Rome, if not quite the “Eternal City,” is nearly 2,800 years old and counting. I first encountered it in the 1970s, visiting my wife’s uncle, a priest who served in the Congregation (now the Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith. What I remember most vividly from those few days is a Fellini-esque evening performance of the opera Aida with live elephants in the Baths of Caracalla, followed by a hair-raising drive home through Roman traffic. The city then was an electric blend of the sacred and profane: a cocktail of religious piety, astounding beauty, garish energy, and opiate nostalgia; strange and intoxicating at the same time. I loved it.
Over the years I’ve returned many times, always with the same mix of feelings. In all those visits, the living Catholic soul of the city redeemed its vulgarity and graffiti porn – a venerable Roman tradition – and offered some clean, fresh joy for the spirit to counter the narcotic scent of the past and its ruins.
I’m old enough to remember, as a child, the recorded voice of Pius XII. In the papacies of John XXIII to Benedict XVI, evangelical zeal, pastoral service, and brilliant intellect coincided and reinforced
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