A Novel Contest for the Future of an Erstwhile Papal ‘Oasis’

Crux ^ | 8/17/19 | John Allen Jr

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[Editor’s Note: This is part one of John Allen’s two-part series on the former papal vacation site of Les Combes d’Introd in the Val d’Aosta region of northern Italy, on the border with France and Switzerland in the Alps. Part two will appear tomorrow.]

LES COMBES D’INTROD, Italy - From the beginning, Pope Francis decided he wasn’t going to spend his summers at the ornate papal residence in Castel Gandolfo in the hills outside Rome. After three consecutive years of disuse, it was announced in October 2016 that Castel Gandolfo would be turned into a museum, thereby making the pope’s absence definitive.

In that instance, a former papal residence was converted for another use by executive fiat, with the Vatican simply presenting a decision to the world. Suppose, however, what was announced wasn’t an answer but a question: “We’ve got a place where the pope used to live that we’re not using anymore, so what do you think we should do with it?”

That’s exactly what’s happening right now, in the tiny hamlet of Les Combes d’Introd in the far northern Italian region of Val d’Aosta, nestled at the foot of the Alps.

Beginning exactly thirty years ago in 1989, St. Pope John Paul II spent ten summer vacations here in a small chalet owned by the Salesian order and located on a larger Salesian compound. The first four were passed in a quaint pre-existing residence, which is now private property, but the last six were in another villa custom-built with an elevator for an aging pontiff who could no longer climb the stairs to reach his bedroom or his balcony to gaze out on Monte Bianco (“White Mountain”), at 15,800 feet the tallest peak in Italy and central Europe.

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI likewise spent three summer vacations in the.......