Roman tour guides often share a joke:
Q. “How much did St. Peter’s Basilica cost?”
A. “Germany and England.”
The quip refers to the controversial sale of indulgences to raise money for the construction of the basilica, one catalyst of the Protestant Reformation.
In the 16th century, the newly invented printing press helped to spread the image of a money-grubbing Catholic Church. The practice of Indulgences was central to Martin Luther’s grievances: “Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?”
When Lucas Cranach and Philip Melanchthon published their satirical pamphlet Passional Christi und Antichristi (1521), the woodcuts emphasized Jesus driving the money changers from the temple while the pope is dispensing indulgences to pilgrims, piling coins on the altar.
History appears about to repeat itself, given the shameless shakedowns of pilgrims and tourists alike in Christendom’s oldest and most venerable basilicas: St. Peter’s and St. Mary Major.
For almost a decade, St. Peter’s has required groups over five with a tour guide to use audio transmitters, ostensibly to reduce the amount of noise in the basilica. Though they can be rented from the basilica or from outside vendors, all groups are required to register and pay 1.5 euros for “monitoring.” To ensure correct “monitoring,” a booth, which up until 2022 only accepted cash, was set up in the entrance to the basilica. So after hours of waiting in line, the visitor is greeted by what is essentially a ticket booth. This “monitoring” was raking in somewhere between 10,000 – 20,000 euros a day
Not content with these large sums, the basilica has now decided that anyone, even a single person, accompanied by a guide, must pay a Fabbrica of 1.5 euros. The immediate result is that secular tourists and devout pilgrims alike are kept waiting as the guides get into line for “tickets,” often waiting up to 20 minutes in 100-degree heat.
In the line itself, the guides can all too easily transform from potential evangelizers to exasperated sceptics of a Church that so brazenly exploits the sacred space. When Luther’s Bible illustrated the Whore of Babylon wearing a papal tiara, Romans gasped. Today, they shrug.
If St. Peter’s has decided to take its cue from the state-run churches and charge entry fees, it would be more respectful of both visitors and guides to just drop the pretense and sell online tickets, like everybody else. The façade of respectability wastes time, threatens health, and garners ill will.
Michelangelo Buonarroti worked on the great basilica for free over the last 19 years of his life, “in honor of St. Peter,” whose tomb lies below. Cardinal Bilhères de Legraulas commissioned Michelangelo’s Pietà for the Holy Year 1500 asking only for prayers in return. And today, the Knights of Colombus fund all the major restorations, including the massive undertaking of regilding Bernini’s Baldacchino.
Yet now in 2024, with the Holy See in serious financial distress, the basilica has returned to the days of selling its beauty to meet its expenses. Furthermore, what must the secular tourist think about paying a ticket only to find that both the Pietà and the baldacchino – items on the average tourist’s must-see list – are under scaffolding for the foreseeable future?
One wonders what the Archpriest of the Basilica, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, is doing with all the cash that the basilica is taking in. Some was spent on new Lucite chairs used for his many private events, which result in unannounced closings of the basilica, frustrating the many visitors who planned their trip around the church.
Michelangelo once complained that an early design for St. Peter’s Basilica was so dark that it “provided hiding places, which lend themselves to unnumerable knaveries,” creating “a secret den for harboring bandits. . .and all sorts of rascality.” If those predictions of rascality have now come true, the fault isn’t in the building, but its stewards.
The situation is similar for the faithful who choose to follow Pope Francis and flee to Our Lady in her lovely basilica of St. Mary Major, the oldest Marian Church in the Western world. Pope Francis visited it on the first day of his papacy; he has slowly reknit the basilica and its icon of the Madonna Salus Populi Romani back into the urban devotional fabric.
The present archpriest, Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló, has unfortunately joined the “headset racket.” Visitors are again greeted by a booth, staffed with characters reminiscent of the “Inquisitorial Squad” in Harry Potter, for their lack of respect towards priests, pilgrims, and professionals.
Location! Location! Location! is the real estate slogan. And the stunning church at the crest of the Esquiline Hill was built in 432 to proclaim the Virgin Mary as Mother of God in the most influential neighborhood in the Roman Empire. Shimmering mosaics from the 5th century to the 13th recount the story of salvation, wooden boards from the crib where the newborn Christ was laid rest under the altar. And Rome’s beloved Marian icon watches over the space.
Yet in the eyes of the administration, these treasures pale compared to the great view from the terrace where the basilica offers early-bird breakfast visits or an evening aperitivo starting at 1000 euros. The “poor church for the poor” appears to have become the church of “pay to play.”
Cardinal Abril y Castellò joins a long line of famous custodians of the basilica, from Charles Borromeo to Roderigo Borgia. Saints or sinners, those men used their own funds to embellish the church as opposed to using the church to raise funds.
What would St. Jerome, whose remains lie in the basilica, think? He didn’t mince words in a 395 letter to Paulinus: “What use are walls blazing with jewels when Christ in His poor is in danger of perishing from hunger? Your possessions are no longer your own, but a stewardship is entrusted to you. . . .[Do not] give the property of the poor to those who are not poor; lest, as a wise man has told us, charity prove the death of charity.”
Now that the Pantheon sells tickets with Vatican approval (and a 30 percent cut) and St. Peter’s and St. Mary Major are essentially charging admission, what is to stop the other churches from going the way of Florence and Venice and setting up ticket booths at the front door?
The 2025 Jubilee Year stands to see 34 million pilgrims and tourists. That may mean a boon – or a new tragicomic joke, “What did the Jubilee of Hope cost? Faith and Charity.”
