Vatican Snake Room

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About

Vatican Snake Room refers to the Paul VI Audience Hall located in Vatican City in Italy, which is an indoor space constructed in 1971 that the Pope uses for some public events and ceremonies. The large hall is purported by conspiracy theorists to have been built to look like the head of a snake. A central feature of the hall is the sculpture The Resurrection, an extremely large bronze depicting Jesus Christ facing the consequences of a nuclear blast.

Origin

The room was constructed in 1971 and named after Pope Paul VI. The sculpture by Pericle Fazzini, The Resurrection, was added in 1975 and has been both praised and criticized for its modern take on the Second Coming of Christ. ^[1] The pontiff often uses the room as an indoor venue for large services when outdoor spaces aren't available because of bad weather.

A school of conspiracy theorists believe that the audience hall makes reference to the snake, a symbol of Satan.^[2] Arguing that the shape of the building resembles the head of a snake and the two large windows look like a snake's eyes, some contend that it exposes a covert satanic agenda on the part of the Vatican. Speculation about the meaning of the hall, and its resemblance to the snake head, has been around for decades.^[3]

The response of most believers to the sculpture and the hall seems to be negative, with many commenters online describing the entire space as "demonic." For example, in the comments of a YouTube^[4] video (seen below) published on October 7th, 2011, describing the restoration of the statue, several such replies are prominent from many users.

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2022 Resurgence on Twitter

An August 24th, 2022, tweet by Twitter user @picardie_aurora brought new attention to the snake room and to the resurrection sculpture. Showing a picture of Pope Francis in the room taken by a news service, the tweet (seen below) asked if it was a normal place for the pope to be. It received nearly 100,000 likes over the course of three days.^[5]

In the replies to that tweet, many joked about the setting's resemblance to a level in the video game and the Pope's presentation onstage to the appearance of final bosses on video game levels. For example, Twitter user and video game designer @GeneticJen made this comparison explicit in an August 25th, 2022, tweet (shown below) that declared they were ready to "fight the pope." It received almost 60,000 likes in less than a day.^[6]

In replies to the August 25th @GenesisJane tweet, many other Twitter users expanded on the possible lore of the Pope and the setting, imagining what kind of game he might be a part of. Some, like @jeffff_ffff, imagined deploying attack moves against the Pope, earning just over 6,000 likes in less than 24 hours (seen below).^[7]