In Matt 8:20, Jesus says "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

Why is it OK, then, for the Pope to have the opulence of the Vatican, summer homes, ornate vestments and to be carried around on a throne?

Nick O'Lodeon

You couldn't pay me enough to be the Pope. It's got to be the worst job in the world.

I remember seeing a program about the Vatican that brought the viewer into the papal apartments. There were grand reception rooms etc., etc., but where the pope really lived was two rooms in the back, a sort of sitting room, a bedroom with a small bed across from which was a desk with a computer and these adjoined a sort of dining room. The part of the Vatican that the Pope gets to call his own was about the same size that I was given in an inner city rectory when I was the pastor of a very poor parish.

As I watched, I thought , "Golly, the Pope’s desk and computer are about 5 feet from his bed, just like mine." You get to role out of bed and start work. It's like sleeping on a roll-away in your office. 

As for the opulence of the Vatican, it would be like living in a few back rooms in the Chicago Museum of Art. The difference is that every minute of every day was scheduled with visitors either wanting to schmooze you, take a picture or complain about something. So that you never had time to even visit the museum, boy what luxury!

I don't know much about the summer palace, Castel Gandolfo, but it looks pretty seedy to me. The pope goes there when Rome folds down in the summer and the same endless stream of schmoozers follow him out there. Why, I bet he has never even jet-skied on the lake.

How about the ornate vestments? O yeah, I imagine he lounges around in front of the big Vatican flat screen TV wearing diamond studded chasubles watching Seinfeld reruns. Get real! The vestments are used at Mass. They are for God and the faithful. The splendor exists to emphasize not the Pope but the beauty of the Mass and the dignity accorded the office.  I've worn elaborate vestments in my life. They itch.

I can't remember the last time the Pope was carried around on a throne. Now they shlep him around in the pope-mobile which makes him a much better target for assassins.

As far as I'm concerned, the most telling detail about the life of John Paul II was made evident at his funeral. As his body was carried out to the Piazza for the funeral Mass, the world saw the bottoms of his shoes for the first time. They were plain brow shoes made by a Polish cobbler who did it for love of his friend, Carol Wotyla. The shoes were worn down and had those round patches that old shoes so often have. He could have had anything I suppose, but he liked those comfortable old shoes. I bet they were the only comfortable things in his closet.

I remember a wonderful bishop who was coming to confirm our eighth graders when I was a pastor in that poor parish I mentioned above. It's customary that the bishop has a meal with the clergy or the religion teachers and parish staff on the evening of the Confirmation. A few days before the great event, I asked the bishop what he wanted to have for dinner he said "Oh, whatever you want." I looked at the poor, tired man (who died of cancer of the esophagus not long after, when he was barely in his 60's). The poor fellow constantly had acid indigestion but still had to eat the darndest things at religious banquets. I asked if he just wanted to skip the banquet. He sighed and said, "Oh, that would be wonderful. Then I could eat at home."

You see the bishops and the popes and even we, the lesser clergy, are often truly homeless. We don't come home at the end of the day and put on our old clothes and sit with a beer and a channel changer, (though we lesser clergy occasionally get away with a night off).

The clergy and particularly popes and bishops go to meetings and banquets and liturgies and get home at 11:00 PM and are up again at 6:00 AM to do it all over again. When the bishop comes to visit, it is the high point of the parish life. It is an endurance for the bishop. 

We just had a visit from the cardinal here at the parish in which I now reside. After the liturgy of one and a half hours, he went over to the hall to greet the faithful. The ladies of the parish offered him some food, and he wondered if there might not be a sandwich. There wasn't. They made him up a fruit plate which he was unable to eat for the crush of admirers who wanted to greet him. That was, I believe, his third such event of the day. 

Being a bishop, or for that matter, pope, is a complete sacrifice of one's private life down to the most embarrassing detail.  Some doting cook has made her village's traditional recipe for jalapeno bean fritters in blueberry syrup and stands over the bishop to make sure he gets an extra helping and all the bishop can think is, "Lord, I hope these things don't kick in during the third communion meditation hymn sung by Esperanto folk choir." 

Many is the prelate I have seen with a panicked look wondering whether or not there is a bathroom in the sacristy. In the morning, the bishop or pope or whoever, still nauseous from the jalapeno bean fritters and blueberry syrup will have to attend a 7:30 AM meeting about some cleric who has been accused of God knows what, while an angry mob of disgruntled parishioners waits in the outer office to complain about the closing of their parish school which is 3 million dollars in debt and has 38 students.

After all, the church is rich right? No, you couldn't get me to do that job short of divine intervention, and pope is utterly out of the question. 

Yes, Jesus had no place to lay his head, but at least he got to sneak off to the desert now and then, to pray and watch the sunrise. 

If a bishop or pope tried that, there would be protesters waiting for him there and his cell phone would ring constantly. If you think the life of the Bishop of Rome, or that of his fellow bishops is opulent, you are watching too much television.

Grateful to be low on the food chain, I remain,

Rev. Know-It-All