And for more pickpocket news - this time at Sistine Chapel
 

http://tinyurl.com/ltpfftq

It makes sense that this would be a problem area for pickpockets, with nearly everybody looking up, up, up.

The number 64 bus that runs the length of Rome over to the Vatican has ALWAYS been a pickpocket nightmare! Its high season people-don't leave your backpacks,handbags or cameras unattached to your hands/body!!!!

But this isn't an article about the bus; it's about pickpockets in the Chapel itself! What a sad state of affairs.

Pickpockets are opportunists. They take any chance they can get. They don't care if it's in a church or a hospital or even at a funeral.

This is just WRONG

Jesus would ask us to pray for the pickpockets. So that is what I am doing.

There is really nothing new about thieves in the churches and chapels, as it is an ideal set up for them. Not only are many tourists looking up at the paintings and windows, but I have seen many women kneel in a pew and shut their eyes to pray -- having left their purse sitting behind them, unattended. Most of all, people are alert around other tourist hotspots, but they imagine the thieves simply wouldn't be so nervy as to target a church, but they do.

To me, it is no more wrong to steal in a church than it is to steal on the street or train station.

But these pickpockets have to make an upfront investment in the purchase of a ticket. I wonder what their ROI is.