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Vatican City may have fewer than 1,000 citizens and span only 110 acres, but it also has a multimillion-dollar budget and an unbelievably complex history. Understanding how it all works requires parsing through centuries of religious texts. Is the Vatican confusing and mysterious? Is the Pope Catholic? Here’s a look behind the scenes.
1. Regular Exorcise!
Baudelaire once said that “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.” But in modern-day Vatican City, the devil is considered alive and well. The former Pope John Paul II personally performed three exorcisms during his reign, and the current Pope Benedict XVI is expanding the ranks of Catholic-sponsored exorcists throughout the world. In fact, Father Gabriele Amorth, the Church’s chief exorcist, claims to expel more than 300 demons a year from the confines of his Vatican office, and there are more than 350 exorcists operating on behalf of the Catholic Church in Italy alone. Amorth also teaches bishops how to tell the difference between satanic possession and psychiatric illness, noting that those who suffer from the former seem to be particularly repulsed by the sight of holy water and the cross.
2. Where Thieves Go to Prey
With 1.5 crimes per citizen, Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world. It’s not that the cardinals are donning masks and repeatedly robbing the bank, it’s just that the massive crowds of tourists make Vatican City a pickpocket’s paradise. The situation is complicated by the fact that the Vatican has no working prison and only one judge. So most criminals are simply marched across the border into Italy, as part of a pact between the two countries. (The Vatican’s legal code is based on Italy’s, with some modifications regarding abortion and divorce.) Crimes that the Vatican sees fit to try itself—mainly shoplifting in its duty-free stores—are usually punished by temporarily revoking the troublemaker’s access to those areas. But not every crime involves theft. In 2007, the Vatican issued its first drug conviction after an employee was found with a few ounces of cocaine in his desk.
3. The Worst Confessions
Some sins are simply too much for a local bishop to forgive. While priests can absolve a sin as serious as murder (according to the Church), there are five specific sins that require absolution from the Apostolic Penitentiary. This secretive tribunal has met off and on for the past 830 years, but in January of 2009, for the first time ever, its members held a press conference to discuss their work.
Three of the five sins they contemplate can only be committed by the clergy. If you’re a priest who breaks the seal of confession, a priest who offers confession to his own sexual partners, or a man who has directly participated in an abortion and wants to become a priest, then your case must go before the tribunal to receive absolution. The other two sins can be committed by anyone. The first, desecrating the Eucharist, is particularly bad because Catholics believe that the bread and wine transubstantiate into the body and blood of Christ. Messing with them is like messing with Jesus. And then, there’s the sin of attempting to assassinate the Pope. That one’s pretty self-explanatory.
The meetings of the Apostolic Penitentiary are kept confidential because they’re a different form of confession. The sinner is referred to by a pseudonym, and only the Major Penitentiary, Cardinal James Francis Stafford, decides how the sin shall be dealt with. Presumably, a bunch of Hail Marys doesn’t cut it.
4. Read the Pope’s Mail
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Venice is sinking very slowly -only about two inches every 100 years. But worse, the Adriatic sea is rising around Venice as well. A proposed plan to save the Italian city involves “inflating” its porous foundation with sea water to raise the whole town about a foot. Forty billion gallons of water would need to be pumped! Read more about the plan at National Geographic News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
(Image credit: Jim Richardson/National Geographic)
Villa Palagonia in Bagheria, Italy is famous for a flock of “monsters” on top of its garden walls.
The house was built in 1715, and immediately hailed as an architectural achievement, and one of the finest works of Sicilian Baroque on the island. But the Villa didn’t acquire the strange touch which made it world-famous until 1749, when the deranged Prince of Palagonia ordered a set of gargoyles to line its garden walls. Legions of dragons, soldiers, hunchbacks and freaks of nature look down on visitors from atop stony perches. According to legend, the most freakish faces are meant to caricature the many lovers of the prince’s promiscuous wife.
Get a closer look at these eccentric works and get a tour of the villa at For 91 Days. Link -Thanks, Juergen!
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Juergen Horn found a shop in Palermo, Italy, that will “fill ‘er up” -with wine! A five-liter jug pumped full will run you €7. See more pictures and watch a video of the wine pump in action at For 91 Days. Link
The last time we checked in with Michael Powell and Juergen Horn at For 91 Days, they were preparing to leave Bolivia and move to Palermo, Italy. Of course, part of soaking up a culture is the wonderful food in the different places they’ve been. It turns out that the people of Sicily love fried food.
We’ve already sampled an unhealthy share of fried Sicilian delicacies, and plan on eating a lot more. The Ballaró Market, south of the Cathedral, is an excellent place to sample some cheap grub. We tried panelle, which are chickpea fritters thought to be Arabic in origin, and crocchè: mashed potatoes and eggs covered in breadcrumbs. But my favorite was perhaps the rascature, a dish which literally translates into “scrapes”. These oddly shaped balls are a mixture of the panelle and crocchè, and whatever else can be scraped off the bottom of the cooking pan.
The thought of eating the fried “scrapes” from a little stall in a street market shouldn’t be appetizing, but my stomach grumbles as I type. I wants them rascatures, and I wants them NOW!
Although you can’t actually taste them, you can read about and see pictures of the different dishes at their blog. Link
What? You don’t follow the high culture series Jersey Shore on television? Well, let me fill in the latest development of the "guido/guidette" lifestyle for you: the sophisticated cast of Jersey Shore tried to reconnect with their Italian heritage in Tuscan, Italy. All is fine, except for some strange reason, the Italians don’t want to have anything to do with them.
Since Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino and other cast members of MTV’s "Jersey Shore" reality-TV show set foot inside the cradle of the Italian Renaissance last month, the cast’s vans have been met with fines. On Monday, there was another one, after a van—which Italian police say was driven by Ms. Polizzi—crashed into a police car.
One of the town’s chic eateries has posted a "No Grazie, Jersey Shore" sign outside its door, instructing cast members to stay away. The cultural superintendent has barred the entire cast from being filmed in the city’s hallowed museums.
Pier Francesco Orsini, a 16th-century mercenary and nobleman, built a garden of huge sculpted monsters and other fantasy figures at his estate in Bomarzo, Italy. You’ll find the story of this remarkable project and more pictures at Kuriositas. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user zak mc)
Made using millions of flower petals, the flower carpets of the Gionzano Infiorata, a flower festival unique in the world, cover an entire street. If you’re in Rome, in the second week of June, this is a must-see.
The Genzano Infiorata is a flower festival that can be traced back to 1778. Every year, local artists cover an entire street (Via Belardi) with intricate flower carpets, inspired by famous artworks, religious paintings or geometrical shapes. The flower carpets are made by talented local artists who have to stick to a previously agreed upon theme, like ‘The Colors of Michelangelo’ or ‘The Designs of Bernini’.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by jupaneanu.
Talk about junk in your trunk (sorry, but I just had to). An Italian man was arrested after a routine police stop ended up with authorities seizing over 1700 animals in his trunk. Included in the bust were 216 parakeets, 300 white mice, 150 hamsters, 30 Japanese squirrels, six chameleons and over 1,000 terrapins, a type of turtle.
It seems he was going to sell the rare critters, but they have instead been given to local zoos.
It looks like a new volcano is growing in Nola, Italy, near Mt. Vesuvius! The Vulcano Buono (good volcano) is a commercial center designed by Renzo Piano. The interior space is bigger than it looks due to the sloping grass roof, which insulates the building. Inside you’ll find a forest and an amphitheater, plus shops, a hotel, a supermarket, and a movie theater. See more pictures at Inhabitat. Link -via Metafilter
Italian artist Lyle Rowell rides slowly on a 1,900 pound mechanical animal that breathes fire! It walks on two front legs and rolls on two back wheels. He calls it Lrry.
The contraption is the product of four months of Rowell “crawling around in the scrap and dirt” to gather parts that he liked. He took an engine from an old Volkswagen Bug–like Citroën and stuffed it into two chopped-up and welded-together motorcycle frames. Aside from propane for Lrry’s fire breath, Rowell was able to scrounge up nearly every part, all the way down to the linkages and sprockets.
The beast spits fire from the back end, too. Link (with video) -via Metafilter
(image credit: Elle Dunn)
While cutting through some Egyptian limestone recently, stone masons in Italy made an interesting discovery. A whale fossil! They called in experts who confirmed this was a 40 million year old whale. Then the fun really began. Well, fun for the archeologists paleontologists that is.
They went to the place where the stone was extracted and found prehistoric bone fragments and more. A bigger dig is currently underway. We hope this didn’t put the masons out of business.
National Geographic has a video report, with an unedited transcript:
“BEING MASONS WE WERE IGNORANT OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DISCOVERY WE HAD MADE” SAYS SUPERVISOR RICARDO FRANCIONI.
BUT THEY KNEW ENOUGH TO CALL IN SOME ITALIAN EXPERTS WHO DETERMINED THEY HAD INADVERTENTLY CREATED AN ALMOST PERFECT CROSS SECTION OF AN ANCIENT WHALE.
IT LIVED IN EGYPT 40 MILLION YEARS AGO.
FINDING ANCIENT WHALES FROM EGYPT, A COUNTRY THATS 95 PERCENT DESERT, MIGHT SEEM UNUSUAL — BUT IT ISNT.
Link – via yesbutnobutyes
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Baierman.
Link – via Diskursdisko
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by diskursdisko.
Update 3/5/09 by Alex – Fixed to point to original link
Normally when we talk about religion and "conversion" we are referring to people that decided to make a major change in their faith. But what about actual religious temples going into a major conversion?
That is the case -among others- of this Dominican church in Netherlands that has been converted into an amazing bookstore, with a coffeeshop that, well…, let’s say was a bit controversial.
Check out some other churches turn into more mundane businesses.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by scbr.
In the Italian city of Siena, there is a famous horse race that harks back to medieval time. In the Palio di Siena, ten horses and riders, dressed in colors representing the 17 city wards, race (bareback, no less!) around the main square of the city’s medieval center as tens of thousands of spectators cheer them on.
If the scene looks familiar to you, it may just be that you’ve seen it in the latest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Maestor.
It started in Lucca this week, when the town council banned any new ethnic food outlets from opening within the walls of the medieval city. And it quickly spread to Milan: a ban on ethnic foods, meaning foods that are not Italian. The Northern League party wants to protect regional specialties from the encroaching popularity of ethnic cuisines, like egg rolls and kebabs.
The Italian Minister of Agriculture, Luca Zaia, applauded the restrictions, saying ethnic restaurants should "stop importing container loads of meat and fish from who knows where" and use only Italian ingredients. Asked if he had ever tried a kebab, Mr. Zaia said no: "I prefer the dishes of my native Veneto. I even refuse to eat pineapple."
Is it gastronomic racism, or a legitimate attempt to preserve authentic Italian cuisine?
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.
Customs agents in Milan, Italy seized 88 pounds of Beluga caviar as it was smuggled from Poland. The stash is valued at over half a million dollars!
Newspaper Corriere Della Sera says the caviar had an estimated value of $550,000 (£370,000).
Tests showed the caviar to be edible, so it is to be given to canteens, hospices and shelters for the poor.
Beluga caviar is the most expensive variety of the delicacy.
Link -Thanks, Justin!
