Pennsylvania priest builds Lego replica of the Vatican ahead of Pope Francis

Ahead of Pope Francis’ visit next week, an elaborate replica of the Vatican is on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia – and it’s made entirely out of Legos.

Catherine of Siena Church in Moscow, Pennsylvania had a childhood dream.

“I think there’s about half a million pieces in it”, he said.

Fr Bob Simon spent two years gathering the 500,000 pieces that went into the reconstruction of St Peter’s Basilica, the building of which took another 10 months. Considering that many adult builders have created some interesting Lego brick replicas of historic and architecture structures, it should be no surprise that someone has taken the time to build a Lego replica of the Vatican. Simon also included a version of himself in the piazza, taking it all in. All told, the display measures 14 feet by 6 feet and weighs about 100 pounds. Pastor Simon said that he wanted to show a lot of diversity.

A Catholic priest in Philadelphia has shown the greatest exercise in patience in preparation of Pope Francis’ upcoming visit. He’s been to the real Vatican five times. The hardest part was creating the round basilica dome from square bricks, he said. Although he looked for hints by watching YouTube videos, “I hardly understood what I was watching”.

Simon started the project a year ago in an empty room in his rectory.

Father Simon says he’s always loved playing with LEGOs.

The model has been featured at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. “It’s not easy to do circular things in LEGO bricks since majority are square”.

Considering that Pope Francis is planning to drop by Philadelphia for his USA tour next week, perhaps he might want to stop by and see how good of a job this priest did.