Worship Comes In Many Forms

Yesterday when we entered Naples, you could see the celebratory decorations for the Napoli Football Club’s Serie A win everywhere. With the scudetto or “little shield” being returned to the team, it is their 4th championship in the elite Italian league, having won the 1986-87 season, 1989-90, 2022-23, and now 2024-25. Napoli FC is also apparently the fourth most supported club in Italy and it’s known that the fans can cheer so loudly, they can register an earthquake! Some memorabilia just around our hotel:







After breakfast in our hotel, I suggested we head to the Murales di Diego Armando Maradona. It actually popped up on Google maps when I was zooming in and out as I was getting my bearings and knew Justin would enjoy the soccer fanaticism. On the taxi ride to the murals, Justin conversed in Italian with the driver about the match, championship, and we said he needed a new scudetto sticker as it had a 3. We even chatted about Kim Min-Jae, a Korean who played on the championship winning team in 2022-23, helping to end the over thirty year drought, but was then traded to Bayern Munich. The driver asked if we were related when Justin told him our surname and further explained how popular the last name was - the driver seemed to know and chuckle with us.

Maradona, the famous Argentine player is worshipped here in Napoli as he helped win the Serie A championships in the 80s and because he led the first ever southern team to win - making him a cultural, social, and religious icon. Photos below including hordes of fans and families taking photos at this pilgrimage to Maradona:













We were excited to see the Korean and Argentine flags together:



We tried to get a taxi, but ended up taking the metro from Toledo to Dante the one stop to give my mom some reprieve and it’s so easy with contactless pay with chip credit cards. After getting off and walking a few blocks, we saw another famous mural of Maradona, but it wasn’t a pilgrimage site and Justin had some fun posing:



Yesterday, I saw this Spritz reference as Italy has a strong spritz culture led by Aperol, but apparently there’s even a Maradona spritz:





We had tried to visit the Cappella Sansevero as it’s known to have really cool sculptures of veiled figures, but it was sold out for the day. So we ended up walking around, enjoyed a man singing karaoke from his balcony, and waited for Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba, the oldest pizzeria in the world, to open. It was first established in 1738, and we ordered a Pizza Amalfi which was a white pizza with yellow tomatoes, a seafood cartoccio, and fried calamari. The first two were at the waiter’s recommendation, and the third was because my mom had a craving. Cartoccio is actually one of our favorite preparations and we order it a lot from our favorite Arthur Avenue restaurants where the pasta is cooked and then baked again wrapped. My mom said it was one of the best meals, and we were hopeful as the Dutch woman who waited for the restaurant to open said it was her second day in a row coming. Our lunch below:



After lunch, we returned to the hotel, washed up, and picked up our luggage. We were cutting it close, but we made the high-speed train that had excellent WiFi and were entertained by a young group of guys who were definitely seat hopping as we had to kick them out of ours and saw them moving around multiple times. My favorite was when Justin thought they left their luggage behind (he was trying to stow ours away) and they were just trying to nonchalantly shuffle.

In a little over an hour, we arrived at Rome Termini. We stood in the taxi line, but the taxi drivers wouldn’t take many parties including us, because they claimed the hotel was too close and the road was closed (which it wasn’t). We ended up walking 10 minutes with our luggage and thankfully it wasn’t hilly. But it wasn’t easy for my mom on the cobblestone streets, but she was a trooper and took it in stride. As a lady we met at dinner said, “the taxi drivers here are gross”. Her English was great, but she definitely meant shady as she explained how picky and difficult they can be after hearing our story.

I selected our hotel, Mercure Roma Centro Termini because it was close to the station (didn’t think that would be used against us) and because it’s pretty central and near the papal basilicas which is our sole agenda to celebrate the Jubilee. It also has connecting rooms for our ease and comfort and wasn’t as ridiculously priced like other hotels due to it being a Jubilee year. As a family, we were last in Rome in 1992 and I dug up some throwback photos:





After checking and settling in, we ordered a taxi as our plan was to walk through one of the four Jubilee Holy Doors today and then three tomorrow. So I had selected the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, commonly known as the Lateran Basilica and is the seat of the bishop of Rome and the oldest of the papal basilicas. I had visited in 2015 as well in case you were interested in reading about the 2015 visit.

It was less than ten minutes away by car, but there was odd traffic and barricades everywhere. We quickly learned that newly elected Pope Leo XIV was presiding 5 pm mass as he was officially beginning his pontificate and formally becomes the bishop of Rome.

We were in pure shock. I mean, folks joked about us seeing the Pope, but we didn’t think it could be a possibility and I had no idea the mass was being held. Initially, we were behind a barricade across the street, and we could see televisions streaming the mass in front of the basilica:



But then I guess there must have been so many empty seats, they let us through the barricade, we rushed through security, and watched in front of the basilica:









Priests came out and we received Holy Communion - Justin joked we didn’t have to go to mass yesterday in the Naples Cathedral:



Once mass ended, we were told he would appear on the balcony which we eagerly awaited, but were ironically a little too close because when he was speaking behind a mic, we could only see his forehead:







Then we waited for him to exit as we knew he was going to another papal basilica, Saint Mary Major just down the street. This was humorous to Justin as a Croatian kid had used Google translate when we were behind the barricades to ask Justin if the Pope was going to ride in the Pope Mobile. When the whole experience ended, we saw the kid and Justin said, “you got to see the Pope Mobile!” Why this kid thought Justin would know was so funny to me:











We were excited and my mom was elated, but the mass ended around 6:30 pm and due to security, we couldn’t leave the area until 6:55 pm and we had dinner reservations across town at 7 which should only take about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, public transport was on the other side of the basilica through massive crowds, so we kept looking for a cab and trying Uber on the side we were on, because it was the best driving route. We have learned that Uber isn’t consistently reliable as it’s really just pairing you with taxis that already have clients or just not accepting the Uber request (our hotels calling for cabs has been much more reliable).

We ended up walking for over 30 minutes trying to wave down cabs and connect to Uber. We walked so far, we were near a convenient bus line that would get us to the restaurant. I reasoned although we would be late or denied seating, we could sightsee in the area and because they did have the ability to charge me a fee per their policy. They also require communication via email of which I sent a couple explaining the pope security issue, but they hadn’t acknowledged my emails. We all agreed thank goodness we had a wonderful lunch, because we would have been miserable hangry. 

At one point on the bus, I thought we were passing the Coliseum which it wasn’t because I had read my Google maps incorrectly, but here’s a selfie on the bus anyway because we were still on a high due to seeing the first American Pope accidentally:



We finally arrived at Salumeria Con Cucina Roscioli which is very popular and was recommended by a colleague. We rationalized if they didn’t take us because we were over an hour late that would be okay, because we weren’t that hungry, and if we showed them that we tried that they wouldn’t charge us the no-show fees. They were sympathetic and hospitable because even when I showed a photo of the Pope, the host was like “This is Rome. This happens all the time. No worry”. We lost our table, but got seated at the bar and Justin had their classic ravioli with oxtail and my mom and I had different summer truffle pasta specials:



What a day of worship in different forms and both truly Italian! Celebrating Maradona and soccer and the new Pope - we are beyond thrilled and in awe!