From the early Seventies to the mid-Eighties, I approached Rome at a snail's pace. Having concluded that God existed, I could not seriously entertain the thought of not trying to be in contact with Him.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I was 18 years old, in a more innocent time, my first backpacking trip through Europe, I sneaked into the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum after nightfall and spent several hours in there avoiding the guards patrolling.
When I was a teenager, I went on an organised three-day tour of Rome. It was the worst experience ever. I promised myself that I would never travel like that again, with someone telling you what to see and what not to see.
The Apostle Paul did what he had to do to spread the message of God. I realize that that is what I have to do; I have to bite the bullet and overcome my shyness.
My own personal connection with God was not in a religious sense, so I wasn't really thinking in that way when I got the role and when I started doing it.
I was raised a Roman Catholic and had to go to the eight o'clock Mass every morning and have communion and wear a tie, kind of like a restricted life style. Then in the '60s, we got wild and let it go and started looking in other places to see where God really was, and I came back to the Christian thing.
Even if you don't believe in God, exploring fully the idea of a god or gods should pose no threat to you.
Oddly enough, I'm not religious but I'm also very fond of St Peter's in Rome. When I'm there, I always know there's a good meal not far away.
How could you have had such a wonderful life as me if there wasn't a God directing?
At different times in my life I met God from a different point of view.
As I toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me.