As I write these words, sitting at my desk in Rome, we are heading into the second day of the conclave. By the time this is posted, we might have a new pope.
Therefore, instead of focusing on the usual topics related to the conclave, I am writing about something a little less weighty and somewhat significant, regardless of who is elected.
If you have ever been to Saint Peter’s Basilica, you know that the piazza in front of the basilica is a giant open area with two major fountains and an ancient obelisk in the center. The obelisk was there when St. Peter was crucified on these same grounds; it was most likely one of the last things he saw in his mortal life as he was martyred for our Lord.
The entirety of the piazza is ringed by the famous colonnade of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) with massive pillars arranged elliptically, which symbolize the open arms of Mother Church embracing the world. Bernini worked on this project from 1656 to 1667 under the pontificate of Alexander VII, after working for many years previously on the interior of St. Peter’s, most famously completing his now famous Baldacchino over the main altar.
I have been to Rome many times, but these are images that never grow old or tiresome. It is always a thrill to walk up the main road to the square–the famous Via della Conciliazione—with the colonnade and basilica looming on the horizon, which, as a Catholic, reminds me that “Peter is here”.
But something has changed, and, in my opinion, not for the better.
I went to Mass at Saint Peter’s Basilica on Sunday morning and noticed that the Via della Conciliazione was now for pedestrians only, which is a good thing, but which was also now choked with a series of barricades. These are clearly designed to channel crowds efficiently, but destroy the aesthetics of the road as a broad pathway to St. Peter’s.
Gone is the experience of open expansiveness, and in its place is, frankly, something more akin to entering a large sporting event. This was probably designed to create separate lanes for entering and leaving the piazza, but I saw no evidence that people followed that logic. Furthermore, once you are in one of the lanes, you must walk a distance before you are allowed to cross over to another. This creates choke points, which seem to go against the desire to make ingress and egress more efficient.
A mild annoyance to be sure, and nothing apocalyptic, but the net effect is to make it all seem similar to the different roped-off lines at the airport to board a plane. It is not a route inviting one to pilgrimage while “walking together”.
Once I reached the main square, I had great difficulty finding my way to the security checkpoint to get in. It is no longer a vast open space but is now a complicated maze of barricades that are designed to more efficiently channel the great crowds of tourists and worshippers from all over the world. I know there was a papal funeral recently, and an ongoing jubilee, but I was here last October for the Synod, and it was mostly the same. But now it is worse. And once I eventually found where I was supposed to be and entered the square through security I was dismayed to look out into the square and to see it, not as Bernini envisioned it as an open, welcoming space embracing the world, but as a space that has been “chopped up” into “zones”.
Just yesterday, I entered the piazza with around 50,000 other pilgrims to wait for the smoke to arise from the Sistine Chapel. But the piazza is now such a rat’s maze of corridors that it is extremely difficult, especially with the large crowds, to even figure out, “So, how do I get over there?”
After leaving Mass at the Basilica on Sunday and walking past the colonnade to my right, I noticed a new building—small, but very modern—that is the new Vatican post office building. Better than the ugly trailer that was once there, it was still a jolting contrast with Bernini’s classical columns and seemed to me to be quite out of place. Indeed, my reaction was to view it as almost a desecration of something sacred and timeless. Many of my friends think it is just fine and even “pretty” and chide me for being a stuffy, old goof who has nothing better to do than complain. But I have heard from many others whose reactions are similar to my own.
And inside the Basilica itself, there are even more roped-off and barricaded areas, making it difficult to experience the church as the vast and open space it was designed to be. There are also curtains erected that block the view of the tomb of St. Pope John Paul II and other sacred areas, the net effect of which is to replace the sense of expansiveness with a closed-in and obstructive area now redesigned for efficiency.
There are also now thousands of temporary clear plastic chairs set up, which are apparently for all the big events, including the papal funeral and the opening of the conclave. Temporary or not, their presence has become frequent rather than rare, and they completely clog the main area of the basilica. I do not want to make too big a deal out of the chairs, since they are temporary, but they only add to the obstructive nature of the whole aesthetic.
I dwell on all of this because I think it is a condensed symbol of many of the things about modernity working against the sense of the sacred. The priority of the pragmatic and efficient over the spiritual and sacramental is one of the hallmarks of the modern world and its approach to almost everything.
And who can deny that, since the Second Vatican Council (and even beginning a bit before), so many of our newly constructed churches evince this same predilection for the suffocating immanentism of the practical over the Christian aesthetic of soaring transcendence?
Aesthetic judgments, to be sure, can be very subjective. And I know that nothing nefarious was intended and that the motivations for effective crowd management for big events are legitimate ones.
But there is no doubt, regardless of the “efficiency” induced by the changes, that they are not in keeping with Bernini’s vision.
I think that should matter.
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Larry, want to hear another pet peeve of mine about the Vatican/St. Peter’s? It’s this: St. Peter’s is no longer a basilica church inside of which Sacred Liturgy is conducted. No, it seems that liturgical events all take place now in the square. In fact, St. Peter’s church may as well be torn down and replaced by one gigantic open space. There is something iconic and irreplaceable about the INSIDE of a church building. Just think about liturgies at St. Peter’s no lònger being conducted at a fixed, consecrated altar but rather one that is moved around per special occasion. All of this seems pretty much aligned with the “Pope-as-rock-star” and “Liturgy-as-here-comes-everybody” mentality. When I view papal events these days -no matters where they are- I can’t help but think of Woodstock of the late 60’s or a concert on the Isle of Wight.
We’ve lost much of our patrimony since the Catholic Church stopped trying to convert the culture and instead was content with accommodating itself to secular culture.
Alas things change, but truth is eternal- the difference between the temporal and the eternal. 🤗
Agreed. Similarly, analogously, the temple was THE focus of sacrifice and worship among the OT People of God. Jesus spoke of His body as a temple. Our Church, as a sacramental church, should signal Herself as faithful as God has been faithful. Should she not model Herself on Him–as a mountain, a rock, a timeless temple, the proverbial ‘good wife’ (Proverbs 31:10-31).
[a]A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
13 She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
20 She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31 Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
This woman is a figure of Christ’s Bride, the Church.
Only those of great faith (the size of a mustard seed) can move Her. Since a significant number of the faithful now question the faith of St. Peter’s custodians, many faithful now see Her leaders as a[n r]evolutionary guard with pickaxes put at St. Peter’s stones.
May our new pope note and help remove the fabricated plastic to which the Church has tended. May he help us return to live again on the mountain of Our Father’s faith. May he help us know anew the breath of God’s Holy Spirit. May he help us to eat and drink the ineffable food only God and His Church can give.
With Our Blessed Mother Mary Interceding for us🙏✝️💕🌹
“Behold your Mother.” Christ On The Cross Of Salvation
Are the barriers on the Via della Conciliazione permanent? I was there in March and I thought they were just for the pilgrimage to the holy door. I agree about the barriers in St. Peter’s square basically making it impossible to move about the square in a manner other than like cattle. I hope the chairs inside and the barriers are only for the jubilee year. Everything was much more free and easy when I first visited in 2004.
“…If you have ever been to Saint Peter’s Basilica, you know that the piazza in front of the basilica is a giant open area with two major fountains and an ancient obelisk in the center. The obelisk was there when St. Peter was crucified on these same grounds; it was most likely one of the last things he saw in his mortal life as he was martyred for our Lord…”.
The obelisk was “there” on Vatican Hill when Peter was martyred, but not “there” where it is now – right? It was like 3 football fields distant from it’s current location, right?
You are right. The obilesk was moved there in 1586 by Dominico Fontana. Quite a project as one might imagine. Also, the colonnades are not elliptical but partial semicircles that are spread apart. That is why if you find the markers on the ground on each side at what would be their center, all of the columns, that are 4 columns deep, perfectly superimpose.
So much complaining by backwardists!
Without circulatory congestion, how else can we worship the gods of “efficiency”? A chorus of cheers, therefore, for modern assembly lines (literally), mass production/consumption instead of Mass, and those molded plastic chairs accompanying (!) only the very average derriere, too. A critic of roundtable synodality’s backroom choreography, Chapp now complains of these chairs’ transparency.
It’s almost as if Chapp would agree that the Luddites had a valid point. The deficiency of efficiency.
I read this as a desire to control and also ZERO artistic sense. Big piazzas are for free people, gathering freely. They are for all.
I agree. The great Roman basilicas are open spaces for the faithful to gather. They remind us of how all Catholic churches were before the post-Reformation battery-hen pews and the the appearance of religious “film music”/background or concert, which turned the faithful into passive onlookers. This came after Trent, but had little to do with what that Council wanted, liturgically. Popes Leo XIII and Pius X tried to turn this around with the revival of Gregorian chant, the music proper to the Roman rite, as the best means of participation. For several generations, this revival spread globally, before it was all thrown out the window after Vatican II. Now we have to see a Pope die, or say Christmas Mass, to have an idea of what used to go on at a small-scale in every Church. Still, if Leo and Pius could manage it after three centuries, it ought to be possible after sixty years now.