THE Vatican Museum is really just an elaborate way of managing the crowds who come to Rome to visit the Sistine Chapel. It’s a long corridor to its door.
The museum itself contains some remarkable objects, not least the Gregorian Egyptian rooms housing the mummy of Amenirdis.
She thought she was headed to the Field of Reeds when she died. But instead of an Egyptian paradise, her afterlife is a temperature-controlled cabinet being ogled at by tourists for €17 a pop.
When I was last in Rome, I dutifully followed the crowd through rooms that got narrower and narrower until we reached the unremarkable chapel door.
Along the way I saw so many bits of marble that I truly understood the saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt.”
There were a few surprises. Close to the Sistine Chapel hung a subversive portrait of Innocent X from Francis Bacon’s ‘Screaming Popes’ series. Even the Vatican has room for this gay Irish hell-raiser known for his brutalist art. Who says museum curators don’t have a wicked sense of humour?
We were packed into the chapel like sardines, with its peace disturbed every few seconds by screams of “SILENZIO” from the security staff.
But never have I been so awestruck. Nothing prepares you for it – no matter how many images you have looked at, or times you have seen it on TV. Witnessing first-hand Michelangelo’s handiwork is one of the high points of my life.
This week then, I was more than envious of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who had a private tour of the chapel and an extended audience with Pope Francis during his first visit to the Vatican.
In so many ways, the Vatican’s relationship with the US is pivotal to the future of the planet, and the future of the Church itself.
That sounds apocalyptic. But it’s not. Pope Francis is at the forefront of efforts to persuade us all to take climate change seriously.
The evidence of its catastrophic effects is all around us – but most of us are blind to it, or at least blind to our need to take individual responsibility.
In Donald Trump, the pope found an adversary who did all he could to undermine the fight for the planet. President Biden gets it.
As to the Church’s future, Trump plays a malign role there too.
Among his many courtiers are a significant number of US bishops – pompous and overambitious prelates out of tune with Francis’s determination to refocus the Church around issues of social justice.
In thrall to Trump, they rejoiced when he appointed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, securing a right-wing majority there; and they lamented his failure to hold the presidency for a second term. Some 50 per cent of their flock voted Trump.
Now they have turned their guns on Joe Biden, only the second Catholic to hold the presidency. Biden has become a proxy in their war with the pope.
Bitchiness and backbiting have always been part and parcel of Vatican politics. Take any group of ambitious men scrabbling for power, and you have the recipe for intrigue, infighting and conspiracies. The history of the Church is full of examples – and not just from the middle ages.
But throw in the potent weapons of social media, QAnon conspiracists, and access to right-wing media conglomerates like the National Catholic Register-owned EWTN network, and you have more than enough tools to destabilise those with whom you disagree.
The Trumpian faction within the Catholic hierarchy is in the ascendant there, and they flexed their muscle on the very day of Biden’s inauguration with a mean-spirited warning that they were coming for him, much to the Vatican’s annoyance.
Since then, the bishops have upped their efforts with moves which could result in Biden – a devout churchgoer - being denied Communion. They have established a commission to explore ways of forcing Catholic politicians to toe their line.
On the face of it, the faultline is the issue of abortion, and the degree to which lawmakers should prioritise Church teachings in discharging their office. But the real target is the pope.
Francis has limited power to check them, and time is against him if he is to embed the changes he is making.
Out of step with the real world, their schismatic actions undermine a Church which badly needs to change, and a pope who sees through their hubris.
If any pope has the right to scream, it is this one. Where is the Holy Spirit when you need him?
