TUESDAY
CITTĄ DEL VATICANO
TUESDAY
CITTĄ DEL VATICANO
| Hey everybody, I'm your new pope! |
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| It was not my intention to visit the Vatican this day, but as I left the room that morning I figured it would be crazy to pass up an opportunity to see a pope. |
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| The proceedings had already begun when I got there, but it was still indoors at that point. The crowd was watching on large monitors. |
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| All the saints were there watching too. |
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| I was about as far back as the obelisk in the middle of the square, which again is kind of oval-shaped. |
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| There he is, Mr. Vatican. (When I wrote that I was thinking of Bert Parks singing the Miss America theme song.) |
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| Now he's wearing his big pope hat. And you can see the Swiss Guards dressed up in their funny uniforms. |
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| Now he's giving a long speech in Italian that I didn't understand a word of. |
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| Another proud Argentinean. |
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| From left to right: St. John the Baptist, Jesus and St. Andrew. Jesus seems to be indicating "We're number one!", Johnny appears to be flipping someone off (two-fingered British style) and Andy just looks like he is carrying Jesus' spare cross. |
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| All the VIP-types get the good seats up front. |
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| Someone was there with a Duff Beer bag. Duff is the fictional beer brand from The Simpsons. Or at least I thought if was fictional. More on that later. |
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| Many of the Catholics gathered were doing the whole thing, singing and responding in Latin and everything. I even sang a little Kyrie. I looked over the shoulder of the guy next to me at his little book. And no, it wasn't the Mr. Mister song, which which I am much more familiar. |
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| Eventually they got around to doing a little communion. |
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| A bunch of priests went out into the crowd with the wafers and wine. |
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| Here are a bunch of them with their yellow and white umbrellas. It wasn't raining, so I guess priests must be adversely affected by direct sunlight. |
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| Lots and lots of press. |
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| Here Father Zack, the cool priest all the Catholic girls want to get with. |
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| Helicopters flew overhead. |
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| On the Via della Conciliazione is the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina. And on the side of that church is this little, well I don't know exactly what it is, but there's a big picture of JP II over the door. |
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| And inside is some stuff I assume has something to do with ol' Johnny Paul. |
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