In Rome, you behold the stark confluence of Classical and Christian influences that form Catholicism: the Pantheon is now a basilica that you can’t enter during mass; Trajan’s Column is now crowned with a bronze statue of St. Peter; a renaissance Pope dedicated the Colosseum to the early Christian martyrs. And smack dab in the heart of the liberal-minded Roman Empire that only ever banned two religions (Druidism and Christianity), stands the Vatican, which I first visiting nearly 10 years ago this month.

Before proceeding, I want to be clear that I’m not interested in another round of Catholic bashing: when I was a young LDS missionary in Latin America, the Catholics were hands down the nicest, coolest people I met (it was the Evangelicals who were by far the most vicious).  I never saw the virtue of alienating the folks most likely to let us in.  The McConkie-influenced anti-Catholicism in modern-day Mormonism is frankly bizarre, given that: 1) Joseph Smith himself declared the “old Catholic Church is worth more than all [other churches]” and deserves our respect (and as the LDS Church continues to grow faster in Catholic Latin-America than in Protestant North America, it behooves us to both respect and understand where our largest number of converts are coming from); and 2) despite our celebration of the Reformation as a forerunner to the Restoration, we have rejected all of Protestantism’s central claims, including the idea of salvation by faith alone, in the Bible alone.  Really, when it comes to discussions of Priesthood keys and sacred places, Mormons and Catholics speak the same language; and there is no place more sacred to Catholics than the Vatican.

Besides, lambasting a litany of Papal abuses and Catholic corruption is a strictly Protestant game: have you ever read Boccaccio’s Decameron with its teaming masses of adulterous monks and nuns–or for that matter Dante’s Inferno (speaking of confluences of Classical and Christian influences), with its bona fide Popes in hell?  Seriously, go read Canto XIX of the latter, wherein Dante the Pilgrim scolds Pop Nicholas III, who is cramped upside down in a burning hole for the sin of Simony–that is, the selling of indulgences (which even the most orthodox Catholics knew was a sin long before Martin Luther came along)–declaiming:

“Therefore stay here, for thou art justly punished, And keep safe guard o’er the ill-gotten money […]

And were it not that still forbids me,

The reverence for the keys superlative,

Thou hadst in keeping in the gladsome life,

I would make use of words more grievous still;

Because your avarice afflicts the world, Trampling the good and lifting the depraved.” (Henry Wordsworth Longfellow translation)

Dante respects the office of Pope, even as he has nothing but well-earned contempt for this particular Pope himself.  That is, even the medieval Italians knew their Church was often corrupt! (And they’re the ones with “Papal infallibility,” not us.) Tell Catholics about their Church’s sins and they’ll just shrug their shoulders and say, “Yeah, we know.” For them, the Church is true, even when its leaders aren’t.

Quite frankly, as the modern LDS Church comes to grapple with its own, shall we say, more “colorful” history (e.g. polygamy, racist Priesthood bans, Mountain Meadows, Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling, Prince and Wrights’ David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, and just so many more), perhaps a healthy dose of Catholic “The-Church-is-true-even-when-the-people-aren’t” is exactly what the doctor ordered. The Lord uses flawed men to do his work; what’s more, according to our own theology, the War in Heaven was fought over free agency, which means the Almighty allows us to make mistakes–and that to an incredibly radical degree–yes, even our senior-most leaders, because we have all sinned and fallen far short of the glory of God.

Our collective capacity to not only screw up, but to screw up royally and repeatedly, is why the infinite and eternal Atonement of Christ was even necessary in the first place.  That is why repentance, not perfection, is the requirement for salvation. “I do not want you to think that I am a righteous man,” said Joseph Smith during the Nauvoo period, and it is increasingly clear that he said that not in modest self-deprecation, but in a moment of brutal self-honesty.  He never claimed to be perfect–but then, neither did the Catholic Church.

I also saw the living Pope, incidentally: Francesco himself. (I just can’t bring myself to call him “Francis,” it just sounds so less regal in English). Every Sunday and Wednesday (barring trips abroad or whatevs), the Pope holds a short morning mass in St. Peter’s Square. The tickets are free, but you do need tickets, since the Square fills up to capacity 7,000-strong each time (and we Mormons feel impressive when we can fill up the General Conference center just twice a year). Show up 2-3 hours in advance if you want to go.

I certainly did. And let me tell you, Pope Francesco was and remains a rock star: upon his arrival, he weaves through the crowd on his little Pope-mobile, followed by cameras, shaking hands and kissing babies. (Literally. I’d always assumed “kissing-babies” was just a general metaphor for glad-handing politicians or something, but no, he actually picked up babies and kissed them for the camera.) The crowd rises to its feet and applauds loudly, breaking spontaneously into chants of “FRAN-CES-CO! FRAN-CES-CO!”

(Contrast that to the respectful silence and dignified rise to the feet that occurs when the Prophet enters the room; I’m not saying that that should change, but I can’t help but imagine what General Conference would be like if the 25,000-strong crowd suddenly broke into loud applause with chants of “NEL-SON! NEL-SON!” as he ran through the crowd smiling and high-fiving everyone.) (It’s part and parcel of my same fantasy of Mormon fast and testimony meetings turning into, say, a series of Southern Baptist call and response; “I knooooow Joseph Smith was a Prophet o’ da Lawd!” “Preach it!” “Amen”).

Half-hour before the Pope makes his appearance, a series of Cardinals stand up and recognize, in their native languages, the various groups of Pilgrims who’ve showed up that morning; e.g. an Italian-speaking Cardinal calls out the Italian groups, who in turn shout back and wave their flags; then a Francophone Cardinal calls out the French-speaking groups, and so on. ^[1]We were seated near an Italian Boy Scout troop that cheered and waved when recognized; I was going to make a joke about what the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts have in common, but then I felt bad. Have you noticed that all the party-countries are Catholic countries? That fiesta-atmosphere was totally on display that morning at St. Peters.

The Pope then gave his actual address in Italian, which lasted all of about 5 minutes–the one I heard was on St. Joseph and the importance of work and of battling unemployment in a just and humane manner and other such harmless generalities (hey, when gotta you give 100+ sermons a year, you can’t knock ’em all outta the park).

Then, the aforementioned Cardinals stood up again, one at a time, and repeated the Pope’s sermon in each of the representative languages of Catholicism: French, German, Portuguese, English, Polish, and Arabic (!)–all save for Spanish, which this Argentine Pope chose to recite for himself, to wild cheers from the Latin Americans in the audience. He finished with a prayer and blessing, and then the whole square erupted into applause.

Of course, for most the folks in attendance, what was most exciting wasn’t what the Pope spoke about, but rather just that he spoke at all. That got me thinking about Mormonism’s own relationship with the Prophet; we’re often taught in Sunday School how embarrassing it would be for us to brag of having a Prophet and then be asked what he’s said and not knowing (as though we couldn’t just say “Prayer and pornography is bad” and not be in the ball-park). And that sentiment’s completely true: the content of the Prophet’s words is more important than his existence.

But I’m not so ready to dismiss the importance of just his existence; I read a Dialogue article once upon a time, about the Church’s relationship with the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. Said article outlined how in the early LDS Church, what was most marvelous about the Book of Mormon, what most animated the missionaries and excited the converts, wasn’t what it said, but just that it existed–the Heavens were open again! God speaks to man once more! What exactly was He saying to us? At the time, it was just marvelous that He spoke at all.  I wonder sometimes if we don’t appreciate that gift enough, or consider the voice of God with a sufficient amount of awe.

Hugh Nibley also has written about the medieval phenomenon of “Letters from Heaven,” wherein a letter written by the Almighty himself would “miraculously” appear on a Church altar.  The contents of the letters would always be mediocre, unremarkable stuff–calls to keep the Sabbath and what-not–but what galvanized the congregants was never the content, but the sheer fact that God was speaking at all.  That is how the Book of Mormon was first received; and if the cheering crowds at the Vatican are any indication, that is still the main draw of religion today.

The Pope of the Catholic Church does not claim to be a Prophet; he’s at least honest in that. But what the Catholics stand in awe of, what they consider to be their pearl beyond price, is that there is in fact a man on Earth who holds the same keys to the kingdom of heaven that Christ Jesus bestowed upon the Apostle Peter. Where the Mormons and the Catholics will always have to part ways is on whether those Keys continued uninterrupted from Peter to Pope Francesco, or if they were lost and restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. But perhaps what we can learn from the Catholics is the thrill, the happiness, the sheer joie de vivre, to know for sure that someone holds those keys at all.