To prepare for Pope Francis’ epic visit, I decided to share some art created just for the event with my PreK-8th grade students at St. Joan of Arc in Aberdeen. I knew my students would love Fr. Bob Simon’s “A Priest as Minifigure Contemplating the Splendor of the Vatican,” a realistic Lego replica of St. Peter’s Square.
I shared a video with my students describing the project (it took Fr. Bob 10 months to assemble 500,000 Lego bricks!) and told them that the work was on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, which is only a short car ride away.
After telling my SJA students about the Lego Vatican, I decided I had to see it myself. So, I did!
Fr. Bob’s masterpiece is the perfect bridge between the Franklin Institute’s wildly popular “Art of the Brick” exhibition of Nathan Sawaya’s incredible Lego sculptures and an exciting new display of Papal treasures, “Vatican Splendors.” (I’m hoping to take my students to see the latter.)