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Vatican to give homeless private VIP tour of Sistine Chapel

(Reuters) The museums, visited by about six million people a year who pay at least 16 euros, will close early so the homeless can get VIP treatment in the Sistine Chapel with its famous Michelangelo frescoes.
Vatican to give homeless private VIP tour of Sistine Chapel
The Pauline Chapel where cardinals gather before going into the Sistine Chapel. The conclave to pick a new pope will begin on Tuesday (March 12) the Vatican said Friday, resolving an open question that had dogged the cardinals meeting here over the past week. RNS photo by David Gibson.
Reuters
last judgement

Michelangelo’s Last Judgement inside the Sistine Chapel. RNS photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain (http://bit.ly/156Y0IK)

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) In Pope Francis’s latest gesture towards Rome’s homeless, the Vatican said on Tuesday (March 24) homeless people will get a special private tour of its museums and the Sistine Chapel.

About 150 homeless people who frequent the Vatican area – where Pope Francis has already set up facilities for them to have showers – will make the visit on Thursday afternoon, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said.


They will enter the Vatican via an entrance usually reserved for prelates and employees, walk past the guest house where Francis lives, and get a privileged view of the back of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican gardens.

The museums, visited by about six million people a year who pay at least 16 euros, will close early so the homeless can get VIP treatment in the Sistine Chapel with its famous Michelangelo frescoes.

Francis, who was known as the “slum bishop” in his native Buenos Aires because of his frequent visits to shantytowns, has made concern for the poor a major plank of his papacy.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella.)

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