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'McVatican' opens to less-than-pleased Cardinals

January 3, 2017

McDonald's may not be in the best graces with Italians these days with its plans for a restaurant near the cherished "Il Duomo" in Florence, and now the opening of its first of the chain's locations that is actually inside the Vatican. Both of those sites are considered sacred — Florence's 600-year-old dome as an architectural marvel and birthplace of the Renaissance and the Vatican as the seat of Roman Catholicism — but that hasn't stopped the Illinois-based fast food chain from daring to plant its Golden Arches either location. 

According to the United Kingdom's Daily Mirror, the Vatican's first McDonald's is up and running, doling out blessed burgers to hungry worshippers just mere footsteps from St. Peter's Square and the home of the Pope. In fact, its pontifical location has earned the newly opened restaurant the name of McVatican. 

According to Rome's La Repubblicanewspaper, the Vatican will receive a monthly rent of what equates to about $31,000, much to the chagrin of many of those who live in and around there. For instance, the paper quotes Cardinal Elio Sgreccia as calling the site a "perversion" that he would never deign to patronize.

"I repeat, selling mega-sandwiches in Borgo Pio is a disgrace," he said. 

But according to the Mirror, the Vatican's Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic — which controls the country's real estate — is unmoved by such criticism. In fact, the area around the Vatican itself has two other McDonald's sites, as well as a Burger King, according to the paper.

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