Some mundane considerations for the forthcoming big event, which concerns Benedict XVI, too! As self-effacing as he is, there is no doubt he will be the principal living protagonist in all this, having initiated and now progressed to the beatification of his predecessor at unprecedented speed in the modern history of the Church, but also as the celebrant of the Beatification Mass. And those who are coming to Rome for the beatification, especially those who have not been to Rome before, will have the double grace of assisting at the beatification of a Pope and directly experiencing a Mass celebrated by his successor. The Mass will almost certainly be the second most-watched Mass in history after John Paul II's own funeral Mass which was also presided over by his friend who is now the Pope.
Pope John Paul II ceremony
expected to draw crowds to Rome
ROME, April 2 (AP) - You may need a miracle to find an affordable room in Rome the weekend of Pope John Paul II's beatification ceremony.
Or maybe there's a miracle in the making.
The Vatican travel agency for pilgrimages says prices on rooms might tumble in the coming weeks because predictions of upward of 1 million people pouring into this city for the May 1 event could scare off potential hotel guests.
Others might resist the temptation to take a Roman holiday after complaints about sixfold increases in hotel prices and Vatican warnings about unscrupulous agents hawking services on the Internet to procure "tickets" for the beatification.
There are no tickets. The Vatican decided it will be first come, first served, for securing a place in St. Peter's Square for the elaborate ceremony marking the last formal step before possible sainthood for the beloved pontiff.
Those who persevere will find Rome in spring can be heavenly, with wisteria sensually winding down the facades of Renaissance palaces and trattorie moving their tables outside for dining al fresco. And to duck the hordes of pilgrims and students on spring trips, just turn a few corners and you can unveil layers of history many tourists never see.
But first you need to check in. The rector of Santa Susanna church, home to many U.S. expat Catholics in Rome, says emails and phone calls from as far away as Australia started arriving in January, when John Paul's successor, Benedict, approved the miracle needed for beatification. He set May 1 — exactly a week after Easter, when Rome is already swamped with tourists — as the date.
"People want a place for 80 euros ($115)," says the rector, the Rev. Gregory Apparcel. But the convents listed by Santa Susanna on a popular link on its website are already booked solid, he says. The last few years have seen soaring demand for rooms rented out by nuns. The city's many convents are popular as safe, clean, economical alternatives to the nondescript hotels that often charge upward of 150 euros ($210) nightly for claustrophobic rooms.
"At this point, if you don't have a hotel room, don't come," advises Apparcel.
But the Vatican says have faith. "Today you stand a better chance of finding a room than a month ago," ventures the Rev. Caesar Atuire, CEO of the Vatican's tourist agency for pilgrims, Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi.
Forty days before the beatification, "brokers" — others might call them speculators — who bought up big blocks of hotel rooms in hopes of booking them for a tidy profit contacted his agency, asking it to take the rooms off their hands, Atuire says.
Hotel rooms can be booked by the general public — Catholic or not — through a link on the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi site,
www.jpiibeatus.org/en/site/whereToStay. "I try to negotiate real hard to obtain the best for my pilgrims. I have a moral duty" to them, says the priest, who is from Ghana.
Some Italians will try to beat Rome's steep hotel prices by lodging as far as 200 kilometers (125 miles) away in Pescara, on the Adriatic coast, and taking chartered buses to the beatification. Pilgrims from John Paul's homeland, Poland, "will hardly sleep a night in Rome," opting for outlying towns, Atuire says.
Italy's high-speed train service between the capital and Naples or Florence can shave commute time to less than 90 minutes, but steep ticket prices will erode any savings on hotels.
One off-the-tourist track option is Ostia, a modern, seaside town near the highly recommended ancient Roman ruins of Ostia Antica. Long considered an unremarkable bedroom community, Ostia is now where many Romans go on weekends for a leisurely lunch of spaghetti alle vongole (white clam sauce) and oven-baked fish in some simple eatery at the sea or to soak up rays on rented lettini (lounge chairs) along private beaches eating up all but a sliver of Mediterranean shoreline. Commuter trains, linking with Rome's subway system, run to Ostia.
Renting a car in Rome is pointless unless you like traffic jams and tangling with aggressive, undisciplined Roman drivers. Rome is very walkable, but you can take hop-on, hop-off open air buses dubbed Roma Cristiana. The popular double-decker bus stops include the boulevard ending in St. Peter's Square, the Termini stations and locations near the Colosseum, Pantheon and Rome's many churches.
You don't have to be a believer to purchase the "JPII Special Pass," featuring the image of an aging John Paul and providing unlimited use, for three days, of Rome's public transport, as well as the Roma Cristiana and the trains running to Ostia. At 18 euros (about $25) it's a good deal (free for kids under 10), but must be purchased through the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi website and then picked up at any of several locations in Rome. Usually a similar pass without John Paul's image costs 25 euros ($35).
Certified believers get a price break and special nighttime access to the Vatican Museums, which include the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo's frescoed ceiling.
To mark the beatification, the museums will be open 7 p.m. to midnight April 26 through 29 and May 2, but only to those bearing letters from their parish, diocese or some religious institution. Admission for them will be 8 euros ($11.25) instead of the usual 15 euros ($21).
But there are no reservations for the evening visits, and lines can stretch for hours. Those lacking Catholic credentials can visit the museums during daytime hours, and for a 4 euro ($5.60) booking fee, buy a ticket online to avoid long waits.
The Colosseum is again offering special tours of the ancient entertainment venue's underground, where gladiators once prepared for fights and tigers and lions were caged. The tours, in English, Spanish or Italian, for those with sturdy shoes and constitutions, include a visit to the Colosseum's third tier for spectacular views. They run through June 30. To book, call 011-39-06-399-67-700.
You'll need to crane your neck to see the glassed-in display of Michelangelo's "Pieta" in St. Peter's Basilica, but many tourists barely notice the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva church near the Pantheon, which houses the artist's "Christ Bearing the Cross." (Crowds outside the church are busy photographing Bernini's sculpture of an elephant holding an obelisk.) In the Santa Maria chapel, you'll also find angelic faces by Melozzo da Forli', known for his dreamy blue palette. His cherubs star in the Vatican Museums' painting gallery.
For a more condensed version of the history of Christian Rome than the Vatican offers, wander a few blocks past the Colosseum to San Clemente Basilica. The church has been described as a triple-deck sandwich of history: medieval at street level, with layers from Rome's pagan and early Christian eras below. Friendly Irish Dominicans who care for the church can answer questions.
At the far end of the Colosseum neighborhood, with vegetable and flower stands in the streets, is Rome's only medieval abbey, Santi Quattro Coronati (the four crowned saints). It's an oasis of peace amid the city's cheerful chaos. Pass through a couple of portals, ring a bell, and a nun from the cloistered religious community appears from behind a grating, puts a key on a turntable and turns it toward you. The key opens the door to a tiny chapel whose 13th-century frescoes illustrate the story of Emperor Constantine's cure from leprosy and his conversion to Christianity.
For a central Rome neighborhood not heavily frequented by tourists, try the Pigna (pine cone) district near the Pantheon, whose streets include Via Pie' di Marmo, near an alley made even narrower by a marble sculpture of a giant foot. Jewelry stores and boutiques with unusual knit tops and dresses, handmade colorful handbags in buttery-soft leather or made-to-order robust leather satchels dot the streets.
Neighborhood haunts for dining include Ristorante Pigna, run by a friendly family and frequented by lawmakers from nearby Parliament, in Piazza della Pigna. Corsi, on Via del Gesu, a wine shop, offers home cooking of hearty Roman dishes including bean soups, "spezzatino" (stew) and "polpettone" (meatloaf).
To enjoy Rome as Audrey Hepburn did in "Roman Holiday," book a chauffeured Vespa from the 1950s or `60s — though there's no guarantee your driver will look like Gregory Peck — through Eco Move Rent,
bit.ly/e6O6kZ. It's 140 euros (nearly $200) for four hours. It's cheaper to tour on your own in a non-vintage scooter (motorini), but even the most experienced Roman fears skids on slick cobblestones, so beware.
If you hate to rise early or have crowd phobia, take the Rev. Apparcel's advice and watch the beatification on your hotel TV. The ceremony, led by Benedict XVI, begins at 10 a.m. Spectators can then file inside St. Peter's Basilica past John Paul's closed coffin, which will be brought up from its grotto tomb below the basilica.
The Saturday evening before the ceremony will see hundreds of thousands of the Pope's admirers jamming the sprawling, dusty field of Circus Maximus for a prayer vigil. Benedict will make a video screen appearance.
The weekend holds one additional large gathering. May 1, Labor Day across Europe, traditionally draws huge crowds of young people to Rome when the city throws a free rock concert near St. John Lateran Basilica.
For convent lodging and other information in Rome, visit
www.santasusanna.org/comingToRome/convents.html. For religious institutes accommodations, go to
bit.ly/fSzMoe
Benedict's homilies on
John Paul II in book form
From Lella's blog,
an item about an interesting book put together by an Italian Catholic author who has previously published two books about Benedict XVI. The new book compiles all the homilies that Benedict XVI has delivered about John Paul II in the past six years:
At left, Grana presented to Benedict XVI in 2009 by Cardinal Michele Giordano, emeritus Archbishop of Naples, who died last year. He was a personal friend of Benedict XVI and wrote the Preface to both of Grana's previous books on the Pope.
Grana's previous two books on Benedict XVI were published in 2007 and 2009. In both, he presents Benedict's Magisterium in terms of his major interventions here and abroad, often in the context of the controversy and opposition the Pope has aroused. Grana has a degree in communications sciences and writes about the Vatican for various Italian publications.
In a 2009 post on Grana's Benedict books,http://benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527207&p=44&tid=1c475c92295378cdd8b00f19c8ce1b9be84a80de2cc5b95082b6dd1dc4549d2a
I also posted a tanaslation of the account given to him by Cardinal Giordano of how Cardinal Ratzinger accepted his election at the 2005 Conclave.
And in an article for Avanti in September 2009 [ translation posted on Paeg 32 of this thread] on Benedict XVI as a teacher to the faithful, Grana quoted Cardinal Cafarra of Bologna who wrote at the time:
Benedict XVI is the Pope of faith and liturgy. He is a teacher Pope. If the Church canonizes him eventually, he deserves the title of Doctor of the Church, for simply teaching us the faith of the Church.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/04/2011 21:12]