Priest Builds LEGO Replica of the Vatican Using About 500,000 LEGOs—See His Awesome Project!

The project was finished ahead of Pope Francis' visit to the United States

By Corinne Heller Sep 18, 2015 9:16 PMTags

Holy moly, everything is awesome about this LEGO display.

Father Bob Simon, a 50-year-old pastor from Scranton, Pennsylvania has built an enormous Lego brick replica of the Vatican's St. Peter's Basilica church and St. Peter's Square, which is displayed at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

"I was probably most scared of doing the dome," he said about his LEGO creation, in a video posted by NBC Washington. "It's not easy to do circular things in LEGO bricks since most of them are square."

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Simon's display also shows the Pope and contains a massive crowd of LEGO people, including nuns, Vatican guards and even an Elvis Presley performer.

"I wanted to show a lot of diversity," Simon told USA Today. "St. Peters Square is one of those places where people from all over the world come together." 

AP Photo/Matt Rourke
AP Photo/Matt Rourke

He began building the display in September 2014, using a book cover photo as a guide, and finished within 10 months. The project was more than 35 years in the making. The pastor told USA Today that he wanted to build a Vatican model out of LEGOs since he was in seventh grade, when he made his first attempt that he said didn't look "anything like the real thing."

Pope Francis is set to travel to the United States next week for the first time and visit Washington D.C., New York and yes, Simon's home state of Pennsylvania.

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