A dozen years ago, J and I spent a week in Rome. We were there on a Sunday morning, and the Pope was in town, so we walked around the corner from our hotel to St Peters Square and attended Pope John Paul II’s appearance and blessing of the crowd. It was great of fun, He was very frail and they sort of propped him up in the window and held the microphone for him. I took a couple of pictures, one of which is framed in my bedroom. While there we took the tour of St Peters, including climbing to the top of the dome. By some miracle J survived the climb to the top. On the way back down, we passed through a gift shop on the roof of St Peter’s run by nuns, and I bought a Pope John Paul II bottle opener. I thought it was delightfully tacky. I still have it, never used, in the original packaging. I’m not Catholic, so I have two questions. Now that he is a Saint, is the bottle opener a holy relic? Now that he is a Saint, is it worth anything? The memory is priceless, and how many people can say they saw a Saint speak one Sunday (actually several million, he was a prolific traveler as Pope.)
NO to both questions (ex-catholic here).
ReplyDeletebut yeah, you had a unique experience.
Closest I've ever come to a pope or a saint was watching more than 70 buses filled with teens heading to Denver in 1993. Those long, flat sections of Interstate east of the Rockies is perfect bus-counting land!
ReplyDeletePeace <3
Jay
Unless St. JP2 used it to open some brews, it is not a relic.
ReplyDeleteOne of those sold for $20 recently on eBay but you'd better strike while the saint is fresh....er, while the iron is hot. 8-)
ReplyDelete