Month: April 2007

A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days in Rome. I explored the ancient ruins of the Palatine Hill, the Circus Maximus, the Pantheon, the Spanish steps and of course the Vatican, home of Pope Benedict XVI, the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church. I joined two tours and both times had a wonderful guide who showed me around the city. She had a great knowledge of history from the early days of Romulus and Remus to Brutus killing Caesar, Nero setting the city on fire and of course the Vatican History. She even knew a lot of details about Popes and Catholic History that made the tour a lot more interesting than being there just on my own.

The tour ended at the gates of St. Peters Basilica, but since it was such a nice day, our guide – a young lady from Texas – decided to climb the 520 stairs to the top of the dome with the group. It was on the very roof of St. Peters Basilica, within sight of the Papal flat and maybe 60 meter above the grave of St. Peter that this young lady did something completely unexpected.

She reached in her purse and took out a little something that I instantly recognised as a pill package. I am not talking about any pill package, it was THE pill package. Within a few seconds it was all over, before I even realised what just had happened the package had disappeared in her purse again. Minutes went by with no Swiss guard showing up to confiscate the Corpus Delicti, neither was she thrown into the Vatican Prison. Well, I don’t know if there is one… Not even the windows of the papal flat opened, with an angry Benedict yelling across the Vatican Yard at the young lady to get of his roof. I don’t know if St. Peter himself turned over in his grave, but when I later visited the tomb, there was nothing suspicious going on.

Still that girl clearly had just broken one of the best know church rules, written down in an encyclical by Pope Paul VI knows as “Humanae Vitae”, right in the center of the Catholic world. In short words: “You shall not use contraceptives”.

Would I call the young lady insensitive? Maybe – but four o’ clock is probably just her “pill time” and even if she is on the roof of a church, she still has to take it if she dose not want to fulfil her catholic duties when “making love”. But wait, she wasn’t married either, so another church law broken! You know… no exchange of bodily fluids if a priest has not given his consent.

Could it be that this young lady dose not care about “church laws” at all, even on holy ground? Is there any difference in taking the pill in a church (or on a church in our case) or at home, on the bus or at work? What is the power of the pope and the Catholic Church, if rules are not followed or even respected within the walls of the Vatican? Will that young lady go straight to hell?

Well, so many questions and no real answer to them. I know that I should have at least around three to five kids if I followed Catholic protocol. But on the other hand, I have a dim feeling that the Catholic Church should seriously starts re-thinking what is important and start addressing real problems of today in a way we can understand them. Right now that is what I am missing the most.