. I mean, you have to be really good to sing at the Vatican on Easter, right? The choir also sounded great, but some of its quality was lost because it wasn't well-mic'ed.

After the service was over, the Pope was escorted to his Popemobile (as it should be called) and rode through the crowd in pathways security had cleared. He rode up and down the crowd for a good 20-30 minutes, making the rounds twice. I wasn't near one of the clear pathways, but I was still able to see him really clearly. At closest, he was about 40-50 feet away from me, which is still a lot closer to a Pope than a lot of people have been.

The Pope at his closest to me. I cropped the picture, though, so he was a little farther away than it looks.

Pope Francis delivering his sermon. iPhones
don't zoom well.

Once he was done, he returned to the Basilica and disappeared for a few minutes. He then appeared on the top balcony of the Basilica and delivered a sermon. It was in Italian, so I didn't get everything, but I heard the words, "violenza,""terrorismo," and "Jesu'," as well as "Belgium" and the names of several countries where there had been violence, so it was about violence in the world, and he related it to Jesus' love at the end, I think. He had a calm, wise, and gentle voice. It sounded... papal, if that makes sense. He finished his speech to great applause and afterwards, the crowd slowly dispersed.

I'm so happy I decided to go. What was once a crazy idea turned out being one of the coolest experiences I've had. I feel like even the most die hard of atheists would enjoy it, just for the grand spectacle if nothing else.

And I may have been a heathen as a protestant going to Catholic mass with the Pope, but it's ok, because I made sure to represent us with a shirt I bought specifically for the purpose of wearing to the Vatican: