The Pope seems to have a telephone, but what extension can you use to reach him?
Image: AFP
Christmas without Santa Claus is unthinkable for many. But what does the Vatican actually think about this? Our author wanted to find out – and called the Vatican.
Ma first telephone conversation with the Vatican ends before it has even begun. “The number is not complete,” says a computer-generated female voice that sounds like it was created long before ChatGPT. I'm disappointed, but above all relieved. Gained time again to practice the two sentences that I had prepared in Italian: Hello, I am a journalist at a German daily newspaper and am doing a survey in the Vatican: Can you believe in Santa Claus?
The survey was the idea of two colleagues. One was looking for texts for his Christmas edition, the other discovered that the Vatican publishes a printed telephone book every year with all the numbers, from the Vatican Pharmacy to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It's no longer called that, but even those in the know find the new name difficult to convey: Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Sounds more like the land registry office or the pensieve from Harry Potter.
#Call #Vatican #Christians #Santa #Claus