I am in Rome on a study trip focused on Vatican II and what is happening 50 years after the Council. The trip was planned to coincide with the opening of the Year of Faith. I hope to blog at length about this experience. Some of the content of the trip may not show up until i have had a chqance to get home and reflect on it. In the meantime this will also act as a travelogue... well one through my eyes anyway!
I arrived in Rome on Saturday and have begun sightseeing. It is a chaotic stimulation of the senses - with people everywhere and cars, too. The metro (subway) ride was one for the books. I now have a new appreciation for the meaning of "packed in like a can of sardines." Saw the Spanish steps yesterday - or actually where they are. So many people were sitting on them that I didn't actually get to see very many of the steps.
It is a little disorienting to see how the old and the new compete for space. Down the street from where I am staying is the coluseum. I have walked past the baptistry where Constantine was baptized; seen the building where the Lateran councils were held; and been in a 1st century church. Later this week, I am told, I will be standing in the very room where Ignatius stood. And yet I am here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of VII.
We are staying on the grounds of the Irish College which is the Irish seminary in Rome (just like the North American College is the U.S. seminary in Rome). We have been invited to dinner a couple of times which was wonderful except that I am afraid people will not understand how I can retun from Rome with an Irish brogue!
