Around the Vatican, angels aren’t the only ones with wings these days.

The Holy See has just inaugurated its very own airline, to fly pilgrims to favorite destinations (Lourdes et al.) The New York Times has a write up on the maiden voyage:

It already has its own postal service, its own bank and even its own Internet domain. On Monday, the Vatican inaugurated its latest venture: a low-cost charter airline to ferry thousands of Catholic pilgrims from Italy to popular religious sites around the world.

The carrier’s first flight — a one-day visit to the shrine at Lourdes, France — departed Monday morning using a Boeing 737 owned by the Italian cargo airline Mistral Air. At less than half a square kilometer, or 109 acres, the Holy See is too small to support its own runway, so the plane took off from Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome.

“The way to make pilgrimages can change over time, but their deepest meaning remains the same: to look for a deeper contact with God,” Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the vicar of Rome, told reporters before boarding the flight, The Associated Press reported. Cardinal Ruini, a former head of the Italian Bishops Conference, was also expected to serve as the official guide for the tour group, which included Italian notables and church leaders.

The Vatican pilgrimage office, the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, has signed a five-year agreement with Mistral Air to fly passengers from seven Italian airports, including ones in Rome, Verona and Brindisi. Planned destinations include the shrine of Fatima in Portugal, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the Jasna Gora monastery in Czestochowa, Poland, and the Holy Land. The airline expects eventually to transport 150,000 pilgrims a year.

It was not immediately clear how much the flight and tour packages would cost. But the Rev. Cesare Atuire of the pilgrimage office told La Repubblica this month that fares would “bear in mind that the customers will be pilgrims and do not have a great deal of money to spend.”

The Vatican may still find it tough to compete with established low-cost rivals, however. Ryanair, based in Dublin, for example, already offers cheap flights to Santiago de Compostela from Rome.

“Ryanair already performs miracles that even the pope’s boss can’t rival, by delivering pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela for the heavenly price of 10 euros,” Ryanair said in a statement.

Aboard Monday’s flight, the airline’s official slogan, “I’m Searching for Your Face, Lord,” was imprinted on headrest covers throughout the 150-seat cabin. The carrier said that its flights would be staffed with a cabin crew “specialized in voyages of a sacred nature” and that instead of standard movies, the in-flight entertainment system would play religious videos.

“We want to create the conditions to enable pilgrims to live their pilgrimage starting at their city’s airport and even before they arrive at their destinations,” Father Atuire said.

Do they have free snacks?

Photo: interior of Mistral Air charter by Telenews/European Pressphoto Agency