Roman Skull Chapel

Near Rome there's a famous chapel that is decorated in human skulls. The skulls of guys who joined this mens' group called Capuchin Monks consisting of men who were Roman Catholics whose job was to go around helping poor people, which was everyone. When the monks died they put their skulls on display. There are now 4,000 skulls of dead Capuchin Monks in a small chapel that you can visit. The skulls are all over the walls, decoratively placed in rows and rows, thick as Jews in a boxcar. They are piled up here, they are piled up there. There's a skeleton on the ceiling like spiderman, flat against it with a circle of human bones around it. There's entire skeletons in robes standing around guarding the place. In another part of the place the monks' pelvises are on display, in another section their arms and legs, over here their feet, over there their spinal columns. It looks like a mental patient's dream of a perfect universe ruled by vampires, sadists, ghouls, warlocks, demons, witches and zombies, with death on parade in about as hellish and garish a manner as possible. Oh!... you are not allowed to take pictures in there. It's unrespectful of the dead who are presently being utilized as interior decor, furniture, bric-a-brac, three piece sectionals, end tables,chandeliers, place settings, candle-holders, soap-on-a-rope, armoirs, chairs, shoe trees, eating utensils, goblets, flatware, hat-racks, cuckoo clocks, pipe cleaners, toilet scrubbers, and waste baskets. There is a place for proper behavior, courtesy, civility, dignity, pious reflection, mature introspection and lofty meditation and this is one of them. The barbarity of the camera casts a dark pall over the mood of the place which attempts to be festive and sprightly and yet mindful of our frailty and mortality. To photograph this regata of horror would be wrong, ignorant, and uncivil. It would demonstrate a kind of callous ignorance of propriety. There is nothing more contemptuous of piety and humility than a camera. It is a garish slap in the face at dignity, decorum and proper behavior. It trivializes death and makes light of it in a relentless insistence by way of clicks . It mocks all that is righteoous and is an artifact of savagery and voodoo that attempts to deceive us with indifferent technology and soulless science that we are not creatures of majesty, nobility, and natures higher than that of beasts. No cameras. We are going to have to insist. We are going to have to put our foot down and draw the line. This is a place of dignity.