Last month the circus came to the Vatican. During Pope Francis’s weekly general audience, magicians, clowns and acrobats performed on the steps of St Peter’s Basilica, and managed to work the Holy Father into the act. A clown twisted balloons into the shape of a giant flower and presented it to the Pope, while a magician made a small table near Francis’s chair levitate. At one point, the Holy Father let a cockatoo perch on his hand.
Vatican Radio reported the Pope’s “unscripted enthusiasm” for the performance. “You are champions of beauty,” he told the circus folk. “You make beauty, and beauty is good for the soul … Beauty brings us closer to God, but behind this spectacle of beauty, how many hours of training there are! Go forward, keep it up!”
