The truth about Papal Audiences

Pick up any Vatican guide and somewhere among all the tips and facts you will inevitably read about the weekly phenomenon known as the Papal Audience. The phrase sounds so official – a Papal Audience. It invokes images of the Papal palace, expensive rugs, gold trim on everything, and the man with the big hat sitting across from you in an intimate tete-a-tete.

The truth is, the Papal Audience is the complete opposite. Between three and five thousand people gather in St. Peter’s Square for each papal audience and sit and listen while the pope gives a mass in many different languages.

People plan their visits to Rome and the Vatican well in advance, and they look forward to a visit with the pope as a life changing event. They envision a photo with their arm around his holiness to mount over the mantle piece. Something  to tell their children, their children’s children, and anyone else who will listen to their tale of an encounter with the Holy Father.

It is like watching a fall from grace when I happen to be at the Vatican on a Wednesday. People step out of their taxis, or down from their buses, or up out of the Metropolitana to present their General Audience tickets, expecting the red carpet treatment. Their faces are then struck with awe as they realize they are in the company of thousands of others just like them.

I must say, they make the best of it. They find a place to sit (better get there early if you have plans of sitting), or just stand there in the piazza and crane their necks to view the holy father, who stands about a football field’s length away. They listen to what he has to say, they raise their hands in the air and hope their cameras will manage a decent shot on auto-pilot. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. They still do go and tell their children about their adventures in Rome and their Papal Audience, but no longer with that glimmer in their eye that they had before the grand event.

After the Audience, most visitors shuffle off to visit the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, to complete their Vatican checklist and close another chapter to their Roman Holiday.

If only the Vatican Guides would explain this phenomena better in the first place, there would be fewer broken hearts in this Eternal City!

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