Late on a Saturday afternoon, we landed at Ciampino and I stepped out from the plane and took my first breath of Italian air. The taxi we took from the airport was happily emblazoned with campaign paraphernalia of Rocco Buttiglione's party (the UDC), and the taxi driver smoked Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes, a brand I had never heard of but was rather appropriate as I was in the midst of Washington Irving's fanciful History of New York part of which relays the tales of that hard-headed great. The drive into Rome was amazing both for its speed and the audacious maneuvering of the driver. Though I generally have an irrational hatred of all things continental, I must confess I've always partly admired their laissez-faire attitude towards traffic regulations. Alas, with our larger cars in America, the quick weaving the Italians are fond of is probably impossible.

We journeyed to the city by the Via Appia Antica, passing along the way the spot where Our Lord appeared to St. Peter, famously provoking the question "Domine, Quo Vadis?", inspiring Peter's return to Rome and his ultimate martyrdom and glorification. The ruins and remnants along the Appian Way were beautiful in the setting sun of the early evening.

We arrived at the little convent of Santa Guliana where we were staying, lodged midway between the Piazza Navona and Sant'Andrea della Valle, and one of my first impressions, gazing out the open window once we settled ourselves in our rooms, was that Rome reminded me somewhat of Argentina, though of course much older, and I dare say perhaps even prettier than Buenos Aires.

After our first Italian dinner in a little place Father knew of, we walked back to the convent and Louise retired for the evening while Jon, Abby, Father, and myself decided to walk to St. Peter's to pay a nighttime visit. For Abigail and me, it was our first time in Rome and thus our first visit to the Piazza San Pietro. We crossed the Tiber on the Ponte Sant'Angelo and saw for the first time the brilliantly illuminated dome of the basilica, then proceeded down the Via della Conciliazione to the Piazza itself.

One often hears that things always seem larger in photographs or on television than in reality. For example, I have often heard that the Oval Office is actually quite smaller in real life than one would think from television and such. St. Peter's is the exact opposite. It feels immense, huge, but without being overbearing. Bernini's flanking colonnades create a warm though formal embrace, drawing you in and impressing upon you both the importance of the place and the fact that you belong there. From above, the outline of the piazza and basilica form the shape of a keyhole, and one can easily see this as the keyhole to the Universe, remembering Christ's endowment of authority to His Church, that whatsoever is bound here is bound in Heaven.

It was nearly eleven, and we saw the lights in the Pope's apartment in the Apostolic Palace go out, and we decided to withdraw for the evening. Jon and I dropped Abby off at our place and decided we wanted a cheeky drink before our convent's midnight curfew. Despite warnings of being overpriced (and it was) we went to a place on the Piazza Navona and enjoyed a carafe of the house red, a few cigarettes, and some good chat before calling it a night. Whilst enjoying our wine on the Piazza Navona, we remembered that the clocks were changing that night, so Jon and I thought ourselves clever by changing our watches then and there.

We were quite irate, then, when Abigail knocked on our door to wake us up at 6.15 in the morning, two hours before the arranged time. We scolded her for her impudence, whereupon she informed us that it was actually 8.15. Jon and I had both put our clocks back an hour instead of forward. Nonetheless, we still had a little time before the Mass we were to attend, so after breakfast in the nunnery we went to see the Pantheon. A magnificent place, again so much larger in life than one would imagine. It is the only major pagan temple which has survived intact. Legend has it that when the Barbarians were sacking Rome they roughed up whatever they could, but when the entered the Pantheon they were astounded by its majesty and let it be. Now, of course, it is a church, dedicated (appropriately) to All the Saints, and contains the tombs of King Victor Emmanuel II (the 'Father of the Country' who was made the first king of the united Italy in the 19th century) and King Umberto I, with his wife, Queen Margherita (after whom the Margherita pizza is named). The tombs had a Guard of Honour until Italy became a republic in 1946, and since that time a vigil has been maintained by volunteers from a number of Italian monarchist organisations.

We then went off to Sunday Mass at the charming little hidden-away chapel reserved for the use of the FSSP, which sits at the end of an alleyway off the Piazza Nicosia. As we neared the end of the alleyway we could hear the incantations of a Kyrie Eleison and eventually saw that three priests were practicing their chants for the Mass. Seeing Jon and myself as we were about to enter the Chapel, an American accent expressed delight and asked Jon and I if we could serve the old rite. Embarrassingly, we admitted we could not and apologized, but I don't know why they even wanted us because when the mass did start, the sanctuary was more crowded than Grand Central with a priest, deacon, subdeacon, and a liberal dose of altar servers. It was an excellent mass, especially the singing, but we had to leave after communion so we could make it to St. Peter's Square for the Pope's Sunday Angelus.

We got to the Piazza in time and saw the tiny white figure of the Pope appear at his window in the Apostolic Palace at midday, guarded from the rays of the sun by an awning, which unfortunately made him a little harder to see. He gave his message in Italian and then we all prayed the Angelus with him in Latin. He then gave a brief note of welcome in French, then spoke briefly to us in English, followed by a greeting to the Germanophones in his native tongue, then in Spanish, and he began to speak in Polish as we left the Piazza to seek food. Luncheon al fresco at a little place in the Borgo. Rigatoni alla amatriciana. Good food and good chat but often disturbed by irritating little gypsies and gypsy children. Rome is unfortunately plagued by thousands of thieves/beggars (they are usually the same people), but luckily none of us suffered any pickpocketing or such.

It was after luncheon that we went and entered the Basilica itself for the first time. What an amazing space! I was somewhat irritated by all the other people there, some pilgrims like us, but a great many tourists too, looking silly and presumably lacking any appreciation for what they were visiting. How brilliant it would be to have the whole place to one's self for an hour or so.

Explored. Gazed. Prayers at the statue of Saint Andrew under the dome. Visited the Stuart monument and paid my respects there. Many prayers for friends and family, especially my little nephew who had yet to be born at the time. Laid into the floor of the basilica are the lengths of other prominent churches throughout the world. I took photos of the markers for Westminster Cathedral, my own mother church of St. Patrick in New York, and our national church, the 'Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception' in Washington. Went to confession (one of the requirements of the plenary indulgence for a pilgrimage to Rome) and then headed back to Santa Guliana for a spot of reading and a little siesta, and then the four of us had dinner afterwards.

MONDAY we had to wake early, for Father was going to say mass in a chapel in the crypt of Saint Peter's Basilica at 7:00 am. It was before dawn as we made our way to St. Peter's, crossing the Ponte Sant'Angelo, arriving in the Square and seeing that the Holy Father was already awake, the lights on in the Papal Apartments. The Basilica was shrouded in mist so from afar all you could see was the illuminated circle around the bottom of the dome, shining like a crown. After Father vested in the Sacristy, we made our way down into the crypt. Passing down a corridor we came upon a gang of piously silent pilgrims, praying and gazing at a tomb, which we then realised was that of our late Holy Father, John Paul II. We each made a reverential bow as we passed. The mass was in the Hungarian chapel, which was a bit modern but nonetheless suited out needs. Hearing mass on our knees on a stone floor underneath St. Peter's was a special privilege during this penitential Lenten season.

Afterwards we had breakfast, cappuccino and croissant, in a little snack bar on the Piazza Risorgimento (which I decided, when the counterrevolution comes, to rename the Piazza de Maistre, or maybe the Piazza Metternich). Then we decided to take care of some of the basilicas we wanted to visit to fulfill the requirements for the plenary indulgence. We took the subway to Termini from whence we walked to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. I headed straight for the tomb of St. Pius V, which I had written an essay on for my Art and Piety in Western Europe class last year. Then across the nave to the altar of Santa Maria Salus Populi Romani where Blessed Pope Pius XII said his first mass. Mary, the 'Health of the Roman People' is the Protector of Rome, and I made sure to say a few prayers for the safekeeping of the holy city and the safety and freedom of the Pope and the Church.

We then proceeded to the nearby basilica of Santa Prassede, which has some amazingly ancient mosaics and the Pillar of the Scourging, traditionally held to be the pillar upon which Our Lord was scourged during His Passion. There are also some ancient sarcophagi in the crypt which you can descend into and visit. We then walked to the Lateran basilica of St. John. St. John's is the Cathedral of Rome and thus is home to the throne (cathedra) of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. After exploring the beautiful cathedral, we had a tour of the Vatican Historical Museum in the adjacent Lateran palace. Unfortunately half of the Museum was closed off temporarily but we did get to see some of the splendid rooms and the actual Lateran Treaty between the Pope and the Kingdom of Italy which established the recognition of the Vatican as free and independent of the Italian state. It was negotiated and agreed to after over fifty years of enmity between the Pope and the Italian state, which had been born when the masonic liberal nationalists such as Garibaldi and Cavour invaded the Papal States, making the Pope a prisoner of the Vatican. The signatures on the Lateran treaty include our blessed Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, who signed it for the Vatican as Pius XI's Secretary of State, and Benito Mussolini, who signed it on behalf of the Kingdom of Italy as its Prime Minister. After the museum we had lunch in a trattoria, and enjoyed good food and good conversation as we waited for the Scala Sancta across from the Lateran to reopen at 3 o'clock.

The Scala Sancta (or Scala Santa in Italian) was quite possibly the best and most rewarding part of our pilgrimage. The 'Holy Stairs' are the steps from the Praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem upon which Our Lord walked to be questioned by Pilate during His Passion. "Veritas? Quid est veritas?" Saint Helena, the British mother of the Emperor Constantine, brought the stairs to Rome from Jerusalem around 326. The twenty-eight marble steps are ascended on your knees, saying prayers on each step as you ascend. (Traditionally an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be). Mercifully the marble stairs are covered in wood which, though ancient and hardened, are a little easier on the knees than solid rock. I got stuck behind an ancient Italian lady, which at first I found irritating but learnt the value of since it made sure I paced myself rather than rushing through it.

Twenty-eight steps. Twenty-eight times praying to God the Father. Twenty-eight invocations asking the Blessed Virgin to pray for us. Twenty-eight times glorifying the Holy Trinity as your knees crumble on the ancient steps recalling Our Lord's suffering and the idiotic things we do when we forget to constantly remember His sacrifice. It was an absolutely amazing experience and remarkably rewarding. Any Christian who finds himself in Rome and does not take the opportunity of doing it at least once in his lifetime is a fool.

Afterwards we took a slow route home, visiting the Basilica of San Clemente, currently under the care of the Irish Dominicans, passing the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine, and the Senate. We went past the Roman Priory of the Order of Malta, which Father visited during his own time, and passed the wretched Vittoriano, the white marble monument to Victor Emmanuel. Its construction between 1895 and 1911 destroyed a great part of the Capitoline Hill and many medieval and ancient buildings. It contains a giant statue of the King, as well as the 'Altar of the Nation' and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The Romans scornfully refer to it as 'the wedding cake' or 'the typewriter'.

But after that we went through the Piazza Venezia and down the street, peeking into the Palace of the Doria-Pamphilj family. It was not open to the public at that moment, but the Prince's Jack Russell Terriers came to the door to wish us well. There we bid adieu to Father for the day, heading back to the convent for a siesta. We dinned in the Campo de Fiore that evening, then sauntered a little in the Piazza Navona before heading home.

TUESDAY we saw a great variety of sites after hearing mass in the morning. First we took a gander at the massive  Palazzo Borghese and had a wander in the little market held in the adjacent plaza. Fr. Emerson caught a glimpse of Princess Alessandra ('Ale') Borghese, who lives in the Palazzo and happens to be a very good friend of our current pontiff, Pope Benedict. We then sauntered down the Via dei Condotti, a fashionable street for shopping and such which also happens to be home to one of the Order of Malta's two palaces in Rome. It contains the residence of the Prince and Grand Master of the Order ('Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ') and the Magisterial library, and other governmental offices of the uniquely sovereign order. At the end of the Condotti, of course, are the famous Spanish Steps. The steps are so-called due to the presence of the Kingdom of Spain's embassy to the Holy See on the Piazza di Spagna from which the steps ascend towards the Trinità dei Monti church at the summit. Then we continued to the famous Trevi fountain, which despite being popular with tourists, I rather enjoyed. The fountain is certainly very beautiful and despite basically encompassing and dominating the entire square in which it is located, doesn't seem overbearing. The obligatory tossing of a coin over the shoulder was, of course, done.

Afterwards, we marched up the Quirinal Hill to the eponymous palace which sits atop it. The Quirinale was built in 1573 by Pope Gregory XIII and was the papal summer residence until 1871 when it was usurped by the liberal nationalist Kingdom of Italy proclaimed ten years before which took Rome from the Vicars of Christ the previous year. With the abolition of the monarchy in 1946, it became the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. Being the state residence, uninvited guests are not allowed inside, but we admired the exterior of the Palace (designed by Domenico Fontana, also responsible for the façade of the Lateran basilica) and took in the superb view of Rome from the hilltop.

Nearby, we visited Bernini's superb church dedicated to my patron saint, Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, which contains a monument to Victor Emmanuel I, King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy, Piedmont, and Aosta. From 1819 until his death in 1824, Victor was the pretender of the Stuart succession, and thus to Jacobites he was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Just down the street, we examined the Church of San Carlo allo Quatro Fontane, designed by Bernini's less-talented arch-rival Francesco Borromini.

WEDNESDAY is of course the day of the Pope's weekly General Audience. Stopped at Sant'Eustachio for a cappuccino and croissant before heading right for Saint Peter's Square. Fr. Emerson arranged the tickets and was told it was advisable to arrive an hour before the start of the audience. We arrived an hour and a half before the audience and the square was already nearly full. During the previous papacy, John Paul II went to the world, but these days the world is coming to Rome to see Benedict, as his weekly audiences have maintained unprecedented high numbers of attendance for an unprecedented length of time after his election. Luckily we managed to get a place right next to a pathway in a section that was fairly empty when we arrived. The main section was already full up, but within ten minutes of choosing our position our own part was becoming pretty packed.

A little past the appointed hour, a few Swiss Guards emerged from the central portal of the Basilica, followed by a number of cardinals. A little later, a wave of applause erupted throughout the Piazza, and we saw from the large screens erected there, Benedict, riding in an open-top white vehicle. The car circled the crowd and it was then the Holy Father passed us by, and I remembered that poem 'Easter Day' by Oscar Wilde:

Once he was seated, we retreated to the shade of Bernini's colonnade and watched the proceedings from the large television screens which, despite their convenience, rather mar the Piazza. After the General Audience, the mounted band of the Italian Carabinieri gave a little performance in the Piazza San Pietro, probably right on the Italian side of the border with the Vatican. They played a few martial tunes which I enjoyed, and after a little while we went and had a brief lunch (only just under an hour, terse by Roman standards) for we wanted to see the Catacombs in the afternoon.

We went, by subway and bus, to the Via Appia Antica, which was simply stunning. Most of it is protected as a regional park, and thus we were surrounded by ancient looking farmhouses, a few ruins, but mostly rustic hills and greenery. We slowly but surely made our way to the Basilica of San Sebastiano, which we examined before heading to a tour of the Catacombs located underneath. To see the Catacombs you must be with a tour guide, and ours was terrible, but the Catacombs themselves still managed to impress. The narrow passageways with graves varying from simple slots in the earth to elaborate mausoleums were certainly worth seeing, and travelling through it had quite the air of Indiana Jones. Jocularity aside, who knows how many early saints were buried there?

We then tried to make our way back into the city by a different route than we had arrived by, and seeing at a bus stop a young man perhaps only a few years older than we are, Father asked him a question in English. "How did you know I was English?" he jokingly replied, red-haired and donning a tweed jacket. Eventually we sorted ourselves out for a bus and heard mass at the FSSP chapel at 6.30 in the evening. Dinner for the second time at a little place we rather enjoyed in the Campo de Fiore.

THURSDAY happened to be my birthday, and we began with mass in the Chamber of Saint Catherine at the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. This is the room in which Saint Catherine of Siena died, which was transported to Rome and installed in the sacristy of the basilica. After mass we poked around Santa Maria Sopra Minerva for a bit and then visited a few of the neighbouring shops. I popped into a place called Briscoli (I think) which exhibited some of the decorations (as in orders) they manufacture. There were a good few of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre (of which our own Professor Haldane is a knight), as well as a few cloaks of the Constantinian Order waiting to be picked up.

Then we went to the last of the four major basilicas we had to visit, Saint Paul Outside the Walls, which as its name implies is located a little distance outside the main part of the city of Rome. In addition to being a major basilica, St. Paul's is a Benedictine abbey which burnt down in the 19th century and was rebuilt pretty much exactly as it had been before. It is the largest of the major basilicas after St. Peter's. In the transepts of the basilica are two altars of striking green marble which were donated by Czar Nicholas I of Russia. A group of Russian Orthodox pilgrims were there, and an attendant allowed them to venerate the relics of Saint Paul kept at the high altar, after which they sung one of those beautiful rhythmic hymns the Russian church is known for.

After that, we took the subway to San Pietro and had an excellent lunch at another little place in the Borgo, after which we examined the Vatican bookshop and the Ancorra bookshop nearby. I nearly bought an amply-illustrated hardcover edition of Bruno Heim's magnum opus at the Vatican bookshop, but they only had it in Italian so I relented.

But of course it was my birthday, and to celebrate we headed to the rooftop terrace of the Residenza Paolo VI, overlooking St. Peter's Square and the Vatican. Abby, Jon, Louise, Father, and I were joined by Guy Stair Sainty, the Vice Grand Chancellor of the Constantinian Order (amongst other things), who was quite an affable fellow, very entertaining. We had run into him in the Piazza where Father (a Constantinian himself) recognised him as he was heading to the Vatican bookshop himself to pick up the new Annuario Pontificio. Mr. Sainty has just finished editing Burke's Peerage & Gentry's World Orders of Knighthood & Merit (which will be printed in July of this year, 2,100 pages in two volumes, full colour, for £249.95). Anyhow, he joined us for a little while in celebrating my birthday with a few glasses of champagne. After Mr. Sainty had left, we were joined by Clare Dempsey, who was also in Rome at the time, along with our mutual friend Caroline who was with her. As the afternoon/evening progressed, it got a bit chilly on the terrace and we retreated to the dining room for a little supper

FRIDAY was, of course, our last day in Rome and we rose early in the morning so we could be first on line to get into the Vatican Museum, thus avoiding waiting hours for admission. Shortly after our arrival at the still-closed entrance we were joined by two American airmen stationed in the Azores with whom we spoke for a while, waiting for the museum to open. The Musei Vaticani are extensive and very wide-ranging, naturally, and thus it would be impossible for me to mention all the various works we saw. Seeing the Sistine Chapel was brilliant, excepting that it was full of chattering tourists. The real way to experience any chapel or church is to hear mass said there, but of course this was not possible.

What was really rather amazing was after we had visited as much of the museum as we felt possible we met Fr. Allen Duston, O.P., an old friend of Fr. Emerson's and currently in charge of worldwide fundraising for the Vatican Museums. We were met in the museum by his secretary, a young half-Italian, half-American woman with a degree in Fine Arts from N.Y.U. (if I recall correctly). She lead us out of the Museum, past security guards and through various courtyards and portals to Fr. Duston's office in the Apostolic Palace. His office was actually built as a library by Pope Innocent X and is a spacious room lined with wooden panelling, topped by a vaulted ceiling. Not bad at all, as offices go, and in the Apostolic Palace to boot!

While we were waiting for Fr. Duston who was in a meeting at the time, we chatted with his secretary who (much to my national pride) told us that "99.999%" of the funds raised for the Vatican museums come from the United States. A little while later Fr. Duston arrived, clad in the white habit of the Domincan order. The six of us then headed out to a nice restaurant in the Borgo for lunch.

While Louise headed off to catch a tour of the Coliseum, the rest of us had a relaxed afternoon siesta before heading to the F.S.S.P. chapel at 5:30 for mass. After mass, Jon and Abby (who are engaged) went off to have a proverbial romantic dinner for two on their last night in the Eternal City, while I joined Fr. Emerson and Fr. Robert Fromageot, one of the Fraternity's priests in Rome and a fellow New Yorker, for dinner at the same lovely little trattoria in which we dined on our first night in Rome. Fr. Fromageot, the son of a French father and a Cuban concert painist mother, struck me as eminently sound and endowed with a great deal of common sense, traits which, I'm saddened to say, sometimes seem rare amongst traditionalists. I'm glad, however, that the best virtues of the people of the Empire State are well-represented by this young priest of the F.S.S.P.

ALL IN ALL, one felt the entire pilgrimage was a great privilege. Here we were in the center of it all, Roma, Caput Mundi, and in the Lenten season as well. It was an amazing experience which augmented and deepened our Lenten season. Each of us would like to extend our immense thanks to Mr. Dudley Heathcote, KM who through his generosity and sense of Christian charity enabled the pilgrimage to take place, and also to the anonymous donor who made an extra contribution towards our pilgrimage. Many prayers for they and their families. They have made sure our pilgrimage to the Eternal City was one which will be everlasting in our hearts and minds, and marked upon our souls. Deo gratias!