Today. 8 December, is a national holiday, the celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Schools and offices are closed, though shops are open and masses of Romans seem to be out and about browsing stores and getting a head start on holiday shopping.
Other Romans (and loads of tourists)–perhaps those more devoted to their religion than to retail–spent the afternoon in Piazza di Spagna awaiting the Pope’s annual visit to the Column of the Immaculate Conception. He was scheduled to arrive at 4:00pm; traditionally, he kneels in prayer and leaves flowers for the Virgin.
The eCool team passed through today between about 1 and 2pm–long before the Pope arrived–but the area around the column was packed already. The Spanish Embassy on the piazza (its location gives Piazza di Spagna its name) was decked out in red banners and any number of huge bouquets (many with corporate sponsors) had been placed around the column base–including a fabulous wreath with the name of ACLI/ATAC/Trambus, the Roman public transportation consortium, spelled out in giallo and rosso carnations. We’re glad to know about the devotion of ATAC and we’ll continue to hope for divine intervention on those days in which there’s nary a bus in sight.
We didn’t stick around long enough to see the Papal visit, but even in those hours before he arrived, individuals were bringing flowers for the Virgin and handing them off to a team of priests and nuns who were curating the careful arrangement. Images of the event itself, showing the arrival of the Pope in his Popemobile by way of Via Condotti, as well as the greeting he received from Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, can be seen on the Corriere della Sera website.
So that’s why the Virgin Mary joined me for breakfast this morning. She said, “We defeated communism but what are we going o do about all those religious nuts in the US, and its fondness for wars?”