In my mind’s eye, throughout my lifetime, I’ve seen images like the one below. A priest (or higher rank, sorry, I’m not Catholic and don’t know), walking through a town or village, on his way from his church? to see a parishioner? Who knows these details?!

But, the God’s honest truth is that in 4 1/2 years I’ve been living in Italy this time, and in all my visits to the country before that, I have never witnessed this scene before today. Where are all the church staff anyway? I’ve seen, over the years, a handful of Franciscan monks, but only a handful. I’ve seen 10 fold nuns, many of them Asian or African, over the years. It always entertains me when I see a nun walking down the street looking at her cellphone. I always think, does she have a direct line to the Almighty?

So, when I saw this man walking in the Borgo of Ognissanti in Firenze, I had to whip out my phone and capture his image. Who knows when I’ll see something like this again.

In the meantime, it satisfies one of my fantasies of life in Italy.

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