Mission Accomplished: My Papal Audience

One of the few remaining things on my to-do list for Roma was to go to a Papal Audience.  These take place every Wednesday morning.  I finally did it yesterday -- nothing like waiting until the last minute.

I won't kid you about this: there were some obstacles.  For one thing, it's been raining a lot here recently.  And, the audiences require getting up pretty early.  Il Papa does not come out until around 9:00 or 9:30.  But, to meet up with your tour guide, or to get a decent seat on your own, you need to show up at St. Peter's by 7:30 at the latest.  That is an ungodly hour for me.  But I did it.  The sun, moreover, did it's job.  We actually got a few hours of blue sky and sunshine.  St. Peter's looked fantastic.

I was in a group of maybe 10 Americans, and our tour guide did a nice job of getting us seats.  We were pretty close to the action when Papa Francesco drove by on the Popemobile.  Twice.  We weren't quite close enough to touch him.  But we were not far away at all.

Overall, this was a great experience.  The Pope first welcomes groups who have made pilgrimages with from other parts of Italy, Europe, and the rest of the world.  Then bishops speaking English, Spanish, French, German, etc. recite some reading from the Gospels.   The Pope does it in Italian too.  And then he gives a sermon -- didn't understand much of it, but I heard him mention the Philippines and Sardegna (where there also was massive flooding and carnage two days ago).   I recommend doing this.  You gotta plan ahead though.  You can't just show up.  You need tix.