Well, that is exactly what Fr Rob Simon, who leads St Catherine of Siena’s church in Pennsylvania has spent over 10 months doing.

Fr Rob finished the model in time for the Pope’s visit to Philadelphia last week. His

creation is on display at the Franklin Institute.

The model, for which Fr Rob used over 500,000 plastic bricks, features a Lego Pope

figure in the balcony. He is looking down at a crowd of Lego figures which include a nun carrying a selfie stick and a bespectacled Simon himself.

The model includes St Peter’s Square too, for which he used up about 44,000 Lego blocks resembling cobblestones, while 6,000 round bricks make up the colonnade.

The model is 14.26 metres by 1.8 metres large and weighs over 45 kilos.

This is not Fr Rob’s first attempt at building the Vatican. He first tried when he was still in seventh grade. But it had not turned out nice in blue and red bricks.

“It was daunting,” he said. “It was an exercise in patience, and I was thrilled with the way everything came out.” He said the hardest part was creating the round dome from square bricks.

He based the model off a book cover image and watched You Tube videos to figure out how to make the basilica’s round shape.

See the full interview with Fr Rob in Junior News, published with the Times of Malta.