Day 36 continued...yet again

I don’t suppose I’ve ever had as deep a sense of history as in Rome. The Vatican gives way to the prison of Marmartinum, where tradition says St. Peter baptized St. Martin—the self-same St. Martin who then becomes the compatriot of St. Columbo in Iona. But even that gives way to the ancient gods of Rome, and Romulus.

Touring the Vatican museum you cannot help but see how deeply our civilization is embedded in Christianity, and Christianity, in turn, is a product of this Greco-Roman culture whose roots stretch back well before Christendom. Perhaps the most thought provoking art to my eye came in the papal rooms, which were painted by Rafael. The story is that Michelangelo and Rafael were locked in competition as one executed the masterpiece of the Sistine Chapel while the other worked in what would have been thought to have been the private residence of the Pope. Our guide explained the magnificent murals in what would have been the Pope’s “signature” room—the place where these most significant acts of his papacy would have been accomplished. Two walls dominate: one showing the history of theology in a single fresco, the facing wall with the greatest philosophers and scientists. The middle wall would have been where the Pope himself sat, surrounded by the virtues. In a single room, there is literally a universe with the church it’s final interpreter and arbiter.

To stand in the Sistine Chapel is not only to look up on the most amazing achievement of Renaissance art, but to contemplate a history of succession, intrigue, and great piety mixed with the basest of political motives. It was not more than two months ago that this room was filled with the cardinals who elected Benedict XVI, in a process that dates back longer than any Presbytery. It is an awesome experience.

But it all comes at a certain price, doesn’t it? Our Sunday excursion began at the Coliseum—the Lambeau Field of its day. If ever I complain about the violence that colors our American society, I’ll be reminded of the bloodthirsty scenes that cry out from those rocks. Fifty animals slain in a day, and that was the “warm up act” for gladiators who would fight to the death, or the condemned (which at one time meant the Christians) who would be helplessly thrown into the amphitheater to be gored and killed while the crowds cheered.

Praise God that we’ve found forms of entertainment that don’t require such horrifying spectacle, but I did, for just a moment, wonder why I was so intrigued when the American military mounted Operation Shock and Awe, and I was glued to the television set while bunker busters and 2 ton bombs leveled cities, but didn’t seem to count those killed or wounded unless they were members of the US Military. Beneath every civil society, it seems, there is a pulse of blood thirst. May God have mercy on us….