New rules for employees of St. Peter’s Basilica issued June 29 specify that personnel may not have visible tattoos or piercings, and theoretically could be suspended if they do.
Among other things, the new rules require basilica employees to “commit to adhering to principles of exemplary religious and moral conduct,” including not cohabitating outside of marriage. Employees must not have a criminal record, and must be both baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church. They must also produce a letter from a parish priest testifying to their good standing. MY COMMENT: SEEMS MORE STRINGENT THAT VATICAN REQUIREMENTS FOR GODPARENTS, NO?
The rules apply to all employees of the basilica, who include artistic experts and architects in addition to the so-called Sampietrini, meaning laborers who carry out routine maintenance and operations.
In addition, personnel are also barred from “taking part in activities, or attending rallies, which are inappropriate for a Vatican employee.” Most observers have taken that provision, at least in part, to refer to events such as the Gay Pride rally which was staged in Rome on June 15.
2 comments:
The problem with "butwudduhbout" godparents, etc arguments is they always lead to a devolution of standards rather than more stringent and fair across the board standards, such as godparents need to truly be exemplars of godliness if parents fail or die, likely because the realpolitik of things recognizes not many catholics, parents or godparents, are godly at all....
in the way of any large bureaucracy, especially the world's oldest, standards generally pencil-whipped, leading to a generally pencil-whipped Church, such as what is meant by "practicing Catholic", where "striving to be holy and a saint" generally not part of the equation at all.
Nor is the bureaucracy interested at all in having such a definition as it would show an extremely tiny and not terribly successful Church on the world religions stat board, which would lead to too many asking, "then why all the money demands?".
Tattoo or not tattoo, that is the question.
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