”And would you like duck liver on your burger today?”
Posted on 01/08/2017 3:43:31 PM PST by ebb tide
In Matt. 16:18 Jesus said: “You are Peter and upon this rock I shall build my Church.”
It’s unlikely that at that time Jesus was thinking of any franchising opportunities for His Church by including a fast food restaurant. When He gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom, He didn’t give him keys to a McDonald’s.
Well folks, if you have not heard about this yet, McDonald’s has just opened one of its newest franchise locations just steps away from where the center of all Catholicism sits. Just before 2016 came to a close, McDonald’s started serving up its world-famous Big Macs, Happy Meals, and Quarter Pounder with cheese hamburgers on Vatican City property.
In return for this privilege, the Vatican will collect approximately $31,000 per month rent from the franchisee. Has Pope Francis turned Jesus over to Ronald McDonald for 31,000 monthly pieces of silver?
As Elio Cardinal Sgreccia, president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said about the advent of McDonald’s, this is a “controversial, perverse decision to say the least.”
From a financial standpoint, the Vatican and Church aren’t in dire straits. It’s not like Pope Francis has to take his vehicle down the street to the nearest car title loan store. The Vatican doesn’t need this money: So why rent a piece of the Vatican to the hamburger-peddling moneychangers?
It appears that the faithful pilgrims and many tourists who visit the Holy City every year have enough choices of restaurants to eat at during their visit to the Eternal City — much better culinary choices, I’m sure.
The problem doesn’t stop at McDonald’s because the plans are already in motion to open the Hard Rock Vatican City within the next couple of years. That’s right, the world-famous Hard Rock Café will now have electric guitars hanging on its walls right along all sorts of rock and roll memorabilia that the Hard Rock is known for, only minutes away from the Sistine Chapel.
I can almost imagine Pope Francis stopping by one of the rock concerts the Hard Rock often hosts for its customers, dancing along in his papal robes.
This is truly a disturbing development, in my opinion. I have never had the fortune of visiting Rome or the Vatican, but it’s in my plans to somehow make it there with my family one day. I shudder to think what the place might look like by the time I finally make it there.
What is next after that? Will the Piazza San Pietro soon start to look like the Las Vegas strip, all lit up in neon once the sun goes down? I may be exaggerating a little, but these types of commercial developments in international cultural institutions raise a red flag for me.
One might initially think that a McDonald’s may be a harmless thing. After all, there are several cultural institutions which already have a McDonald’s on campus, such as the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and even the Louvre in Paris. What’s the harm in a McDonald’s at the Vatican?
So far the Louvre in Paris has not become a hotbed of fast-food franchises, though at first McDonald’s did face some resistance from art purists who imagined that Mona Lisa might change her expression at the constant aromatic presence of McDonald’s yummy French fries. Should we flip tables over at the Vatican McDonald’s and Hard Rock Café?
In 2012, Catholic Exchange writer Gayle Somers wrote an article titled “Jesus and the Money Changers” where she invites us to “know something about the physical arrangement of the Temple at this time, as well as some of the customs and business conducted there.”
Somers explains how it wasn’t necessarily the “moneychangers” being there that was the problem, given that there had been an approved-of area where livestock could be sold and bought as well as the business of exchanging foreign currencies and as well as paying taxes.
“Here, the judgment against God’s people is not simply doing business where they shouldn’t have. . . . The fact that the Court of the Gentiles, which was supposed to be a place of prayer and evangelization, had become a ‘marketplace’ was emblematic of Israel’s terrible spiritual desolation.
“In His cleansing of the Temple, Jesus prophetically demonstrates that the Temple was no longer a place of true encounter with God, for Jews or Gentiles. It was destined to be eclipsed and replaced.” So, after having read Somers’ assessment of Jesus’ outburst, how would the McDonald’s and Hard Rock Café situation play out today? Will having these two businesses in and around the Vatican help water it down as simply a “marketplace” emblematic of today’s spiritual desolation?
The Romans eventually destroyed the Temple, and it was never to be rebuilt. I hope that this isn’t the case with the Vatican! Perhaps it will be McDonald’s and the Hard Rock Café that will eventually be torn down, but why build them in the first place?
I have one last cringe-worthy thought I have to share with you, and perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad, but here is the question which popped in my head as I wrapped up this column: What will the surprise “toy” be inside the Happy Meals at the Vatican McDonald’s?
It could be anything from holy cards, a Miraculous Medal, a rosary, or a Pope Francis action figure. Cringe-worthy indeed.
”And would you like duck liver on your burger today?”
There are no “walls” outside the square.
Deluxe Chick-Fil-a sandwich: w/ frilly lettuce leaf, vine-ripened tomato slices, cheese slice. A side of hot, crisp waffle fries, iced real lemonade,
couple containers of CFA's luscious "special sauce.
======================================
No less a sophisticate than Esquire Mag named Chick-fil-a one of the nation's best sandwiches.
ESQUIRE REVIEW You can get a chicken sandwich anywhere, which may explain your low expectations. Boneless breast. Bun. Blah. But down south, there lives an eye-opener.
A come-to-Jesus sandwich. The Chick-fil-A. Seasoned, breaded breast served on a toasted buttered bun with dill- pickle slices. No mayo. No sauce at all. Deceptively simple, yet transcendent. The hook is the breading: spicy, with an intoxicating crunch.
The meat is always juicy, never chewy. The bun is like lingerie -- there, but not, providing delicious support without obscuring the main flavor. The first bite changes everything you think you know about chicken. And about the need for condiments. -- Allison Glock
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/food-drink/sandwiches#ixzz211NacUiU
Plastic Jesus in the Happy Meal?
The restaurant is in a Vatican-owned building where cardinals live.
A nun walks by the controversial restaurant. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Vatican is set to collect a monthly rent of 30,000 euros (or A$43,200) from McDonald’s, according to La Repubblica. The Vatican’s real estate is controlled by the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. There are already two existing McDonald’s outposts close to the Vatican, in addition to a Burger King, but the new McDonald’s is the only restaurant located in a building owned by the state.
So you can bet the Church won't allow refugees to eat their for free. It would cut into their profits.
And you can get a Royale With Cheese.
But unfortunately, the only item available on Fridays is the Filet O’ Fish.
Don’t count on it. Bergoglio will probably triple his prices for Christians in order to give meal hand-outs to lazy illegals.
Corporate Deathburger
You say your a Christian
But your a fake
Multinationals on the take
Starving children deserve a break today!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS4PkPNMWHY
Don’t know about that. But it has been rumored that the McRib sandwich will never be offered for fear of offending muslims and setting them off into terrorist attacks.
Better not tell him about the Chuck E Cheese...
Eat their what for free?
I’ve been to about 45 countries and the last thing I ever wanted to do was eat American fast food. I’d much rather eat the local cuisine.
THat’s not in vatican city, it’s on the street that runs parallel to the wall outside the gate, just down the street from St. Peter’s square, there were already Tourist traps and restaurants in that building.
What’s your point?
“The US fast food company was reportedly willing to pay “a few tens of thousands of euros per month” for the property – which faces Borgo Pio and Via del Mascherino – far outbidding any other potential tenants.”
Bergoglio, despite his facade, is a greedy capitalist.
McDonalds’ concept of a blessing is that it will be the same no matter where you go. It’s probably the only kind of outlet that would do the volume required to pay the rent proffered.
Will this rent be donated to the service of the poor? It would only be fitting.
That how it was once upon a time in the Catholic Church: with the Traditional Latin Mass.
I will repeat.
2 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’[a] but you are making it ‘a den of robbers
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