# Could I Attend Mass at St. Peter's Basilica? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 23, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723 "2010-07-23T15:28:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/21 "2010-07-27T17:14:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Probably it wasn’t, because I don’t specifically remember taking communion. At the time I had no idea how strict catholics are about non-catholics taking it (I grew up in the Church of England, which is much less strict), so I probably would have accepted it if offered. The Church of England is actually in a gray area, in this regard. Depending on your precise beliefs concerning Communion, you might or might not have been allowed. But it probably would have entailed a theological discussion with the priest before-hand to determine that. Basically, Catholic communion is open to those who have the same beliefs about it as Catholics do. Some sects have beliefs about it which are flat-out contradictory to the Catholic Church’s, and so a member of one of those sects would never be eligible. But the official Anglican belief is sufficiently vague (from the Catholic point of view) that an individual consistent with the Anglican beliefs might or might not also be consistent with the Catholic beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/22 "2010-07-27T17:38:14Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > > [@Ignatz](#): > > > > I attended one on Easter Sunday, with Pope Paul VI, but I had to stand out in the plaza, under his apartment window, with about 20,000 others. And I’m not even Catholic. > > Guy goes to St Peter’s on Easter, hoping the Pope might personally give him a blessing. Puts on his finest suit to get noticed. Pope walks down the aisle; ignores the guy but does lean over and whisper in the ear of an obviously destitute bum. > > The next year the same guy realizes what he needs to do to get noticed, so he dresses like a homeless fellow and sits near the aisle. To his growing excitement the Pope notices him and comes by to lean over and whisper in his ear. A personal blessing from the Pope! > > “I thought I told you to get the hell outta here last year…” The other joke, a bit more blasphemous, is about the guy who camps out under the window in ST. Peters waiting for the pope. Finally after several days, the pope appears at the window and says (make sign of cross here - downward sweep) “take down your tent and…” (sideways swipe) “…get the hell outta here!” Of course no church is going to charge admission for a service, but some more historical ones do have an admission charge for tourists for general “get in the door”, not just for the crypts, museum, or the dome etc. Considering what maintenance and restoration cost, I cannot object. St Pauls in London, IIRC, had a ticket booth and turnstile at the entrance. I assume real worshippers know the code to get in free. Yeah, the general rule in any ceremony or service in any place you are just a vistor applies - be respectful and don’t become an active participant in anything if you don’t know what it’s about. Sorry, I’m not up on Mormon services and protocols. I did not know there were churches vs. temples or what the usual services are. Enlightenment would be enlightening… ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/23 "2010-07-27T19:35:59Z")
> [@rekkah](#): > > I’m not a catholic, but I went to a service there in 2000. It was a small scale evening service in a small part of the basilica (I want to say a side chapel, but I’m not sure). I don’t think it was an actual mass, more like evensong (googling tells me the catholic equivalent is vespers, perhaps it was that). Looking at the schedule right now, I wonder if you may have attended a [benediction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benediction_of_the_Blessed_Sacrament) service, which is indeed not a Mass. It appears that this occurs in the late afternoon (might have been held later in 2000) every weekday. [Vespers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespers) is not listed as part of the services at the Basilica but, again, things may well have been different in 2000. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/24 "2010-07-27T20:04:07Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Of course no church is going to charge admission for a service, but some more historical ones do have an admission charge for tourists for general “get in the door”, not just for the crypts, museum, or the dome etc. Considering what maintenance and restoration cost, I cannot object. St Pauls in London, IIRC, had a ticket booth and turnstile at the entrance. **I assume real worshippers know the code to get in free.** I’ve been to St. Paul’s in London also, and I was wondering this worked. I believe Westminster Abbey also had an admission charge, but can’t remember for sure. Obviously they’re not going to turn away people who just want to worship, so how do they distinguish the genuine worshipers from the tourists who just want to come in and look around. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/25 "2010-07-27T20:21:28Z")
Maybe by time? The worship services are at particular times, and you can’t really accommodate tourists during worship, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Disheavel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Disheavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disheavel)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/26 "2010-07-27T20:28:06Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > I’ve been to St. Paul’s in London also, and I was wondering this worked. I believe Westminster Abbey also had an admission charge, but can’t remember for sure. Obviously they’re not going to turn away people who just want to worship, so how do they distinguish the genuine worshipers from the tourists who just want to come in and look around. Both places have church services you can attend for free- in fact, Evensong at Westminster Abbey is amazing and open to the public (it is after visitation closes for the day), but if you step one foot off of the path between the door and where the service occurs, they ask you to leave as they really try to have it be a religious service and not a cheap way to get into the Abbey. ---
**Author:** ![Gotterfunken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/58956e/32.png) [@Gotterfunken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gotterfunken)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/27 "2010-07-27T21:56:34Z")
I don’t know how it works in churches with turnstiles, but the ticket booth attendants in Italian churches (usually large ones with famous artworks and monuments, e.g. Santa Croce in Florence) seem to rely on subjective judgment. Tourists are usually distinguishable by their style of dress, backpacks, bottles of mineral water, a generally “lost” look on their face, etc.–signs that indicate the person is going around sight-seeing. If you look like a tourist in any way, they’ll probably stop you at the entrance. If you don’t fit that description, you _might_ get waved in, though to increase your odds you’d need to mutter something about “preghiere” and maybe make the sign of the cross. But what if you use the “I’ll pretend to be a worshipper” ruse, and once you’re past the entrance, you resume your sightseeing intentions? This would be pretty obvious to the attendants–someone who’s visiting for prayer would walk straight to a particular chapel reserved for prayer, and wouldn’t walk around gazing at stuff. They typically have some kind of surveillance system set up around the church, and they’d probably see your non-worshipping activities on a CCTV monitor. In such a scenario, the attendant would probably ask you to pay the entrance/“tourist visit” fee, leave, or go to the chapel for prayer. Of course, this all would depend on various factors–how busy it is, the attendant’s mood, etc. And then there’s the case of a Catholic tourist–can’t you go sightseeing AND stop for a while to pray? Of course you can, but if you’re doing any sightseeing at all, they’ll expect you to pay the entrance fee, if one is requested. In places like St. Peter’s (which doesn’t charge an entrance fee), the chapel that is reserved for prayer will usually be guarded (as **flodnak** points out), and security will prevent you from entering the chapel unless you’re going there specifically for prayer and not for sightseeing. What I said above for churches with ticket booth entrances applies to these scenarios. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve gained entry to such chapels by informing the guard that I’m Catholic, and nodding in agreement when the guard reminds me that no sightseeing is allowed, and I’ve behaved properly–walking straight to a pew, genuflecting, entering the pew, kneeling and looking straight ahead towards the altar (upon which the Blessed Sacrament is usually displayed in a monstrance). Even if you’re not Catholic (and aren’t into all that genuflection), you would probably be allowed in the chapel so long as you sit quietly and don’t look around gawking. One last thing I’ll say about those churches that charge admittance–at first, it annoyed me, but I’ve come to appreciate it. Such churches really rely on the funds for restoration projects and general maintenance, and so I tend to regard it as a donation. Also, in Italy at least, most churches close down during the afternoon (anywhere from noon until 4:00pm)–UNLESS they charge admittance, in which case they can keep their doors open all day long. If you’ve ever had to plan your day of sightseeing around the opening hours of various churches (rather than their locations around town), then you can see how the entrance fees are more of a convenience than a hindrance. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/28 "2010-07-30T10:07:51Z")
I’m back from Rome! I returned to St Peter’s twice after writing my posts in this thread to take some more photos. (It would have only been once, but the first time I discovered a bit too late that the camera battery was still in the charger back in the hotel room! :smack:) Both times, a weekday Mass was in progress: one the last one of the afternoon, the other the first one of the morning. The afternoon Mass was held at the Altar of the Chair, in the front of the Basilica. Wooden barriers were set up some distance from the altar to discourage tourists; there were gaps in the barriers, with guards standing there, but I didn’t see them stopping or questioning anyone. Most people simply stopped and looked over the barriers. There were pews in the area in front of the altar and they looked fairly full, but I didn’t see anyone standing, so I assume there still would have been room for more. The next morning, Mass was being celebrated in what I believe is called the Clementine Chapel, off to one side. Again, barriers had been set up, but this time there were no guards. There were also only two worshippers, and plenty of room on the pews that had been set up there. I almost walked right past without noticing anything! Flodnak’s advice, by the way: if you aren’t going for a specific service, go early or late. If you’re visiting for religious reasons, the basilica will be much quieter; you will be better able to concentrate on your prayers and thoughts, or simply to approach the places you want to visit. If you’re going as a tourist, you will be able to take photos that don’t have 6000 heads in them and to take the time to see the art and architecture and read the informative signs. Either way, you’ll wait far less time to get in. ---
**Author:** ![Ionizer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5daacb/32.png) [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723/29 "2010-08-03T13:15:54Z")
> [@flodnak](#): > > I’m in Rome at the moment, in fact! > > Anyone is welcome to enter St Peter’s, Mass or not, as long as they are dressed appropriately - basically they want shoulders and knees covered. Men with longish walking shorts are admitted, as are women with capri pants or skirts that come just below the knee. The little shops just outside the Vatican gates are doing a booming business in this heat selling colorful scarves, which some women tourists buy to cover their shoulders. This is fine, but if you take the scarf off later you may get a stern word from a guard inside. Looks like the dress-code has been extended to now include the Square itself (see [here](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1298624/Vatican-tourists-face-ban-skimpy-clothes.html)-\> “_But since early this week the dress-code has been extended to St Peter’s Square, which marks the border between the city state and Rome._”). Just thought I would toss that in here… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-i-attend-mass-at-st-peters-basilica/547723.md?page=1)