Riposo, what I'm hearing, and the disability Jubilee

The Tuesday Pillar Post

Pillar subscribers can listen to this Pillar Post here: The Pillar TL;DR

Hey everybody,

It’s hot in Rome.

And despite that heat, the Romans walk, everywhere — which means when you’re in Rome, you do too.

Of course, most Americans who come to Rome are accustomed to daily outdoor strolls no further than the parking lot demands. But unless you can figure out how to buy bus tickets in the city’s complicated tangle of bureaucracies — or you’re comfortable gambling with a ticket-less ride — you’re going to be walking, a lot.

Add to that the challenge of never knowing how to find a bathroom in this city, and the impossibility of buying 64 fluid ounces of coffee in one mug, anywhere on the Italian peninsula.

Taken together, this is a town in which just being out during the day will make you tired.

And that’s why the custom of the riposo (the Italian siesta) is actually necessary. Despite its Italian character, the riposo is not merely a union-mandated curb on economic growth — even if it’s also that.

It is instead an essential part of getting through the Italian day, to the best part of the Italian evening — antipasti.

Of course in America, we vulgarized the concept of the nap sometime in the era of Y2K and the dot com bubble, turning it into the “power nap,” a necessary recharge for the business of breaking a big IPO, or changing the world, or whatever the people at pets.com and Ask Jeeves thought they were doing.

In his White House years, Bill Clinton even borrowed the concept of the “power nap,” instructing his staff not to bother him from 3:00 to 4:00pm while he “rested.” It’s not clear whether the Clintons employed anyone naive enough to believe that the president was sleeping during that time — and if he did, we’ve got long reason to worry about the competence of the American “deep state.”

But apart from the rise of the power nap, which accompanied the unfortunate popularity of Linkin Park and the monochromatic garb of Regis Philbin, the afternoon nap has never caught on in America. And most of the time, on that continent, I don’t feel the need for it. When I get tired doing a U.S. workday, I just crush another Monster like a good American, and get back to work.

But here in Italy, things feel different.

And naps are good, as the Italians know. In fact, the languorous afternoon is an attribute of good and beautiful enough cultures that we can rightly say that the riposo and the siesta are Catholic, properly ours, and that working through the day is dangerously Calvinist, and should be avoided by those who want to be eventually saints in heaven.

Isn’t this Catholic culture?

Today in Rome — when I spent much of the morning hauling around a 90 pound boy too tired to walk (more on that later) — I could really use a riposo. It’s early afternoon here, and with most of my children zonked out in our hotel room, a good nap is calling. But I didn’t write this newsletter last night, and you readers have rightly come to expect it, so I’m going to have to push through the napping temptation like a good American, at least until I can hit send on this thing.

So stay awake with me while I newsletter.

Here we go.

The news

Pope Francis was buried on Saturday, after a funeral Mass that saw some 200,000 people gather in St. Peter’s Square.

— Edgar Beltran talked with people in St. Peter’s Square about why they’d come to the pope’s funeral, and what Pope Francis meant to them.

— Luke Coppen reported on the funeral itself, and a homily from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, which remembered Pope Francis as “a pope attentive to the signs of the times and what the Holy Spirit was awakening in the Church.”

— Meanwhile, Jason Baguia talked with the mourners who went to Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore, to see the funeral procession of a pontiff, and to see Pope Francis buried.

— In a Pillar Column, Liz Lev explained the keys to understanding why Pope Francis chose the Basilica of St. Mary Major for his burial spot — especially that “Mary, salvation of the Roman people, is a reminder that everyone and anyone can be rescued, whether trapped by illness, disaster or sin.”

— The next day, Bagiua went back to Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, to see how Catholics would celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday at the pope’s burial site, on the second official date of the Church’s nine day mourning period.

— And in another Pillar Column, Fr. James Bradley, a canonical and liturgical expert argued that while Francis made changes to the papal funeral liturgy, they weren’t exactly what you think.

All of that is great, on-the-ground reporting and you should read it all.

For myself — well, Pillar readers will recall that I am pulling double duty this week in Rome. I am here to do the essential journalistic work of The Pillar, but right now, I’ve also got my family with me, as we’ve joined with several other families to participate in a pilgrimage for the Church’s Jubilee for People with Disabilities.

The pilgrimage was planned for months. In that respect, the timing couldn’t have been worse. But I’m trusting that the Lord has a reason to have me here in Rome with two different hats on, and that the experience of seeing Rome with my wife and children, and with the beautiful families traveling with us, might inform my journalistic work in all the right ways.

Well, for the pontifical funeral, Kate and I packed up our children, and, accompanied by our dear friend Claire, we headed to St. Peter’s Square.

I realized something, pretty quickly.

For the past eight or nine years, I have been coming to Rome pretty regularly, either on Church or journalistic business.

And in so doing, I’ve gotten used to a pretty comfortable version of Rome — one where my press pass gets me past most lines (except the ones at the actual press office) and where there is usually a seat for me somewhere (sometimes even with my name on it) when I arrive to some ecclesial event.

That is nice.

But it has been terrible for my spiritual life. Because the danger of that kind of thing is, well, a sense of entitlement. The idea that I shouldn’t expect to stand in line. The notion that I should just expect cool opportunities to fall into my lap.

The convenience of moving around the Vatican’s events is good for our journalism, to some extent. At least it makes certain parts of the job easier.

But it’s possibly terrible for journalism in the long run, too, inasmuch as it insulates the observer (the journalist) from the reality of the thing he’s covering, and the experience of the ordinary people participating in it.

But that wouldn’t be so, for me, on the day of Francis’ funeral. With plenty of Pillar journalists writing articles, the Flynns were going to the funeral.

My goal was to make it with my family to the section of the square reserved for people with disabilities (two of my children have Down syndrome), mostly because I wanted to see if that was doable, and because a Vatican staffer friend asked me to try making it there, and then report back to him on whether it was doable, as a kind of undercover assignment to help his department with logistics.

We were game.

But we didn’t make it there.

To get into St. Peter’s Square, we walked for a long time, got held up at various gates and security checks for a long time, got yelled at by a policeman, watched that policeman get yelled at by a more senior policeman, and got led into “several rabbit holes” and dead ends as we tried to navigate the ever-changing security protocols of the funeral.

At checkpoints, I watched friends with press passes fly by while we waited — with the very same press pass burning a hole in my pocket — for police officials to decide how much of the thronging crowds to allow past them.

But I kept the badge in my pocket almost all of the time, and I did get my family to St. Peter’s Square. It only took a couple of hours walking, a few overpriced bottles of water, slipping under one security cordon, and flashing my press pass just once.

Still, we did not get to the section we had aimed for.

We landed instead in a kind of corner of the square, at the spot where the colonnades begin to curve, right in front of the Vatican post office. From that spot, we could only see a screen. There were no more Mass programs available, and at communion time, the Blessed Sacrament never even made it to our section.

And sure, my children fell asleep within minutes of arriving at the funeral Mass.

But it was perfect.

Why?

Because instead of sitting in the nice press section atop a colonnade, I got to be a pilgrim with my wife and children. And I got to remember something important: That the mourners who came to pray for Pope Francis endured a lot to get there.

And don’t even get me started about getting out after the Mass.

—
Convicted Cardinal Angelo Becciu announced Tuesday that he has withdrawn his bid to participate in the papal conclave set to begin May 7. Why?

Well, because as Michelle La Rosa reported last week, Cardinal Pietro Parolin produced a letter Thursday night that explicitly indicated Becciu could not participate in the conclave. One of them was reportedly signed last week.

I’ve talked to some high-ranking people in Rome in recent days who say they suspect the letters were phony — that they arrived too conveniently, as Becciu fought for a place in the vote — to be real.

But here’s what’s interesting. No one who has said the letters might be fake was complaining about that. Instead, the general sense that I’m hearing is that people are glad Becciu’s bid to vote was shut down, however it happened.

But I wonder if that theory might eventually take on a life of its own. Only time will tell.

Read our reporting.

—
In a dispatch from Rome — we’re calling them “Smoke Signals” — Ed Condon explains what the obligations of conclave secrecy actually entail.

So who can talk about what when?

—
On Sunday, Bishop Erik Varden talked with The Pillar about how Catholics should pray during an interregnum.

And today, Archbishop Charles Chaput talked with us about navigating a difficult papacy, and what he thinks the Church needs now — from popes, and from every single Catholic aiming for holiness.

—
Finally, as we prepare for a papal conclave, we want to make sure you meet the cardinals who are making the news.

First, meet Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who went from small town Italy to the heights of Vatican influence.

Next, read about Cardinal Matteo Zuppi — the Vatican peace envoy who was once embarrassed by short pants.

Some Smoke Signals

For now, that’s all the news. But we’ll be telling you more in the days to come.

Now, let me tell you what I’ve been hearing around the Vatican about the conclave, and then I’ll tell you about the Jubilee for People with Disabilities.