The Sacred

What to confess? What frameworks for sin? For what might I turn to a priest?

What does it mean for a place to be „sacred“? What makes it sacred? Is its sacredness binary? Scalar? Vector? Can it lose its sacred attribute? Are some areas – an altar or crypt – more sacred than others? What mechanism might one use to determine proximate sacredness? Is it only the basilica which is sacred, or the access stairways as well? The toilet stalls?

Why might one scrawl this in the stairway? What is the intent here?

Who wouldn’t want to buy a souvenir on the roof of St. Peter’s? There was a large assortment of what in a less sacred place might be termed „trinkets“ – beads, plastic statuettes, lots of crucifixes. Alas, I could find no bobblehead Christs. I am permitted to worship God’s son half-naked, sweaty and bleeding with metal spikes driven through his hands, but not bobbling his head.

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