Summer Time : moving along..through Rome

As many of you may know, we are currently living in Corsica, France, an island south of France close to Italy. And Rome is just a 4 hour ferry, and 3 hour train ride away....weird huh? For the adoption process we had to have Fingerprints done at a US embassy and since there was not one on the island we chose to travel to Rome (shucks!) where we could visit with and stay with some good friends we met at training. It was such a blessing to see them and catch up, especially letting Sadie and their precious little girl play together. We had our very own english speaking tour guides. We were also able to meet up with one of our new friends, Mina, who is now doing an internship in Rome.

The most interesting part were the "Holy Steps", the story is that the marble was brought from Jerusalem to Rome about 326 by Helena, mother of Constantine the first christian emperor. The marble was once the steps leading to the prætorium of Pilate at Jerusalem, hence, they believe sanctified by the footsteps of Jesus during his Passion. In 1908 the Pope granted a plenary indulgence to be gained as often as the stairs are devoutly climbed by knee after confession and communion.

Therefore, there were and are tons of people who come in hopes of this free indulgence subscribe by a Pope, a human.

Below is the Vatican, where the Pope lives. There were tons of tourist there in hopes of hearing him. We did not pay to go inside St. Peters but just seeing it on the outside, as well as the 100's of other huge church buildings on ever corner was eye opening. I do not know a lot about all the history but I do not that the Pope had people go around selling indulgences to build some of these church buildings. These buildings were built when people didn't have food to eat.