Visits tax sacred sites
Are they churches? Are they museums? The question is increasingly vexing church officials across Europe, as the number of visitors to sacred buildings increases.
``What is already a large problem will become a nightmare if we don't prepare ways to receive them,'' said the Rev. Timothy Verdon, an art historian and Roman Catholic priest who advises the Diocese of Florence on tourism matters. On a summer day, he said, the Florence cathedral, referred to as the Duomo, has as many as 30,000 to 40,000 tourists, up from 10,000 a day in 1986.
In 1993, Italy's Catholic bishops, in a document titled ``The Cultural Treasures of the …
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