Alone under Catholics...
Before we arrived at Roma Termini (train station) I did not
have many expectations. I generally never have many expectations for things,
because I hate planning things out thoroughly. I just take things as they come. Sometimes
that’s a good thing, but sadly it’s usually an annoying habit that makes it almost
impossible for me to do stuff on time. Anyways, all I expected from this trip
were tons of pasta, meeting my friend Giuseppe and seeing LOTS of churches. Our
group was almost entirely made up of Catholic Theology students and I want to add that
every single one of them was super nice and not at all how you would imagine
them to be. They kept asking if it wasn’t too much for us since the focus of
the trip was very much on religious aspects of Rome & the Vatican. I can
only recommend going on a field trip with Theology students, because from my
experience they sure seem to be the nicest people of the entire university. So
much so that I even looked through the program of the faculty to see if I might
find a new major there haha I’m not even joking.
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| The Pantheon |
We spent the night in a sleep wagon with 6 bunks in one compartment. The window
couldn’t be opened so sleeping on the top bunk felt like sleeping in a sauna. A
very, very tiny sauna haha. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well, but oh
well, I was excited for Rome. I’m not even going to mention the breakfast we
got in the morning. The price for the whole trip was more than reasonable, so I’m
not going to complain about it. The sun was up and it was nice and warm when we
arrived. We took the bus line to our hotel and apparently the
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| Castel Sant'Angelo |
maximum number of
passengers a bus “can” hold is twice as big in Rome as in Graz. The busses were
so stuffed with people that you didn’t even need anything to hold onto, because
you were held by all the people surrounding you anyways. When we arrived at our
hotel I was a little bit surprised (I might have had a tiiiiiny expectation
there haha), because from what I’ve heard from our professors it sounded more
like a hostel. It was a really nice hotel run by Pallottine Sisters (nuns) with
a fridge in the lounge for everybody to use. My boyfriend and I had a really
nice room with a HUGE (and I mean HUGE!!!) balcony from which we could catch a
glimpse of the St. Peter’s square. We also had a bathroom in our room while
other people from our group apparently had to use showers and toilets out in
the hallway.
We had a bit of free time between arriving at the hotel and starting our
program for the day so we went to shop for a few groceries. Prior to that I
asked our professor if I could use the hotel kitchen to cook my own food (yes,
I’m a bit stingy), but that wasn’t possible. That meant I at least had a reason
to HAVE TO eat out a lot which usually I rarely ever do (but love). At the grocery store I
bought some bread, jelly and soy yogurt. I was going to buy some water too, but
there are fountains all throughout Rome with drinking water so we just always
filled up our bottles there (kaching!).
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| Drinking water fountain in Rome (Source: Google) |
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| Santa Maria dell'Anima |
We visited SOOOO many churches and other interesting buildings that it would
probably make more sense to just name them all at once and then write about
what stuck to my mind about them (if anything). We visited Santa Maria dell'Anima, Santa Maria sopra
Minerva, Santa Maria della Pietà (+ Campo Santo Teutonico), St. Paul Outside
the Walls, St. Peter’s Church (+ dome), the catacombs, Archbasilica of St. John
Lateran, Silvester Chapel, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Clemente, Trinità dei Monti, Il
Gesù, San Ignazio. That was what our professors planned. We also had quite a
bit of free time so my boyfriend, having been in Rome before, had a few things
planned to see as well.
Inside of Santa Maria sopra Minerva is a replica of the
corpse of the saint Catherine of Siena and there is a small opening in the
coffin-type-of-thing for people to kneel in and pray to that…replica of a
corpse. Being a protestant (and not a practicing one at that) it was very
interesting to me to watch this catholic custom. We walked over the Piazza
Navona which is like a main square for artists. There are so many of them sitting
there making all sorts of paintings including caricatures of people which,
later that week, would result in my face
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| Piazza Navona |
landing on a piece of paper as well. The
Holy Mass in the church Santa Maria della Pietà was held in German and I’m
going to quote (and translate to English obviously) two statements the priest
there made that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. He said “Alone we are helpless”
meaning without God we are helpless and “Inner peace comes from God”. I guess I
don’t have to explain how that makes me a bit mad. Another thing that I don’t
like about (catholic) masses is when they have that one guy walk around with
the bag you’re supposed to put money in. Asking for money to renovate the
church or for a charity project is fine, but put the bag somewhere and people
can go there themselves to put money inside. Don’t send someone walking around
holding that bag under people’s noses and shame them into giving money. Plus,
it’s not like there aren’t already boxes for donations at the entrance of the
church. Geez. Okay, quick rant over haha. If you get the chance you should
definitely pay the 5 € (or 7 € if you don’t want to walk ALL the stairs and use
the elevator) to get on top of the St. Peter’s dome, because the view is quite
awesome! The weather wasn’t too great when we were there but you can still get
a great view over Rome.
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| View from the St. Peter's dome on the St. Peter's square |
We also got the chance to talk to Monsignore Dr. Matthias Türk about ecumenical
questions we had. I figured that I might never again have the chance to ask
someone as far into the actual Vatican as him the question that interests me
most about Catholicism. “Why can’t women be priests and do you see this
changing at some point in the future?” Well, he wasn’t all too thrilled that I
obviously didn’t know that this question didn’t fit the topic of our meeting.
He told me that I should probably ask my professor that question as he is a
professor of dogmatic. Then, however, he went on saying that women simply weren’t
appointed to be priests by Jesus Christ like men were. While I thought about
that statement he said something else that I didn’t quite catch. The girl
sitting next to me seemed to have understood and whispered to me “I’m actually
embarrassed to be studying Theology right now…” After the meeting was over I
was told that he said something along the lines of “Women just don’t have the
same charisma as men do.” I’m not even going to say a single word about what I
think of that statement. My professor told me that he was not too pleased with
Mr. Türk’s explanation either and said that he would like explain it to me
another time. Which he did a few days later and what he said made sense. There
is a church reformation going on, but the church simply doesn’t seem to be
ready to take that huuuuuuuuuuuuge step yet to let women become priests. He
also said that it was something he himself does not entirely agree on with the
church.
The catacombs are also definitely worth seeing. It was quite creepy down there,
especially
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| The Catacombs (Source: Google) |
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seeing all the graves of little kids. Brrr. The next church we saw
was San Clemente which, if I had to pick, was probably my favorite church of all
the ones we saw. If I remember correctly it has two more stories (and by that I
obviously don’t mean stories to tell, but architectural stories) that are
underground but there is an altar too and it just looked really awesome. Admittedly, after the third church we visited, all the other ones started to look the same to me. The art you get to see in them though makes it worth walking all over Rome to see every single one.
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| San Clemente - lower church (Source: Google) |
We saw
Pope Francis twice that week. One was just a usual Holy Mass and during the other Holy Mass he
canonized three people. It was an interesting experience and he seems to be a
good guy, and according to my professor he might be making a few good changes
in the church system. For the Vatican Museums we stood in line for QUITE a
while and spent 2 and a half hours inside. There are many interesting things in
there, but there are SO many people inside that sometimes you can’t even get to
something you might want to look at. Inside of the Sistine Chapel were about a
dozen security guards yelling (!) around to be quiet (the irony…) and not take
pictures. It completely ruined whatever flair could have been present there. Without
the group we also visited the Colosseum (if you only want to pay the reduced
price for
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| The Colosseum |
students you should bring your passport, they don’t accept student ID’s),
the Capitol, the Forum Romanum, the Cat Forum (an excavation site for stray
cats to live in), the Pantheon, the Fontana di Trevi and once again the Piazza
Navona, because for his birthday my boyfriend wanted to have an artist paint a
caricature of us. It was quite fun and the end result was pretty nice too so it
was definitely worth it! One night we went to the church Santa Maria in Trastevere
with our professor and only a few other people of the group to attend an evening
prayer. It was a very impressive event and the atmosphere was great inside and
outside of the church, because it was just a little further away from the
typical touristy parts of Rome. I think this is all…geez this post is long.
Sorry guys haha.
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| Forum Romanum |
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| Fontana di Trevi |
This trip was super impressive, exhausting, interesting and
fun. If you ever want to go to Rome try to find a group of Theology students to tag along with ;) you won't regret it!
Katie Lynn :)
PS: As to being vegan in Rome it was more than easy. Since
people in Southern Europe generally don’t speak English very good (or at all)
you just have to make sure you lay out the most important phrases in the
language of the country you’re in. By the way, some sorts of pasta
automatically have parmesan cheese on them even though it’s not written in the
menu so better add “senza formaggio per favore” to your order so you won’t
piss off the waiter/waitress by sending it back.
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| Spaghetti al pomodoro e basilico |
PPS: If any of you are looking for a place close to the St. Peter's square I definitely recommend the hotel we stayed at! The nuns are super friendly and speak English, Italian, German & Polish (although I could swear I heard some French as well...)!
PPS: (YES I'M DONE AFTER THIS!) Does anyone know if Scholl foot blister band aids are vegan? Cause they definitely saved my life since I was so smart and wore my new shoes for this trip. If they are, I definitely also recommend those haha!
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