Vatican Museums will reopen June 1 as Italy opens borders to tourists
May 23, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print
Vatican City, May 23, 2020 / 08:35 am (CNA).- The Vatican Museums announced Saturday that it will reopen on June 1, two days before Italy opens its borders to European visitors after nearly three months of lockdown.
Entrance to the Vatican Museums will only be possible via prior reservation to limit the number of people in the museum and stagger entrance times. All visitors will be required to wear a mask and mandatory temperature checks will be conducted at the entrance.
To prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, group visits to the museums will be capped at a maximum of 10 people.
The Vatican Museums will have been closed for 12 weeks since the Italian government announced the closure of all museums and archaeological sites throughout the country on March 8.
Throughout Italy's lockdown, the Vatican Museums maintained only essential services requiring about 30 employees. The museums employee nearly 1,000 people, among them are administrators, restorers, art historians, and ticket agents.
The Italian government has announced that Italy will open its regional and international borders on June 3, allowing tourists from the European Union to visit Italy without being subjected to a quarantine requirement.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that this will create the conditions to help Italy's tourism industry to recover.
The Vatican Museums receive millions of visitors each year, and generated around $87 million annually as of 2015, half of which was surplus revenue for Vatican City, according to the Economist. In the months that the museums have been closed due to the pandemic, Vatican City has likely lost millions of dollars in revenue.
Due to the travel restrictions, the first visitors to the reopened Vatican Museums on June 1 will likely be local Romans, rather than the usual tourists.
To accommodate local visitors, the museums have extended their hours to encourage afternoon and evening visits, especially over the weekend.
The museums will be open Monday through Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. each day. On Friday and Saturday the museums and gardens will stay open until 10 p.m. with an optional cocktail hour in the courtyard.
The Vatican Museums have also added an open-bus tour of the Vatican Gardens.
"I would like this moment of difficulty to turn into an opportunity," Bishop Fernando Vérgez Alzaga said in an interview published by L'Osservatore Romano.
The museum and gardens at the Pontifical Villas of Castel Gandolfo will also be reopening on June 6 with additional safety measures.
Vergez, the general secretary of Vatican City State, encouraged Italian families to visit the museums and the gardens.
"The weekend … could become an ideal opportunity to seize the extraordinary opportunity to visit the summer residence of the popes and the splendid Gardens of Villa Barberini. The hot and beautiful sun of these days seems to invite us to this!" Vergez said.
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Pope urges Catholics to be moved by joy of the resurrection
April 15, 2018 CNA Daily News 1
Rome, Italy, Apr 15, 2018 / 10:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday Pope Francis visited a Roman parish, telling Mass-goers to allow themselves to be moved by the immense joy of the resurrection, which overcomes sin and renews believers, allowing them to have a youthful heart.
Noting how the disciples had a hard time believing it was really Jesus who appeared to them in the day's Gospel, Francis asked "why didn't they believe? Why did they doubt?"
"There is a word in the Gospel that gives us an explanation: While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed."
The disciples, he said, couldn't believe it was Jesus because "they couldn't believe that there was so much joy, the joy that brings Christ."
He said the same thing happens to each person when they receive news that seems too good to be true, and urged Catholics to allow the joy of Christ's resurrection to enter their hearts and to be transformed by the renewal he offers.
Pope Francis spoke during his April 15 visit to the parish of St. Paul of the Cross in the western quarter of Rome. After arriving around 4 p.m. local time, he was greeted by the Vicar of Rome, Archbishop Angelo de Donatis; Bishop Paolo Selvadagi, auxiliary bishop for Rome's western sector, and the pastor Fr. Roberto Cassano, among others.
During his visit, the pope met with and took four questions from youth involved in catechesis at the parish. He then met with the elderly, sick and the poor before hearing the confession of three parishioners and celebrating Mass.
In his homily, which focused on the day's Gospel reading from Luke in which Jesus appears to the disciples after his resurrection, Francis noted that even though they doubted, the disciples knew Jesus had risen.
They knew, he said, because by that time they had heard the testimonies of Mary Magdalene, Peter and the disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus, yet they still had a hard time believing Jesus when he appeared to them in the upper room.
"They knew…but that truth didn't enter into their heart. That truth, yes, they knew, but they doubted, and the preferred to have that truth in the mind," he said, noting that perhaps "it's less dangerous to have truth in the mind than to have it in heart."
Eventually the disciples believed, he said, explaining that this faith and the joy of Christ's resurrection is "the renewed youthfulness that the Lord brings us."
Sin makes the heart grow old and tired, he said, whereas faith makes the heart grow young. However, referring to the day's second reading from the First Letter of Saint John, he said that when a person sins, "we have an advocate with the Father."
The Father, he said, "forgives," and Christ in his death and resurrection wants "to defend us" and make each person young again with the joy of being freed from sin and death.
Pope Francis closed his brief homily asking for the grace to believe that Jesus is truly alive and risen, because "other things are secondary" in life.
If a person does not believe that Christ is risen and present in the world, "we will never be a good Christian, we can't be," he said, and prayed for the grace to encounter the Risen Jesus in prayer, the Eucharist and the forgiveness of sins.
"Let us ask for the grace to be a joyful community," he said, asking that each person would be "sure in the faith of encountering the Risen Christ."
In his Q&A with youth before Mass, Pope Francis said his favorite bible verse is the calling of Matthew, because it shows "the strength Jesus has to change the heart."
He also told the children that even if someone is not baptized, they are still a child of God. This, he said, goes for the good, the bad and even the mafia, who he said need to be prayed for "so that they return to God."
When asked about how he felt after being elected pope, Francis said he didn't feel anything special, but he had a strong sense of peace. "When the Lord calls you, he gives you peace, and you feel it when there is a true call from the Lord," he said, explaining that this is also true when God calls one to a consecrated vocation.
Finally, the pope embraced a young boy named Manuele whose father recently died, and who was an atheist, but allowed each of his four children to be baptized in the Catholic Church. In his question, Manuele said his father was a good person, and asked if he was in heaven, even if he didn't believe in God.
Pope Francis answered by praising Manuele's courage to cry and to ask the question, and said that if a man can raise a child the way that Manuele's father had, then this man is indeed a good person, and good people are never far from God.
"It's a great witness that the child can say [his father] was good," he said, explaining that God never abandons his children, and encouraged Manuele to talk to his father, because "surely God loved him."
He then prayed an Our Father with the children before meeting briefly with the elderly, sick and poor of the parish, telling them that they are "the center of the Gospel."
"I know that each one of you have many problems, sicknesses, pains, the family, each one has their own pain, their own wound, everyone, but may this not take your hope or your joy, because Jesus came to pay for our wounds with his wounds," the pope said.
He closed his brief greeting by encouraging them to do good to those around them and led them in praying a Hail Mary. He then spent time greeting them personally before hearing confessions and saying Mass.
God is faithful – trust him and don't worry, Pope Francis says
February 26, 2017 CNA Daily News 0
Vatican City, Feb 26, 2017 / 05:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- While earthly pleasures such as power and money bring temporary satisfaction, they are ultimately fleeting and deceptive, Pope Francis said Sunday, explaining that God alone is faithful and in tru… […]
Pope Francis's remarks to AP about Rupnik are confusing and contradictory
January 28, 2023 Christopher R. Altieri 4
A papal interview made real waves in the news this week, for the first time in a good while and for very good reason. The really big piece of news from the AP interview was […]
Bruce Dickson
The bigger truth is we have a public health problem much bigger than covid. The bigger problem is almost-useless health education in middle school thru college. Unless you become a chiropractor, nutritionist or holistic health practitioner, you never learn to be-friend and support the human immune system effectively.
The reason for people's vast ignorance of immune health and self-care is simple: advertising.
Any advertising platforms accepting ads for drugs-products from Big Pharma, know they have to avoid ads for vitamins and natural immune support products. If you accept ads for drugs, they cannot appear next to ads for vitamins.
This is a big reason why there is so much anti-vitamin and vitamin-skeptical journalism. These pieces tell Big Pharma your media outlet is a safe place to invest their ad dollars.
The endgame of this dangerous lack of health education is also simple to conceive, especially for churches. Churches who teach about immune system health will be first to reopen safely.
Churches are under the most pressure to respond creatively about immune system issues. Why? People have two questions? Who do I feel safe to be around without a mask? and Who can I trust my kids to be around without a mask? Nowhere are these more pressing questions than for churches.
For churches especially, the pressure is on to answer: What is the endgame of masks and physical distancing? What replaces these at the end? I believe this is timely, practical question to ask from the pulpit this Sunday.
The best answer to the question I'm aware of is this. What replaces masks and physical distancing is TALK, CONVERSATION and MUTUAL SUPPORT about our immune health and challenges.
I expect such talk will be largely pleasant for like-minded congregants.
Yes, this means transparency between people about their health state. Yes, this means talk about more and better vitamins; as well as, lessening dietary bad habits.
No, it does not condone complaining. If an individual complains about their health, without being open to any new ideas or any change of their behaviors, this contradiction can be gently called out and made into a norm: If I you complain and are not open to solutions, you can be called to task on your contradictions. Invite people to get into dyads with whomever sits next to them. Invite them to role play the complainer and the responder with Emotional Intelligence Switch roles. How about this Sunday?
The most useful talk to replace masks and physical distancing is information and experience exchanges, what worked for me; and, what did not work for me. This is practical spirituality in the best sense.
While many good online sources and many potential local health speakers exist, I advise people with questions to ask and in need of a place to fact-check statements they hear, go to Mercola.com. This is the biggest, most up-to-date online source of info and recommendations, written by an MD who prefers natural remedies and supplements before drugs and surgery. Audio and video versions of many articles and interviews.
Who would you have to talk to at your church, to get something like this going?
Sister Mary Jean: "yes, we are a dying breed."
George Neumayr August 22, 2011 0
The New York Times reports on the disappearance of nuns from leadership positions at Catholic hospitals. It talks to Sister Mary Jean, the retired chief executive of SSM health care. The story notes: "In 1968, […]