Sur le pont d'Avignon

The sound of Peruvian pan pipes will always remind me of Avignon. An elderly gentleman clad in what I hope is an alpaca poncho can sometimes be spotted at the entrance to the Woodley Park metro station down the street. He plays the pipes directly into a microphone, which, apparently is the traditional way of doing it. Last October, I recall sitting in front of the colossal Gothic mountain of the Palais des Papes, sketching the facade. For the entire hour and a half that we ambled around the plaza in order to correct and perfect our sketches, the air was filled with the sound of Peruvian pipes being blasted over loudspeakers by a group of be-ponchoed street performers. In an interesting parallel, the neurotic feeling imparted by listening to loud pipe music while trying to concentrate on a sketch pairs rather nicely with the bizarre episode of Church history represented by the papal palace.

Apart from the Gothic palace, the other well-known monument in Avignon is the Pont Saint-Benezet, the remains of a bridge that used to span the Rhone River. In what is perhaps another, more durable symbol of the Avignon Papacy, the Pont of the Supreme Pontiffs never held up. We will recall that one of the Pope's titles literally translates as "Great Bridge-Builder". The bridge built between the Avignon popes and the French monarchy was not one to last. It does however, leave us with a rather romantic ruin. It is a perfect spot from which to watch the afternoon sun bathe the city in colors like "burnt sienna" and "ochre", for instance. I recall being there at such a time. Ahead of me was a father with his little daughter. She was holding his hand, skipping along, singing the little French school-children's song Sur le pont d'Avignon, which has as its subject the very bridge we were standing on and the supposed copious dancing that took place thereupon.

A single-line contour sketch I made of the Pont Saint-Benezet

As I was walking home today from the metro at Woodley Park, the pan pipes were playing. I thought back to Avignon. I am thinking of the malaise and unease setting into many corners of the Church at the moment as a rather contentious Synod of Bishops is underway. I confess that I have not been following it too closely: I'd like to think that my faith does not much depend on the deliberations of some fellows in Rome for a few weeks. But, I thought of Avignon. What wreckage the 14th Century Papacy must've done to the faith of that time. The popes were literally being bankrolled and installed at the behest of the French king. These guys were no paragons of humility, either: of ol' Clement VI it was written, "a fine gentleman, a prince munificent to profusion, a patron of the arts and learning, but no saint." Surely some perspective is afforded by some of these more grotesque periods of Church history. There is a saying that I heard somewhere that says that in the Catholic Church, everything has happened at least once. And yet, here we are still: warty synods and all.