The entrance to a toilet in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican where homeless people will be offered showers, toiletries, shaves and haircuts. Photo: Reuters/Osservatore RomanoThe entrance to a toilet in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican where homeless people will be offered showers, toiletries, shaves and haircuts. Photo: Reuters/Osservatore Romano

If there is an iconic image of the Vatican, it is definitely Bernini’s awesome colonnade in front of St Peter’s Basilica. This was perhaps Pope Alexander VII’s biggest and most daring commission. Alexander became Pope at the end of the Thirty Years’ War – a time when the Papal States were being politically marginalised. Today, unfortunately, it is not the Papal State that is passing through a period of marginalisation but the Church itself.

In these serious circumstances, Pope Francis thought of setting up a number of small ‘temples’ where one can meet the suffering body of Christ. Next to Bernini’s colonnade, under Pope Francis’s instructions, bathrooms have been installed, complete with showers, sinks and even an area for barbers. These were officially opened on February 6, and are open every day, except when official celebrations are held in St Peter’s Square.

Besides this, the homeless receive a hygiene kit and underwear donated by institutions or paid for by the Holy See. Another important aspect of this initiative is the generosity of volunteers – barbers and hair stylists – who offer their services on Mondays from 9am to 3pm. Several of these are students in training, but they also include Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity.

Some might have disagreed with the Pope’s initiative. Irony of ironies, when the colonnade of St Peter’s Square was still at the drawing board stage, there were disagreements between Pope Alexander VII and the Congregazione della Fabbrica di San Pietro, which was in in charge of approving construction projects.

Sadly, many in the Church are still sitting on an ‘invisible’ but real sedia gestatoria. It is time to get down to reality

With his initiative, Pope Francis has put in practice his exhortation to us, the clergy: “It is not a bad thing that reality forces us to ‘put out into the deep’, [where] the only thing that counts is ‘unction’, not ‘function’”, where bringing God’s healing and comfort to others is the priority.

Marco Paton – a volunteer hairdresser – described the impact thus: “They have taught me to never make a distinction between those who have money and those who don’t. They’ve shown me [how] to look at people with integrity because everyone deserves to be listened to.”

Priests are called to stay close to those on the margins of society or the Church, thus being “shepherds living with the smell of the sheep”. This necessitates that we get down from the “chair of Moses where the scribes and the Pharisees have sat”.

Some of our clerical and liturgical attires reflect a time when popes were kings and bishops were princes or lords. And they have a negative effect on our subconscious. Things have to change. The papal tiara was nothing but a crown worn by popes since the eighth century. It was last used by at the start of Pope Paul VI’s pontificate in 1963. He sold the tiara given to him by his beloved diocese of Milan and gave the money to the poor.

In my younger days I remember watching the Pope on TV being carried shoulder-high along the aisle of St Peter’s Basilica on the sedia gestatoria. Pope John Paul I initially declined to use it, along with several other symbols of papal authority, but the Vatican staff convinced him otherwise.

It was St John Paul II, who in 1978 completely discontinued its use. His successors – Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis – have also refused to use it. Alas, sadly enough, many in the Church are still sitting on an ‘invisible’ but real sedia gestatoria. It is time to get down to reality.

In my teens, parish priests were given ‘il-pussess’ (possession) of their parish, as if they were feudal vassals taking control of a fiefdom. After Vatican II, this expression was eliminated (at least in Malta) and substituted by the expression “the beginning of a pastoral ministry” in parish X or Y. Unfortunately, a few of the newly nominated parish priests revived the feudal terminology of ‘pussess’ to the detriment of the pastoral terminology in use since the 1970s.

Some of us are far from imitating Pope Francis in opening a barber shop and shower for the needy. Their priorities are different.

joe.inguanez@gmail.com

Fr Joe Inguanez, a sociologist, is executive director of Discern.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.