{"id":1327,"date":"2007-06-25T09:19:38","date_gmt":"2007-06-25T09:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/to-the-library.html"},"modified":"2007-06-25T09:19:38","modified_gmt":"2007-06-25T09:19:38","slug":"to-the-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/to-the-library.html","title":{"rendered":"To the library"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Benedict visited the Vatican Library, which has been in the news lately because of a 3-year shutdown that will begin in July. The closing has caused much distress to scholars, as detailed by the NYTimes here<\/a><\/p>\n

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Since the Vatican announced the impending shutdown, dozens of scholars have been lining up each day at ever earlier hours to snatch one of the 92 available spots in the manuscript room, where they can pore over archaic texts in forgotten languages. The library staff, \"Popelibrary\"<\/a> traditionally prompt in responding to requests, has been struggling to keep up with the demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kept waiting like the virgins in the Gospel for their bridegroom to come,\u201d Lucas Van Rompay, a professor of religion from Duke University<\/a> who specializes in Eastern Christianity, said jokingly. He was referring to Jesus\u2019 Parable of the 10 Virgins, a lesson on maintaining faith, after two particularly frustrating mornings of his own. \u201cIt\u2019s getting worse every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the British Library and the National Library of France, the Vatican has one of the most important manuscript collections in the world. The prospect of being cut off from their sources with crucial research under way is sowing panic among visiting scholars. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tragic,\u201d said Barbara Roggema, a scholar who is leading a three-year study on Christian-Muslim relations during the Middle Ages for the University of Birmingham in England and had counted on continued access to the library, which is to close on July 14.<\/p>\n

Petitions addressed to Pope Benedict XVI<\/a>, the ultimate authority on Vatican matters, are circulating among scholars. Some ask that the manuscript division at least remain accessible to the public during the three-year renovation. Others request that the closing be delayed until 2008 so that scholars will have time to wrap up research and meet publishing or teaching deadlines.<\/p>\n

The Pope is scheduled to visit the library on Monday, according to Ambrogio Piazzoni, the library\u2019s vice prefect. \u201cHe wants to understand what\u2019s going on,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Mr. Piazzoni said that close examination of the 16th-century wing of the library had revealed dangerous structural weaknesses. Because of the way the wing is laid out, he added, reinforcing the foundations and floors requires that the entire building be closed. <\/p>\n

Engineers say that the sooner the work begins, the better, he added. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t wait for the palazzo to crumble,\u201d Mr. Piazzoni said. <\/p>\n

But what seems to worry Dr. Roggema and other scholars most is that \u201cwhen Italians say three years, in reality it\u2019s going to be much longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here is the text of the Pope’s formal talk is here. In Italian.<\/a><\/p>\n

Very brief account here:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Pope Benedict XVI visited the Vatican library Monday and revealed he had hoped to end his church career there conducting research.<\/p>\n

"I confess that when I turned 70 (10 years ago), I would have so much desired that the beloved John Paul II would allow me to dedicate myself to study and research" on documents in the library, Benedict said.<\/p>\n

Instead, Benedict added, "the Lord had other plans for me."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}