My first semester here ended with our entire class embarking on a week-long study trip to Rome, as guests of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.We were put up in a guesthouse that looked down on St. Peter’s Square, and were guided through all of the sites you’d expect to see: St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museum, the Coliseum and other ancient Roman ruins, catacombs where the first persecuted Christians worshiped, and the list goes on.
At least as interesting was the opportunity to enter into discussion with members of the Roman Curia, particularly from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, which is the Vatican’s official ecumenical department. We were to have met with Walter Cardinal Kasper, the head of that council, but regrettably the timing never worked out. However, the council’s staff were generous with their time and insights.
Our group also attended the pope’s weekly general audience, many of us getting a chance to shake (or kiss) the pontiff’s hand and exchange a few pleasantries.
All in all, a good trip. A lot to absorb in just a handful of days. Our very last assignment this semester was a short reflective paper on our sojourn through the Vatican. Mine’s a little on the frank side. If you’re interested, here it is:
It is perhaps not surprising that my most significant reflections on our study visit to Rome center on the bishop of Rome. Ambivalence might best describe the feelings provoked in me—between having the deepest of respect for this most historic of episcopal offices in the church, and also having reservations about how this office has evolved within the context of the Roman Catholic Church.
Wednesday’s general audience in a way crystallized this ambivalence for me. I personally found it surreal: 10,000 people gathered in a gargantuan chamber constructed specifically for this purpose, singing, cheering, crying, shouting “Viva il papa!” 
At times I felt more like a spectator at a sporting event than a pilgrim in the presence of the successor of Peter. I tried to imagine a similar scene involving the archbishop of Canterbury, and simply could not.The devotion still paid the present pope’s immediate predecessor is also illustrative. During our tour of St. Peter’s Basilica, the reliquary of Saint Peter was given relatively scant regard when compared to the sarcophagus of John Paul II, which had a never-ending cue of the devout praying and paying their respects.
My reactions perhaps seem visceral, but I suspect they are not atypical of many non-Roman Catholics. There exists a real unease about the manner in which the pope (whoever he might be at any given time) is revered as an individual, and around the nature of the authority he exercises within the church. This latter issue, as was discussed with staff members of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, continues to be a stumbling block in the Vatican’s ecumenical dialogues, particularly with the Anglicans and Orthodox. There is a willingness among many in these two traditions to recognize the universal primacy of the bishop of Rome. However, significant questions and concerns remain about the exact nature of this primacy and the manner in which it ought to be exercised.
Part of me fears that my reactions are at least partly the result of a kind of latent anti-Catholicism, perhaps conditioned by having been raised Protestant and then becoming Anglican in an overwhelmingly majority Catholic context. The American theologian Philip Jenkins calls anti-Catholicism “the last acceptable prejudice,” and he observes that such a lasting, hierarchical, and self-assured institution as the Roman Catholic Church provides an easy target for critics. During our study visit, this was (for me, at least) exemplified in some of the sharp-ended remarks of the dean of the Waldensian theological faculty and the pointed and aggressive questions (or diatribes) of some of my classmates.
As for Rome itself, ambivalence might also best describe the feelings the Eternal City drew out of me. Rome was—and in some ways remains—the center of the Christian world. Walking in the steps (or at least through the same streets or neighbourhoods) as Peter and Paul is undoubtedly inspiring. So too is visiting the catacombs where the first fearful Roman Christians gathered to worship, and the Coliseum where so many of those same faithful were martyred.And yet the manner in which some of these holy sites of devotion have been popularized is at times troubling. It is not easy to be prayerful in the jail where Saint Peter was imprisoned when people are posing for photographs and cameras are flashing. It is a challenge to be solemn before holy relics when your guide tells you that you have only a few seconds and the next tour is right behind you. It is difficult to feel like you are in a consecrated place of worship such as the Sistine Chapel when you are shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other people craning their necks at the ceiling and regular loudspeaker announcements exhort you to be silent and to refrain from taking photographs. One wonders if this is perhaps a modern-day version of what Martin Luther encountered during his life-changing trip to Rome 500 years ago.
Consequently, I more than once had difficulty deciding whether I was a pilgrim, a tourist, or a student. Similarly, it would seem many of Rome’s holy sites—even Saint Peter’s Basilica itself—are challenged to clearly define their vocation. Are they holy sites of pilgrimage, popular tourist attractions, or particularly elaborate museums? Can these identities harmoniously coexist or are they mutually exclusive?
And so I leave Rome behind with a mixture of feelings, both positive and not so positive. But above all I leave Rome behind appreciative of the opportunity to explore some of those feelings by encountering this remarkable place firsthand.
