Next Monday, workers at the Vatican will begin to install new showers and laundry facilities in the public restrooms off of the grand colonnade of Saint Peter’s Square.  Pope Francis approved the idea when one of his Archbishops asked a homeless man to dinner for the man’s 50th birthday – the man replied, “Father, I can’t go to the restaurant with you because I smell.”

Archbishop Konrad Krajewski took the homeless man named “Franco” to dinner anyway, and they had Chinese.  While they ate, Franco explained the difficulties of being homeless in Rome.

“Here no one starves to death, you can find a sandwich every day,” Franco said.  “But there is no place to use the toilet and wash.”

Franco’s story shows how the homeless suffer vicious cycles and the loss of simple dignities that most people take for granted.  And it’s for the greater good that Archbishop Krajewski had his dinner with Franco while the Vatican was planning to rehab the public restaurants off to the side of Gian Lorenzo’s Colonnade off of the Piazza San Pietro. 

There’s always the chance that the move will further annoy Vatican right-wingers, as the addition of showers might attract more homeless people to the Vatican to wash up, directly beneath some of the world’s great art works and the extravagant apostolic apartments – which Pope Francis refuses to live in, preferring more austere quarters elsewhere in the City-State.