Ladies and Gentlemen, The Pope Has His Swag Turned On.

“Its like the more money we come across, The more problems we see”-Notorious B.I.G (may he rest in peace).

I’m going to start this piece off by stating some facts.

I’m a Protestant.

I’m Southern Baptist.

When I hear indulgences I think about eating chocolate and other forms of dessert.

So this stated, going to the center of the Catholic and pre-protestant Christian world was pretty eye opening. We started off our day by going to what I would call the “Pope Parade”. We paid a little extra euro to go, and got standing room near the back of the fence because our professor knew that the Vicar of Christ would be coming near there. Since we are all journalism students we needed that heads up to get the best angle for our shots (not with a gun, a camera, who do you think we are). After fighting off some either french or italian middle schoolers for our positions on the wall we set up shop and awaited his arrival. Those kids smelled horrible.

Quick interjection: Why is that no one else cares about body odor? Seriously, people it’s the 21st century. It’s not even that costly anymore. Buy a little soap, some deodorant, and maybe some cologne. Seriously.

Then here he came wearing his all white robes looking like a slightly more respectable Saturday Night Fever John Travolta or me at prom.And I know a lot of people are going to say things like “Weren’t you impressed by the grandeur of his security detail including the Swiss Guard which has been serving the papacy since 1506?” or “How amazing was it to see all those people representing over fifty different countries throughout the world and to hear the address in at least four different languages?”. To which I will reply “No not really because that’s too mainstream Pope for me.” What wasn’t mainstream Pope for me was how tricked out his new “Popemobile” was.

He was showing off his swag in a custom designed Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabriolet. It was the open topped version so he didn’t ride around in his bubbled one. And it had a hugh Mercedes decal on it. You know they must of set up a nice deal to be able to show off on the front of the Most powerful man of Faith’s ride like that. In the lineage of the popemobile this one has to be my favorite apart from the Leyland 24-ton garbage truck lookalike.

Besides the popemobile the Holy See shows off it’s money in a number of other ways. From Raphael’s (the red ninja turtle) four rooms in which he shows off his fresco paintings and completed the famed “School of Athens” which takes up a huge wall and has several famous artists and thinkers hidden inside. To the Sistine Chapel which was done mostly by Michaelangelo (the orange ninja turtle) which of course your not supposed to take pictures inside (haha oops).

To conclude I would finally like to comment on St. Peters church. It is freaking enormous. OJ Simpson could drive his white bronco around in there for days without being caught by the five-oh. Ok that might be a stretch but it is enormous. Sorry Glasgow Baptist but I believe three of you could fit inside this place with room to spare.

Until next time, peace.

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