Yes, you read that right. A McDonalds is about to open in a Vatican-owned building facing St. Peter’s Square, and a delegation of cardinals, some of whom live above the store, is protesting.
That’s not the protest in the picture above; that’s a Palm Sunday celebration. But Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, who doesn’t live in the building but speaks for the seven who do, told the newspaper La Repubblica “It’s a controversial, perverse decision to say the least…by no means respectful of the architectural traditions of one of the most characteristic squares which look onto the colonnade of Saint Peter’s.”
The Borgo neighborhood, adjoining the Basilica, has been home not only to many of the church’s cardinals, but increasingly to tourists, and with them numbers of souvenir stands and mini-markets.
The deal for the Golden Arches, made by ASPA, the Vatican’s real-estate arm, is worth €30,000 a month. Cardinal Domenico Cacagno, head of ASPA, said the deal is legally valid and he is “not going to back down” despite demands by other cardinals that the space be used for agencies serving the poor.
This is not the only Italian, or church, controversy over a McDonalds; earlier this year we reported on a campaign to block one opposite the Cathedral in Florence.
