Vatican Euros Sell Out in Three Hours

NEWS24.COM, April 2 — Just three hours after they went on sale, rare Vatican euro coins sold out April 2, disappointing many collectors who waited in line since the night before.

Crowds rushed to collect the coins at an office near St. Paul's Basilica. They were sold outside the Vatican for security reasons, the news site reported. The coins feature a profile of Pope John Paul II and are part of a limited series of Vatican euro coins.

Only one set of the two different sets of Vatican coins were available April 2, selling for $25-$30.

Euro coins are different in each of the 12 countries that use the single currency. The Vatican won the right in 1929 to mint its own coins and adopted the euro in 2001, the same time Italy adopted it.

Passion Raises Town of Matera From the Dead

THE OBSERVER (U.K.), April 4 — Matera, Italy, was a little-known sleepy hilltop town in the “instep” of the Italian boot until Mel Gibson showed up in late 2002.

He and his crew chose the town as the setting for The Passion of the Christ. They also chose about 600 locals from 20,000 who turned out to be extras — earning about $70-$110 a day — in the film. Now the location is becoming quite the tourist attraction.

Matera Turismo has begun taking reservations from Americans for its Passion Tour, which takes tourists to the sites where the Last Supper and Crucifixion scenes were filmed, the Observer reported. At the three-star Alberga Italia, guests can book the room where Gibson stayed and where the maid, Maria, can tell of how she converted the room's mini-bar into an altar for early-morning prayers.

“There's no work,” said one of the extras in the film. “So it's a good thing people like making films here. At least I can earn a bit of cash that way.”

Cardinal: Israel Treats Religious Like ‘Immigrants’

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, April 2 — A top Vatican cardinal has accused Israel of treating priests and nuns like immigrants by denying them resident visas in the Holy Land.

Cardinal Rober t Tucci, the former papal master of ceremonies for the Holy Father's trips abroad, on April 2 called on Christian members of the European Parliament to protest Israel's actions.

“I think that we need to make representations to those members of the European Parliament and European institutions who more or less officially belong to the Christian faith and who would have the duty to inter vene on a political level,” he said on Vatican Radio.

Cardinal Tucci said Father David Jaeger, the head of the Franciscan order in the Holy Land, complained the Israeli government was treating religious like “clandestine immigrants.”

“At the moment the Israeli government has many concerns,” the cardinal said. “But hindering the release of residence permits to nuns and religious workers is creating great difficulty to the development of the local Christian and Catholic churches in Israel and in the Palestinian territories.”