May 20, 2025 • 45 mins
What lies beneath the world's largest church? Venture with us into the underground excavations known as the Scavi, where family tombs, ancient graffiti and the bones of a first-century man converge into one of Christianity's most remarkable archaeological discoveries.
Father Tom Szydlik, a former Scavi tour guide and priest of the Diocese of Peoria, takes us on a captivating journey through the hidden necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica. The story unfolds like a historical thriller—complete with secret excavations during World War II, disappointing false leads, and an unexpected discovery that would confirm what Christians had believed for two millennia.
We trace the extraordinary lengths Emperor Constantine went to when building the first St. Peter's Basilica directly over Peter's tomb, literally moving a mountain to honor the first pope. Father Szydlik explains how Peter's martyrdom in Nero's Circus, his humble burial, and the continuous veneration of his grave created the foundation for Vatican City as we know it today.
The archaeological detective story reaches its climax with the discovery of bones belonging to a robust man in his 60s, wrapped in imperial purple cloth, missing only his feet—consistent with someone who had been crucified upside down. This tangible connection to the fisherman who became the rock on which Christ built his Church offers a powerful message of hope and divine providence.
Whether you're planning a pilgrimage to Rome or simply fascinated by the intersection of faith and archaeology, this episode reveals why these underground excavations represent not just historical curiosity but a profound spiritual connection to the earliest days of Christianity. Join us as we explore how God brings victory even from the most unlikely circumstances.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to In Via, the podcast where we're
navigating the pilgrimage oflife.
We are all in via on the wayand we are learning a lot as we
go.
I'm your host, joan Watson.
Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn
more about our Catholic faith.
Along the way, we'll see thatif God seeks to meet us in
(00:21):
Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, healso wants to encounter you
right there in your car, on yourrun or in the middle of your
workday.
On today's episode of Envia, weare going to talk about the
scavi.
What is the scavi, you ask?
Well, luckily, as my guest Ihave a former scaVI guide,
(00:43):
father Tom Sidlick, a priest ofthe Diocese of Peoria.
He was ordained in 2003 and nowserves as pastor of the
parishes in Clinton, farmer City, in Wapella, illinois, and he
is here to regale us with thestory of the SCAVI.
So we were just in Rometogether.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
We were, yes, good time, fantastic, you know, and I
mean, you know, I, I livedthere, for I lived there for
five years and it's, um, this isone of my favorite.
I've only been back, so I leftin 2004.
I think this is the fourth timeI've been back since then, so
(01:19):
it's been, you know, 21 yearssince I, since I lived there.
This is probably one of myfavorite times to go back, um,
uh, just, I don't know, I thinkfor being a Jubilee year and
then kind of going back andreflecting on on what I, what I
enjoyed when I was there, andalso just being able to pray at
the sites of the uh, the uh, thetombs of the apostles, and,
(01:42):
yeah, just, great city, greatcity.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, yeah, there's so much, you know I mean, you
lived there and there's so muchto see that whenever I take a
group I'm always like, oh,there's so much more, but just
realizing, okay, give themsomething, because it's more
than we can even imagine, andyeah.
I don't know, it's just, Ialways have a hard time taking
groups because I want people tolive there, I want people to
have gone to 80 churches insteadof five.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
But you know, even if you myself experienced church
fatigue, towards the end, whereit's like you visit, you visit
the tomb of Padre Pio and like,and that was the first time I'd
(02:33):
been to his I lived in Italy forfive years and it was the first
time I'd visited Padre Pio youknow, prayed at his tomb and I
mean it's an awesome event andwhat an individual.
And and I already like, oh, Iwas tapped out because it's so
much, there's so much to yourpoint.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah , the church fatigue in rome.
After a while you walk in andyou're like, oh, this is pretty,
this is nice.
Oh, there's saint catherine.
Okay, you're like, wait aminute.
Yep, like this is the mostbeautiful church you know and
and I think, our tour guide saidsomething really funny.
Well, not our tour.
I think our tour guide saidsomething really funny.
Well, not our tour guide, butour tour escort said something
really funny on our trip wherewe went to Santa Croce, which is
(03:10):
where the relics of the passionare.
It's this beautiful basilica.
I think it's a beautifulbasilica.
Absolutely, and he was kind oflike nah, it's okay.
And I was like if this was inAmerica it would be the place
regardless.
I mean, his point was we'regoing to see the passion relics
more than the beautiful apps,mosaic or the architecture.
And he's right, you go to seethe relics.
(03:31):
But it was just so funny.
He's so jaded and used togorgeous churches that he's like
, yeah, it's not the prettiestyeah, it's not saint peter's.
Well, no, it's true, trueenough yeah yeah, so it is easy
to have church fatigue and justbe like, oh, there's another
beautiful church and have tokind of get like out of your,
out of your.
I also think it's funny whenpeople sometimes people go to
Rome and I tell them like where,what they need to see, and okay
(03:54):
, Most of it is true, I'm goingto tell you all these churches,
right.
But if you've never been there,you're like, okay, like, why
are you sending me to eightchurches?
Like, if, if you went to DC, Iwouldn't have a list of eight
churches?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
for you to visit Right.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But you go to Rome and I'm like, oh, you have to go
to this church and this churchand this church and this.
And they're like, well, I'm notreally a churchy person, I'm
like I don't care, like that'swhere the art is, that's where
the history is.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
That's where the saints stand in Rome.
I still don't understand thefascination with the Spanish
steps.
I mean they're pretty, they'repretty, but you know, at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's kind of like I'm trying to remember who it was
yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
It's a set of steps and there's probably you can get
ice cream nearby and that'spretty much it so it's just kind
of like where all the touristshang out right, don't confuse
them with the holy stairs.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I had somebody one time say oh, I'm supposed to go
see the Spanish steps, becausethat's where jesus and I was
like no, no, no, that jesus hasnothing to do with the spanish
yeah, yeah, yeah, along the,along the lines of the holy
steps.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's.
It's interesting to me withpilgrimage groups that I've
taken over, um, did I say thisis the fourth time, maybe it's
more than that.
That time it's four, maybe likesix, whatever, it's not that
many, but um, with uh, the onething with this pilgrimage group
and then the last one I took.
People are really struck by bypraying on the holy steps.
It's, it's just, it's one ofthe, it's one of the moments
(05:12):
that just really really bringsit home to people.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You know, and the uh, yeah, yeah, just meditating on
the, on the passion of Christand you know, it's a little
again, a little bit of Jerusalemin uh in Rome, which is pretty
cool so the holy stairs forlisteners who don't know are the
stairs, that that Helen Empress.
Helen brought over the motherof Constantine, brought over
from Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Saint Helen even.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Saint Helen right, that was.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
that's her greatest title right Forget Empress of
the, of the of the known world.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, um.
So St Helen brought them fromJerusalem and they were the
stairs that Jesus would haveclimbed up and down on his way
to trial with Pilate.
So it's tradition to go upthose stairs on one's knees and
I think one of the profoundthings like, yes, I'm going up
these stairs, that Christ wentup, that's amazing.
But also that millions ofpilgrims have gone up on their
(06:02):
knees, that you know that thesewooden steps so the wooden steps
are covering the marble steps,but that to protect the marble
steps, but like the wooden steps, have divots in them, because
that's how many knees have goneup them.
And so I think it's thatprofound pilgrimage moment where
you're not just walking in thefootsteps of christ or walking
in the footsteps of the saints,but you're also walking the
footsteps of millions ofpilgrims before you and it's
(06:23):
uncomfortable when you do itbecause of the divots and the
steps.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, yeah, I mean just yeah, it's, it's just crazy
, and you know it's interesting.
As you, I, um, I've never in mymind intellectually made the
connection between those stepsand and the first station in the
Via Dolorosa.
So in thinking like like on theVia Dolorosa, when you walk that
in Jerusalem itself the firststation is, in my opinion is
(06:47):
relatively anticlimactic, it'slike you get to it.
It's basically it's a post onthe wall, which is pretty cool,
but it's marking the spot whereJesus was condemned to death by
Pontius Pilate, but yeah, butthat those steps would have been
right in that spot, right inthat area.
Yeah, that's a pretty coolthing to kind of think about.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, that's a pretty cool thing to kind of think
about.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And and I think that kind of leads us into our topic
today because we're talkingabout Rome, but why?
You know, it's interesting, wedid a whole episode in our first
season about Rome.
And why Rome and Peter being inRome?
Cause we have to say, like, whygo on pilgrimage to Rome when I
should be going to Jerusalem?
I should be, walking in thefootsteps of Christ.
You know why?
Rome?
And that's a big question,right?
There's lots of answers and,like I said, we did an episode
on Rome.
(07:28):
But I guess we're going to talktoday about the Scavi, and so
I'm going to ask you you knowwhat is even the Scavi, but you
know how did Peter end up inRome?
And I know, historically again,we talked about it in our first
episode, our first season.
But you know why.
Why do we care about St Peter'sBasilica?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So, um, to?
I mean just to answer the first, the first question.
First, the scavia are theexcavations that have been done
underneath St Peter's Basilicaand, um, we care about.
We care about St Peter'sBasilica because, for one, st
Peter's buried there and becauseSt Peter and all of his
successors have been, we referto them as the Bishop of Rome
(08:13):
and with Peter and hissuccessors being the Vicar of
Christ here on earth,effectively Jesus' prime
minister.
That's, in a sense, it's theseat of mission within the
church, in kind of reflecting onit myself.
Jerusalem is, I mean, obviouslyit's the holy city, it's the
(08:39):
place where Jesus died, rose andascended.
It's a phenomenal place and ifI had my druthers I'd live the
rest of my life there.
But what's interesting is that,when you look at symbology,
jerusalem is symbolic of heavenand we're not in heaven.
I mean, even you might say,with all the wars, whatever
(09:00):
that's going on there, theintifadas, and fine, granting
that, granting that still it's,on some level it's, it's
reminiscent of heaven.
But Peter, in coming to Rome inthe first place, came to Babylon
, which is sort of like it's thecenter of the world.
It was, it was at the time andthese days it's symbolically,
the, the center of the world inthe sense of this, is where it
(09:23):
was at the time.
It was pagan, you know.
It was pagan, roman, even today, you know.
It's interesting as as asCatholic as it as it as it is,
or as much Catholic symbolism asit has, it's astounding Like
people don't realize that the?
Um, the because, because thepopes have been there, are there
, um, there's, there's a lot ofevil that happens there.
(09:43):
There's actually um of.
Satanism surprisingly so.
It's sort of, when Peter comesto Rome, in a sense it's the
church heading out on mission,it's the church militant going
into battle, and so, in a realway, when we have the Pope
living there, it's a sign thatthis is, that our general, the
(10:10):
head of the army of Christ, ishere and we're at war.
So, you know, spiritual.
But so that's why it'simportant that Rome is the
center of the church, is thehead of the church, that that
that Rome is is the center ofthe church, is the head of the
church, and um, or the centraloffice of the church might be
the best way to put it.
And uh, why St Peter's Basilicamatters?
(10:31):
Not just because that's wherePeter varied, but uh, but also
because it's, you know, it'ssymbolic of what we're supposed
to be about.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, and that's the site that our general was killed
.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I think it's such a reminder to us that we follow
Christ.
We follow Christ crucified.
Paul preaches that veryprofoundly right.
We follow Christ crucified, andour first Pope was crucified
right there in the circus andthen buried on Vatican Hill.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And so you know when, yeah, when we go to St Peter's,
we should be remembering that.
You know when?
Yeah, when we go to St Peter's,we should be remembering that,
like, as we walk across StPeter's Square, we're walking
across the circus, we're walkingacross where Peter was martyred
and that's who we follow.
I mean that's kind of dumb inthe world's eyes, right?
Why are you following and many?
of his successors were martyredafter that right, Like we follow
(11:43):
a line of martyrs, but so Peterends up crucified upside down
on Vatican Hill afterChristianity, because
Christianity is punished forcrimes against humanity.
I always like to remind peopleof that.
People can say, oh no,christians were killed in the
Colosseum.
Yeah, because their crimewasn't Christianity.
Their crime actually, legally,was a crime against humanity
(12:05):
which.
I think is important for us toremember that they were seen as
enemies of the Roman state.
So if we're ever seen asenemies against humanity,
enemies against what the worlddefines, we're in good company,
right.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So he's crucified and he's immediately buried.
So could you kind of walk usthrough so I do want to
introduce Father as, like aformer tour guide, I guess what
would be your original former?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, I would have been.
I was a tour guide of the Scaviunderneath St Peter's Basilica,
so it's interesting when youtake a look at St Peter's
Basilica when we were inseminary, there were basically
two sets of guides that werethere.
There were the upstairs guidesand the Scavi guides
(12:58):
no-transcript.
Oh, really, really, I was aguide for my last three years
over there.
I think is what it ended upbeing.
So, yeah, it was a greatprivilege and again, just
getting to know about St Peterand again, I guess, circling
back to your question about theor your comments about Peter and
(13:19):
walking you through his deathand all that.
The one thing I think I wouldwant to correct I think it's a
correction is that technically,peter wasn't killed on the hill,
but he's buried on it, so hewas killed in the.
I think they referred to it asthe Adrovata Iconis, like the
Vatican field, which is wherethe circus of Nero was Clegane
(13:45):
and Nero was built.
It was a relatively smallcircus.
I think it can only holdsomething like 60,000 or 70,000
people, which for us these days,that's pretty nice.
It's a football field, exactly.
To clarify, a circus for theRomans was a stadium.
It was a place where they wouldhave gladiatorial combats and
(14:06):
chariot races and things likethat, as opposed to like circus
for us, which is kind of likesending the clowns, you know,
and all that you know.
Um, so it was a, it was, I mean, in, it was an entertaining
place, but it was also a violentplace.
So you had, you had people thatwere again gladiatorial combats
, the chariot races.
I mean, if you've ever watchedBen-Hur, these are not, these
(14:28):
are not, for the faint of heart,you know, these aren't your.
You know the Kentucky Derby oranything like that.
Um, right, so, um, so it was.
It was there that Peter waskilled, along with, uh, with the
first, with the first martyrsof Rome, and it was under the
persecution of the emperor Nero,and it was an astounding sight.
(14:48):
Apparently because they had Nero, had it's believed that Nero
himself caused the fire in Rome.
You could have people argueback and forth on it.
At the very least, he preventedRome from the fire.
Rome caught on fire.
He prevented people fromfighting the blaze, the city
burned down and he wanted totake advantage of the moment to
(15:12):
rebuild the city and the peoplein Rome, before they got to the
point of rebuilding the city,they wanted somebody's head.
They were really angry,understandably, because the city
burned, people died, and soNero pointed the finger at the
Christians and said, to yourpoint, as you were saying, joan,
the Christians were guilty of acrime against humanity and we
(15:33):
need to exterminate them fromour midst in order to appease
the gods.
So Nero kind of had a twofoldthing where, in appeasing the
gods, he put the Christians todeath.
But the other side of things,the other half, was that he did
it in an entertaining fashion,at least it was perceived as
such.
So he brought the Christians tothe stadium to a circus and put
(15:59):
them to death.
When it got he crucified them,and when it turned to night he
covered them in pitch and litthem on fire to serve as torches
.
And and so it was interestingwas apparently the romans at the
time were more disgusted thanentertained, like they even.
Even the that level ofbrutality was even a um, a step
(16:23):
too far for them, and so therewas some sympathy that arose for
the Christians.
So Peter was among the group ofChristians that were first
killed in Rome under Nero, andit's believed that the common
tradition, like the longstanding tradition, is that, as
you said, he was crucifiedupside down.
After he was crucified.
He was crucified and he died.
(16:44):
He was taken down off the cross, carried up the side of the
Vatican Hill and then buried ina pauper's grave in what was at
the time a pagan necropolis.
So Peter was a Christian buriedamong people that were not
Christians, and so a necropoliswas a pagan city of the dead,
and so Necropolis was a pagancity of the dead In precise
(17:05):
terms.
It's like.
Basically, it was a cemeteryCemetery and not seminary.
There are plenty of seminariesin Rome these days but it was a
pagan burial ground and so Peterwas buried there in a pauper's
grave with basically six.
It was a shallow grave.
They had six tiles over hisbody basically to keep him from
(17:27):
dogs or other animals fromdigging up his body, and that's
where he was left.
And but the as time went on,the Christians just consistently
visited his grave and it becamea place of pilgrimage.
They built a new monument ontop of it, which is
traditionally called these daysit's called the Trophy Monument,
and it was actually referencedin Christian writings too about
(17:50):
like that.
The reason why Rome isimportant is because we have the
trophy.
We have the tomb of both Peterand Paul here, and so that's
kind of where the devotion toPeter and to his tomb and his
grave really began, right out ofthe chute, and was a consistent
place of pilgrimage.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And so here we are today 2,000 years later.
Christians were able to visit itbecause in the City of the Dead
and the Necropolis people wouldgo visit their family's tombs
like we do today, but even morethan we do today.
They would have parties, theywould celebrate, they would
celebrate, they would eat, theywould celebrate, you know, um,
(18:29):
not celebrate, but they wouldcommemorate the, the the
deceased, they would.
So christians, in a sense,could kind of do it without
being noticed because they weredoing what everybody else was
doing.
They were going and, like, haveyou know, pouring out libations
on, you know, just like theneighbor, yep, um.
And so I think we have toremember, you know, peter wasn't
buried in what we'd call acatacomb, because the catacombs
were new, I mean, they were.
They developed later asChristians wanted to bury people
(18:49):
amongst, you know, otherChristians, and so it's
important for people to realizethat's why Peter was buried in
this pagan area, the city of thedead, but that Christians could
visit him without being, youknow, and I suppose eventually,
probably Christians were caughtvisiting his grave because it
became known that he's Peter,but Christians could kind of
(19:10):
look like other people.
And so we know that there areother huge family tombs around
Peter's tomb now because we'vedone the excavations.
So there's this little tiny nottiny but this little shrine
built over Peter.
And then what's our next step inhistory when Christianity
(19:31):
becomes legalized?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So the next step in history was effectively with a
few little steps along the way,but effectively it was the
construction of the original StPeter's Basilica.
And so, like I said, peter wasburied on the side of the
Vatican Hill, in this necropolis, in this burial ground, and the
(19:55):
Emperor Constantine legalizedChristianity and decided that he
was going to really be abenefactor to the church, and so
he wanted to build a number ofchurches and ultimately built St
Peter's Basilica and did notwant to move the grave of Peter,
and really sort of like.
(20:15):
That was the center point ofthe basilica and initially the
Basilica of St Peter.
Even though we know it forhaving all these people, masses,
it was not originally built asa church, as a church per se.
It was built as a big monumentto the Apostle Peter, and so
you'd walk in and then what wasat the center of what was to be
(20:36):
the Basilica, this new Basilica,was the tomb of St Peter, and
eventually masses werecelebrated there, but it gets a
little ahead of the story.
But Constantine, in buildingthis basilica, was running into
the problem of it being on theside of a hill, and so it ended
up being an amazing engineeringfeat that they accomplished,
(20:58):
where, basically, they leveledthe Vatican Hill and built this
church Effectively.
Today, when people talk aboutthe Vatican Hill and like
where's the Vatican Hill?
Really St Peter's is on it.
In some ways it's effectivelybeen leveled.
In a lot of ways it'stechnically there, but it's
(21:20):
basically encompassed by StPeter's Basilica.
But Constantine leveled thehill in order to build the first
basilica of St Peter on top ofit.
In the process, peter's gravewas saved, but all these other
graves that were around Peterwere destroyed.
Not so great, but here we areand it's interesting.
So the tombs that were there,many of which were very well
(21:57):
constructed.
What they ended up doing in manycases like when you talk about
tombs they had roofs on them,some of which were absolutely
beautiful.
What they did in some cases wasthey lopped off the roofs and
then filled in the tombs withdirt and then used these tombs
as sort of foundations for thebasilica that was going to be
built on top of it.
So as all this was going onthis was in the early 300s St
Peter's Basilica was ultimatelydedicated in 326 AD.
(22:17):
As all this was going on, youhad pagans taking their loved
ones out of tombs to bury themelsewhere and Christians who
were then bringing their ownloved ones in because they
really wanted to be buried nearSt Peter.
So putting all sorts ofChristian bodies right near the
tomb of St Peter for burial.
So that was all going on.
(22:39):
Like I said, it was ultimatelycompleted in the year, in year
326 um, that was the firstbasilica of saint peter.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
So and I.
I think it's important to notethat this was not an easy feat
for constantine.
To lop off the top of a hill,right, I mean, if to think about
, okay, I need to build mybasilica here, we're on a side
of a hill, I'm gonna lop off thetop, put it next to it.
You know, level the field,level the hill and disturb
graves, which technically wasillegal.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
The.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Romans do not touch right.
We don't want to mess with deadbodies.
We don't want to disturb.
I mean, for the pagan Romans,you're disturbing the gods,
you're disturbing theirancestors.
And so I think, historically,we have to recognize Constantine
could have built this churchanywhere, and he did not.
He wanted to build it over.
(23:28):
He wanted to build the basilica, which, if you look at the term
basilica nowadays we assumebasilicas are all churches In
the Roman the Roman term issimply a big assembly building.
So basilica now we'veChristianized it, we assume it's
a church, but it wasessentially an architectural
style that the Christiansadapted.
But so I think it's justimportant for us to remember
(23:49):
we're not guessing where Peterwas buried, right?
Constantine made a lot of messto make sure his basilica was on
this spot.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yes, he did Like and to your point it was, it was
what he did.
If he wasn't the emperor, whathe did was illegal.
So, because he was the emperor,he basically suspended the law.
And because, if I think, Ithink um disturbing people's,
disturbing graves, I think wasuh, I think it was might've been
punishable by death even.
So, yeah, kind of speaks to theseriousness with which they,
(24:20):
they regarded the, uh, theyregarded their deceased loved
ones.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
So the first St Peter's is built 4th century
Constantine, and then there's aseries of altars right, because
then eventually, we begincelebrating Mass over the tomb.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yes, so eventually there was a whole series of
altars, like you said, andinitial constructions that are
begun and started and built andthat are really impressive, and
(25:18):
then you'll have periods whereone group of invaders or another
will come in, or there'sneglect and there's a sack, or
like things fall into ruin, andand so the same thing, same
thing held true for saintpeter's basilica, so as, as time
went on, there was developmentand there was growth within the
basilica and, and you knowvarious monuments that were
(25:39):
built and the and the like, um,actually one, one of the, um, uh
, one of the famous monuments,one of the famous articles in St
Peter's Basilica that was builtfor the old one was the famous
statue of St Peter that's in thebasilica, whose foot has been
worn down so badly becausepilgrims touch it.
That was in the original StPeter's Basilica, but as time
(26:02):
went on, the building again wasbuilt up and developed, but also
neglected.
I'm trying to remember therewas one of the walls at one
point was something like thereference point wouldn't work,
but it was just wildly out ofplum.
(26:22):
Like they just talk about you.
Just look at the wall, and itwas leaning so badly and this is
an enormous, enormous buildingand it was falling apart.
And then, in the 1400s, thedecision was made I think it was
Nicholas V made the decision toin 1450, to tear that basilica
(26:43):
down so a new one could be built, and so he began the process
and then, ultimately, the newbasilica that we know today was
dedicated in 1626.
So 300, 1300 years after theoriginal one was dedicated.
So, yeah, so we have so, um,yeah, so one you know, one
(27:07):
basilica built by constantinetorn down, new one built, and
that's the one that we see todayyeah, and it's same place and
there's some things like youmentioned.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
there's some things from the old basilica that are
in the new basilica, the Pietawas originally in the old just
towards the end, very end, ofthe old basilica.
I mean that would have been ahuge deal to say, okay, now
we're going to tear down thisbeloved church.
But it wasn't disrepair.
They probably did it forJubilee.
(27:40):
So I had to laugh when you saidyou know there's this like
almost like waves of of we'regonna clean up, we're gonna,
we're gonna build, we're gonnabuild.
Oh, we got destroyed, we're,we're gonna build.
And a lot of that does revolvearound the jubilee year, which
um, the sea line, the sea lineon the metro.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
They have been working on this.
So rome has two metro linesright now, the a line and the b
line, and they've been workingon this mythical c line for the
last I don't know how many years, when I was, when I was a
student over there, they weredoing right, you know,
investigations into a sea line.
At that time that's 25 yearsago.
And, um, here they are, they'reworking on the sea line again.
I'll believe.
(28:11):
Keep finding stuff right whenthey open it.
You know I'll I'll be the firstpassenger, but yeah, I'll
believe when I see it.
But there are beautiful thingslike the Jubilee they did really
clean things up for the Jubilee.
They have a new piazza for the.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Jubilee, um, and so it's.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
it's fun to see like it was impressive, I mean, when
we were over there, the, it wasimpressive to see the, um, the,
the intentional care that theytook for pilgrims, um, you know,
heading into, uh, you know,especially into saint peter's
basilica.
I was impressed by that.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, definitely, yeah, um okay, so we have the
new basilica and we know saintpeter's down there right, yes,
right, like we're just assuming,but now it's been you know 1900
years and we know saint peter'ssomewhere.
But can you talk us through howwe decided to actually excavate
(29:02):
?
Because you took peopleactually through the excavations
, through underneath thebasilica, which wouldn't have
existed this whole time?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Correct.
Yeah, so the um, what um?
The, the old, effectively theold, the floor of the old
basilica, the main floor of theold basilica, became the
effectively became the floorlevel of the crypt of the new
basilica.
So that's where that crypt areais, where the popes are buried.
(29:34):
So it's where Benedict XVI iscurrently buried.
Pius XII, Pius XI, I think, isthere, isn't he?
Yeah, he's there because XVI iscurrently buried.
Pius XII, uh, pius XI, I think,is there, isn't he?
Yeah, he's there because, yeah,he's part of the story to come,
um, yeah, so that's, that'swhere the, that's where the, the
popes and and others, uh, someother uh famous um, some royalty
as well, are, are buried there,at any rate in the um.
(29:56):
In 1939, pope Pius XI passedaway and at the time of his
passing, they were constructinghis tomb and they took advantage
of the opportunity to begindoing excavations underneath St
Peter's Basilica, with thepermission of Pope Pius XII, and
started digging around.
(30:17):
And there had been rumors formany years.
There was always the generalbelief that St Peter's was built
around the tomb of St Peter,that St Peter's tomb was
underneath the altar and thatthere was also a pagan burial
ground underneath St Peter'sBasilica.
But these are all kind of like.
You know, there was a beliefabout St Peter, there were
(30:38):
rumors about the pagan burialground, but there wasn't a lot
of evidence.
So Pope Pius XII gavepermission to actually do
excavations underneath StPeter's to see if well if all
these rumors were actually trueand what was actually down there
.
So they began the excavationsin 1939 and carried on a good
(30:59):
chunk of them during the SecondWorld War, and they wanted to
keep them in secret.
Keep all of it in secretbecause of the closeness that
Mussolini had to Hitler and then, ultimately, the Germans
themselves took over the city ofRome and Hitler had an interest
(31:20):
in all sorts of odd occultthings.
And they were concerned that iftheir word came out that they
were doing excavationsunderneath the St Peter's
Basilica and toward the tomb ofSt Peter and St Peter being such
a close friend of Jesus and allthat that Hitler might take an
interest, more of an interestthan he should have.
So they kept it all quiet andthey again just they excavated
(31:45):
first a variety of pagan tombsand then, ultimately, pope Pius
XII gave them permission toexcavate towards the high altar
and to see if the bones of Peterwere there.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I mean, this is all pretty amazing that first of all
, it's kind of happening if thebones of peter were there.
So just I mean, this is allpretty amazing that first of all
.
It's kind of happening in thedark of night, right that, um.
But while people are, peopleare walking, pilgrims are
walking in saint peter'sbasilica, completely unaware
that underneath them thisexcavation is happening.
That we have the technology tosupport a basilica of this size,
just I mean, I think in a sense, the excavations might not have
(32:23):
even been able to happen beforethis before the 20th century
and there is a book about kindof.
There are two books I wouldrecommend.
I'll put them in the show notes.
One, the Fisherman's Tomb, is amore recent book and it kind of
details how even an Americanwas involved in financing this
secret plan.
And there are some details inthe fisherman's tomb that are
not correct and so I sometimesI'm like I, you can read it.
(32:46):
It's a really fun story.
Just don't believe everything,because there's some stuff at
the end that I'm just likethat's not right.
But there's another book as well, called the bones of St Peter.
And it's a little morescientific, it's like the tome.
It's by W walsh and so I'll putboth of those in the show notes
that I always recommend thebones of saint peter because I
think it's a little moredetailed, it's just a little
heavier, and the fisherman'stomb is a little more dramatic.
(33:07):
Yeah mystery, you know um, butokay, so we're excavating during
world war ii in secret.
We're getting closer to themain um altar, the main, the two
I mean there had to have beensome superstitious like like
fear too.
Or getting closer, are we goingto disrupt the bones of St
Peter?
I don't know.
I feel like there's probablysome Roman superstition there
too.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
There's got, there's got to be with that, yeah, it's,
yeah, the the Italians tend tobe a little on the superstitious
side, but you know, at any rate, the um, yes, they're avoiding
it.
Then pope isaac 12 gave, gavepermission to excavate towards
it and, um, so, as they're, asthey're excavating, they're with
one of the things they theywell as they uncovered as they,
(33:46):
as they approached the, the highaltar, kind of from underneath,
um, a lot of what we know now,a lot of like the descriptions
that I, that I gave about the,the trophy monument and all that
.
Um, that was all determined bymeans of their excavations,
because they didn't really havethe sketches at the time or
didn't have the whole storyabout how it was all done, how
(34:08):
it was all built up.
But they did the excavationsand then kind of reverse
engineered oh, this must havebeen how they did, oh, this must
have been how they did, howthey put it all together.
Well, they ended up coming upunderneath the altar, in the
spot where they expected to findthe bones of St Peter, like
smack dab underneath the altarand there was a grave.
And so they, they, withpermission of Pope Pius XII,
(34:31):
they opened up the grave andfound bones there and found what
they believed to be the bonesof St Peter.
Unfortunately, after doing ascientific analysis of the bones
and I can't remember the exactdetails I think they found that
it was actually the bones of.
It was like two men, a womanand a dog, or something like
(34:52):
that.
It was just a mixture of bones.
It was just kind of like boom,but it was in the spot where
this should have been, where StPeter was, and instead it was
like this mixed jumble of bones,like what's going on.
And so poor Pope Pius XII, whogave permission for all this,
(35:16):
went to his grave believing thatthe bones of St Peter were not,
that we're not actually there.
And uh and and in that spot theyactually they actually were not
.
So, um, there's a, you know,went to his, went to his grave,
uh, and uh, with great sadness,um, but uh, as um, as as the
whole story developed, the um.
(35:36):
It's one of the things that'sworth telling, and we know a
couple of different examples ofthis.
Rome was sacked so many timeshistorically that when threat of
sack came up on more than oneoccasion, they would take
(35:57):
precious relics and hide them sothat those who were doing the
sacking would not find name theprecious relics.
So another good example of thatwas actually in our previously
mentioned Santa Croce.
If you remember the story, Ithink it was, was it the titulus
plate or maybe it was all therelics.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, I think the titulus at least.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
They, you know, in this church that had been built
for the sake of the preservationof the relics yeah, I think the
titulus, at least In thischurch that had been built for
the sake of the preservation ofthe relics of Christ's passion,
the relics basically disappeared.
People are kind of like, well,where did the relics go?
And whatever time goes on, well, as they were doing, wasn't it
during a renovation of thechurch or something like that?
They opened up some plaster andfound these relics.
(36:40):
What the heck, here they were.
And how did they get there?
Well, likely what happened wasthey were squirreled away there
in the middle of a sack so thatthey wouldn't be pillaged, they
wouldn't be stolen.
And we do know as well that theI believe it was the bones of
both apostles, both Peter andPaul, were taken to the
(37:03):
catacombs of St Sebastian, Ithink was during the
persecutions of Valerian.
Was that what it was?
I think in the 200s, I think.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, which I think?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Valerian was like 256 , something about Paul Park At
any rate.
So it wasn't out of theordinary for the relics to be
moved around.
So, all right, taking that as asort of okay, here we are as a
given.
Still, where are the bones ofPeter then?
If they didn't put him back inhis grave, then where did they
(37:33):
put him?
Well, in the excavation workthat was done, the scientists,
(37:54):
the archaeologists weremeticulous about, especially
about human remains.
So whenever they found bones,they would um it just just very,
very meticulous about, um,about their location.
Well, there was a set of bonesthat were that were discovered,
that um, that in in this wallthat had been attached to um, to
(38:16):
Peter's tomb.
I'm trying to remember thewhole story now.
They had in going through.
Oh gosh, it's such a good storyand I'm blowing the punchline
here.
There was a fellow who would.
There was a priest who wouldregularly go through, go through
(38:37):
the excavations and if he foundbones that were not being cared
for, he himself would gatherthem up, label them, and here's
where they would go.
Well, on this one occasion, inthis wall that was attached to
the trophy monument, the priesthad gone through, found these
bones in this wall and boxedthem up and put them away and
(38:59):
really didn't tell anybody aboutwhere you know that he had done
this, except for his closeassistant and you know this
assistant as they were havingdiscussions about, well, where
are the bones?
Of Peter, this assistant's likewell, there were these bones
that were found in this wall.
And of Peter, this assistant'slike well, there were these
(39:22):
bones that were found in thiswall.
And, um, you know, we couldtake a look at them, see if they
might be.
Well, it turns, turns out thatthese bones belong to it.
It sort of like ticked all thedescriptions that you'd want for
the apostle Peter that, um, hewas a man of about 65 years old,
um, that he um was short instature and the bones themselves
(39:42):
had been wrapped in purplecloth, which was a royal garment
, in order to this particulartype of purple.
It was an imperial color,meaning only the emperor could
use it, an imperial color,meaning only the emperor could
(40:03):
use it.
And so at some point, someemperor had given some cloth for
the sake of this particularindividual, for these bones, and
these bones had been buried.
They had dirt.
Remains from this particulartype of soil was only found in
what was the grave of Peter, sowhere those other mixture, those
other you know mixture of boneshad been found.
So these bones of this one guyhad been in that spot.
(40:24):
Um, they had been dug out ofthat spot, they had been wrapped
in the purple cloth.
And it was it.
They, after decomposition,they'd been wrapped in the
purple cloth.
So, um, uh, because it was likethe, the purple had stained the
bones themselves.
Um, and the other littleinteresting factoids was that
(40:44):
all the bones of the body wererepresented there, except for
the feet.
There were no feet bones.
And kind of curious, they saywell, why might that be?
Well, if these were the bonesof Peter, which they're now
believed to be, and if Peter wascrucified upside down, then if
(41:06):
they were looking to take Peteroff of his cross in a hurried
fashion, they probably just cuthis feet off as they were taking
him down off the cross and weretaking him to his grave and
were taking him to his grave.
So yeah, just kind of anamazing story.
So Pope Paul VI made thedeclaration that we believe that
we have found the bones ofPeter, and so now the bones are
(41:30):
in this little wall that was onthe trophy monument.
They were put back in there andthey're kept in little
plasticized storage storagecases.
Um, supposedly from, supposedlybuilt by nasa.
That's the way the story goes.
Um, I've got a reason todisbelieve that, so, um, but the
?
Uh, that's where they're kepttoday, so I've seen them with my
(41:52):
own eyes at the end of thescabby tour.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
That's kind of the, the, the beautiful moment where
you get to pray in front ofthese, these bones that you know
, the bones of the the whodenied Christ, the bones of the
man who was given the keys.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
And, just like as you walk through the SCAVI tour,
you get closer and closer.
You're hearing the story,you're seeing the graffiti.
Graffiti is an Italian word fora reason.
But you're seeing that graffitithat Peter is here and the keys
, and you see all this evidenceof people who want to be close
to Peter.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
It's just a really dramatic moment, then, to be in
that dark room and to see hisbones there.
You're telling the story betterthan I did.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
No, I you know this.
This whole season is on theJubilee, and this this season
too, and so the theme of theJubilee is hope, and so this
might be putting you on the spota little bit.
But how do you see the scabby?
How do you see the the, thestory of Peter, how do you see
(42:51):
this as a sign of hope for us?
Speaker 2 (42:53):
So the the whole discovery of Peter's bones is
just so, so wild and crazy, andI mean and believable, but it's
just so wild and crazy and itreally speaks to the Lord's
ability to basically bring aboutvictory, pull the victory out
(43:16):
of the jaws of defeat.
And so just this little event,and something that brought great
joy to one of Peter'ssuccessors, to Pope Paul VI, is
just a reminder to us of theways in which God can bring
great good into our own lives,and in surprising fashion, and
(43:37):
for that reason we alwaysbelieve.
Our hope is not optimism.
It's not.
In many cases, as we take alook around at ourselves,
there's a variety of reasons notto be happy in the world, and
yet, in the middle of it all,god's at work, and so our hope
is not resting on human beingsbut on the Lord's ability to
work.
So, within the scabby, there'sno question that, like the whole
(44:01):
series of events that wereorchestrated by the Lord,
ultimately led to the discoveryof Peter's bones, which was
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, the twists and the turns.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Well, thanks, father.
Thanks for joining us today onthis episode and sharing the
story of the scabby.
I would encourage anybody goingon pilgrimage the the story of
the scabby.
I would encourage anybody goingon pilgrimage to try to tour
the scabby, although it'sgetting harder and harder to do,
so yeah.
Tickets more and more people arehearing about it, so yeah yeah,
it's great, but check out thosebooks if you, if you want to
know more about the story andthe twists and the turns and the
(44:35):
involvement of all thedifferent characters.
There's a lot of differentbones.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
The saint peter will.
Uh that that.
It tells the story much betterthan I ever could.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
No, no, this is great .
Speaker 2 (44:43):
That's give you a little bit of an insight to
begin.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Thank you Father, Thank you listeners, Thank you
for sharing, for subscribing andfor listening.
God bless.
Do you want to experience thishistoric event in the life of
the church for yourself?
Whether you want to take agroup or you're just an
individual looking for a trip,verso ministries can make that
dream a reality.
Visit verso ministriescom slashjubilee for all our jubilee
(45:12):
dates and for more information.
Welcome to In Via, the podcast where we're
navigating the pilgrimage oflife.
We are all in via on the wayand we are learning a lot as we
go.
I'm your host, joan Watson.
Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn
more about our Catholic faith.
Along the way, we'll see thatif God seeks to meet us in
(00:21):
Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, healso wants to encounter you
right there in your car, on yourrun or in the middle of your
workday.
On today's episode of Envia, weare going to talk about the
scavi.
What is the scavi, you ask?
Well, luckily, as my guest Ihave a former scaVI guide,
(00:43):
father Tom Sidlick, a priest ofthe Diocese of Peoria.
He was ordained in 2003 and nowserves as pastor of the
parishes in Clinton, farmer City, in Wapella, illinois, and he
is here to regale us with thestory of the SCAVI.
So we were just in Rometogether.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
We were, yes, good time, fantastic, you know, and I
mean, you know, I, I livedthere, for I lived there for
five years and it's, um, this isone of my favorite.
I've only been back, so I leftin 2004.
I think this is the fourth timeI've been back since then, so
(01:19):
it's been, you know, 21 yearssince I, since I lived there.
This is probably one of myfavorite times to go back, um,
uh, just, I don't know, I thinkfor being a Jubilee year and
then kind of going back andreflecting on on what I, what I
enjoyed when I was there, andalso just being able to pray at
the sites of the uh, the uh, thetombs of the apostles, and,
(01:42):
yeah, just, great city, greatcity.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, yeah, there's so much, you know I mean, you
lived there and there's so muchto see that whenever I take a
group I'm always like, oh,there's so much more, but just
realizing, okay, give themsomething, because it's more
than we can even imagine, andyeah.
I don't know, it's just, Ialways have a hard time taking
groups because I want people tolive there, I want people to
have gone to 80 churches insteadof five.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
But you know, even if you myself experienced church
fatigue, towards the end, whereit's like you visit, you visit
the tomb of Padre Pio and like,and that was the first time I'd
(02:33):
been to his I lived in Italy forfive years and it was the first
time I'd visited Padre Pio youknow, prayed at his tomb and I
mean it's an awesome event andwhat an individual.
And and I already like, oh, Iwas tapped out because it's so
much, there's so much to yourpoint.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah , the church fatigue in rome.
After a while you walk in andyou're like, oh, this is pretty,
this is nice.
Oh, there's saint catherine.
Okay, you're like, wait aminute.
Yep, like this is the mostbeautiful church you know and
and I think, our tour guide saidsomething really funny.
Well, not our tour.
I think our tour guide saidsomething really funny.
Well, not our tour guide, butour tour escort said something
really funny on our trip wherewe went to Santa Croce, which is
(03:10):
where the relics of the passionare.
It's this beautiful basilica.
I think it's a beautifulbasilica.
Absolutely, and he was kind oflike nah, it's okay.
And I was like if this was inAmerica it would be the place
regardless.
I mean, his point was we'regoing to see the passion relics
more than the beautiful apps,mosaic or the architecture.
And he's right, you go to seethe relics.
(03:31):
But it was just so funny.
He's so jaded and used togorgeous churches that he's like
, yeah, it's not the prettiestyeah, it's not saint peter's.
Well, no, it's true, trueenough yeah yeah, so it is easy
to have church fatigue and justbe like, oh, there's another
beautiful church and have tokind of get like out of your,
out of your.
I also think it's funny whenpeople sometimes people go to
Rome and I tell them like where,what they need to see, and okay
(03:54):
, Most of it is true, I'm goingto tell you all these churches,
right.
But if you've never been there,you're like, okay, like, why
are you sending me to eightchurches?
Like, if, if you went to DC, Iwouldn't have a list of eight
churches?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
for you to visit Right.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But you go to Rome and I'm like, oh, you have to go
to this church and this churchand this church and this.
And they're like, well, I'm notreally a churchy person, I'm
like I don't care, like that'swhere the art is, that's where
the history is.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
That's where the saints stand in Rome.
I still don't understand thefascination with the Spanish
steps.
I mean they're pretty, they'repretty, but you know, at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's kind of like I'm trying to remember who it was
yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
It's a set of steps and there's probably you can get
ice cream nearby and that'spretty much it so it's just kind
of like where all the touristshang out right, don't confuse
them with the holy stairs.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I had somebody one time say oh, I'm supposed to go
see the Spanish steps, becausethat's where jesus and I was
like no, no, no, that jesus hasnothing to do with the spanish
yeah, yeah, yeah, along the,along the lines of the holy
steps.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's.
It's interesting to me withpilgrimage groups that I've
taken over, um, did I say thisis the fourth time, maybe it's
more than that.
That time it's four, maybe likesix, whatever, it's not that
many, but um, with uh, the onething with this pilgrimage group
and then the last one I took.
People are really struck by bypraying on the holy steps.
It's, it's just, it's one ofthe, it's one of the moments
(05:12):
that just really really bringsit home to people.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You know, and the uh, yeah, yeah, just meditating on
the, on the passion of Christand you know, it's a little
again, a little bit of Jerusalemin uh in Rome, which is pretty
cool so the holy stairs forlisteners who don't know are the
stairs, that that Helen Empress.
Helen brought over the motherof Constantine, brought over
from Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Saint Helen even.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Saint Helen right, that was.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
that's her greatest title right Forget Empress of
the, of the of the known world.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, um.
So St Helen brought them fromJerusalem and they were the
stairs that Jesus would haveclimbed up and down on his way
to trial with Pilate.
So it's tradition to go upthose stairs on one's knees and
I think one of the profoundthings like, yes, I'm going up
these stairs, that Christ wentup, that's amazing.
But also that millions ofpilgrims have gone up on their
(06:02):
knees, that you know that thesewooden steps so the wooden steps
are covering the marble steps,but that to protect the marble
steps, but like the wooden steps, have divots in them, because
that's how many knees have goneup them.
And so I think it's thatprofound pilgrimage moment where
you're not just walking in thefootsteps of christ or walking
in the footsteps of the saints,but you're also walking the
footsteps of millions ofpilgrims before you and it's
(06:23):
uncomfortable when you do itbecause of the divots and the
steps.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, yeah, I mean just yeah, it's, it's just crazy
, and you know it's interesting.
As you, I, um, I've never in mymind intellectually made the
connection between those stepsand and the first station in the
Via Dolorosa.
So in thinking like like on theVia Dolorosa, when you walk that
in Jerusalem itself the firststation is, in my opinion is
(06:47):
relatively anticlimactic, it'slike you get to it.
It's basically it's a post onthe wall, which is pretty cool,
but it's marking the spot whereJesus was condemned to death by
Pontius Pilate, but yeah, butthat those steps would have been
right in that spot, right inthat area.
Yeah, that's a pretty coolthing to kind of think about.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, that's a pretty cool thing to kind of think
about.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And and I think that kind of leads us into our topic
today because we're talkingabout Rome, but why?
You know, it's interesting, wedid a whole episode in our first
season about Rome.
And why Rome and Peter being inRome?
Cause we have to say, like, whygo on pilgrimage to Rome when I
should be going to Jerusalem?
I should be, walking in thefootsteps of Christ.
You know why?
Rome?
And that's a big question,right?
There's lots of answers and,like I said, we did an episode
on Rome.
(07:28):
But I guess we're going to talktoday about the Scavi, and so
I'm going to ask you you knowwhat is even the Scavi, but you
know how did Peter end up inRome?
And I know, historically again,we talked about it in our first
episode, our first season.
But you know why.
Why do we care about St Peter'sBasilica?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
So, um, to?
I mean just to answer the first, the first question.
First, the scavia are theexcavations that have been done
underneath St Peter's Basilicaand, um, we care about.
We care about St Peter'sBasilica because, for one, st
Peter's buried there and becauseSt Peter and all of his
successors have been, we referto them as the Bishop of Rome
(08:13):
and with Peter and hissuccessors being the Vicar of
Christ here on earth,effectively Jesus' prime
minister.
That's, in a sense, it's theseat of mission within the
church, in kind of reflecting onit myself.
Jerusalem is, I mean, obviouslyit's the holy city, it's the
(08:39):
place where Jesus died, rose andascended.
It's a phenomenal place and ifI had my druthers I'd live the
rest of my life there.
But what's interesting is that,when you look at symbology,
jerusalem is symbolic of heavenand we're not in heaven.
I mean, even you might say,with all the wars, whatever
(09:00):
that's going on there, theintifadas, and fine, granting
that, granting that still it's,on some level it's, it's
reminiscent of heaven.
But Peter, in coming to Rome inthe first place, came to Babylon
, which is sort of like it's thecenter of the world.
It was, it was at the time andthese days it's symbolically,
the, the center of the world inthe sense of this, is where it
(09:23):
was at the time.
It was pagan, you know.
It was pagan, roman, even today, you know.
It's interesting as as asCatholic as it as it as it is,
or as much Catholic symbolism asit has, it's astounding Like
people don't realize that the?
Um, the because, because thepopes have been there, are there
, um, there's, there's a lot ofevil that happens there.
(09:43):
There's actually um of.
Satanism surprisingly so.
It's sort of, when Peter comesto Rome, in a sense it's the
church heading out on mission,it's the church militant going
into battle, and so, in a realway, when we have the Pope
living there, it's a sign thatthis is, that our general, the
(10:10):
head of the army of Christ, ishere and we're at war.
So, you know, spiritual.
But so that's why it'simportant that Rome is the
center of the church, is thehead of the church, that that
that Rome is is the center ofthe church, is the head of the
church, and um, or the centraloffice of the church might be
the best way to put it.
And uh, why St Peter's Basilicamatters?
(10:31):
Not just because that's wherePeter varied, but uh, but also
because it's, you know, it'ssymbolic of what we're supposed
to be about.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, and that's the site that our general was killed
.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I think it's such a reminder to us that we follow
Christ.
We follow Christ crucified.
Paul preaches that veryprofoundly right.
We follow Christ crucified, andour first Pope was crucified
right there in the circus andthen buried on Vatican Hill.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And so you know when, yeah, when we go to St Peter's,
we should be remembering that.
You know when?
Yeah, when we go to St Peter's,we should be remembering that,
like, as we walk across StPeter's Square, we're walking
across the circus, we're walkingacross where Peter was martyred
and that's who we follow.
I mean that's kind of dumb inthe world's eyes, right?
Why are you following and many?
of his successors were martyredafter that right, Like we follow
(11:43):
a line of martyrs, but so Peterends up crucified upside down
on Vatican Hill afterChristianity, because
Christianity is punished forcrimes against humanity.
I always like to remind peopleof that.
People can say, oh no,christians were killed in the
Colosseum.
Yeah, because their crimewasn't Christianity.
Their crime actually, legally,was a crime against humanity
(12:05):
which.
I think is important for us toremember that they were seen as
enemies of the Roman state.
So if we're ever seen asenemies against humanity,
enemies against what the worlddefines, we're in good company,
right.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So he's crucified and he's immediately buried.
So could you kind of walk usthrough so I do want to
introduce Father as, like aformer tour guide, I guess what
would be your original former?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, I would have been.
I was a tour guide of the Scaviunderneath St Peter's Basilica,
so it's interesting when youtake a look at St Peter's
Basilica when we were inseminary, there were basically
two sets of guides that werethere.
There were the upstairs guidesand the Scavi guides
(12:58):
no-transcript.
Oh, really, really, I was aguide for my last three years
over there.
I think is what it ended upbeing.
So, yeah, it was a greatprivilege and again, just
getting to know about St Peterand again, I guess, circling
back to your question about theor your comments about Peter and
(13:19):
walking you through his deathand all that.
The one thing I think I wouldwant to correct I think it's a
correction is that technically,peter wasn't killed on the hill,
but he's buried on it, so hewas killed in the.
I think they referred to it asthe Adrovata Iconis, like the
Vatican field, which is wherethe circus of Nero was Clegane
(13:45):
and Nero was built.
It was a relatively smallcircus.
I think it can only holdsomething like 60,000 or 70,000
people, which for us these days,that's pretty nice.
It's a football field, exactly.
To clarify, a circus for theRomans was a stadium.
It was a place where they wouldhave gladiatorial combats and
(14:06):
chariot races and things likethat, as opposed to like circus
for us, which is kind of likesending the clowns, you know,
and all that you know.
Um, so it was a, it was, I mean, in, it was an entertaining
place, but it was also a violentplace.
So you had, you had people thatwere again gladiatorial combats
, the chariot races.
I mean, if you've ever watchedBen-Hur, these are not, these
(14:28):
are not, for the faint of heart,you know, these aren't your.
You know the Kentucky Derby oranything like that.
Um, right, so, um, so it was.
It was there that Peter waskilled, along with, uh, with the
first, with the first martyrsof Rome, and it was under the
persecution of the emperor Nero,and it was an astounding sight.
(14:48):
Apparently because they had Nero, had it's believed that Nero
himself caused the fire in Rome.
You could have people argueback and forth on it.
At the very least, he preventedRome from the fire.
Rome caught on fire.
He prevented people fromfighting the blaze, the city
burned down and he wanted totake advantage of the moment to
(15:12):
rebuild the city and the peoplein Rome, before they got to the
point of rebuilding the city,they wanted somebody's head.
They were really angry,understandably, because the city
burned, people died, and soNero pointed the finger at the
Christians and said, to yourpoint, as you were saying, joan,
the Christians were guilty of acrime against humanity and we
(15:33):
need to exterminate them fromour midst in order to appease
the gods.
So Nero kind of had a twofoldthing where, in appeasing the
gods, he put the Christians todeath.
But the other side of things,the other half, was that he did
it in an entertaining fashion,at least it was perceived as
such.
So he brought the Christians tothe stadium to a circus and put
(15:59):
them to death.
When it got he crucified them,and when it turned to night he
covered them in pitch and litthem on fire to serve as torches
.
And and so it was interestingwas apparently the romans at the
time were more disgusted thanentertained, like they even.
Even the that level ofbrutality was even a um, a step
(16:23):
too far for them, and so therewas some sympathy that arose for
the Christians.
So Peter was among the group ofChristians that were first
killed in Rome under Nero, andit's believed that the common
tradition, like the longstanding tradition, is that, as
you said, he was crucifiedupside down.
After he was crucified.
He was crucified and he died.
(16:44):
He was taken down off the cross, carried up the side of the
Vatican Hill and then buried ina pauper's grave in what was at
the time a pagan necropolis.
So Peter was a Christian buriedamong people that were not
Christians, and so a necropoliswas a pagan city of the dead,
and so Necropolis was a pagancity of the dead In precise
(17:05):
terms.
It's like.
Basically, it was a cemeteryCemetery and not seminary.
There are plenty of seminariesin Rome these days but it was a
pagan burial ground and so Peterwas buried there in a pauper's
grave with basically six.
It was a shallow grave.
They had six tiles over hisbody basically to keep him from
(17:27):
dogs or other animals fromdigging up his body, and that's
where he was left.
And but the as time went on,the Christians just consistently
visited his grave and it becamea place of pilgrimage.
They built a new monument ontop of it, which is
traditionally called these daysit's called the Trophy Monument,
and it was actually referencedin Christian writings too about
(17:50):
like that.
The reason why Rome isimportant is because we have the
trophy.
We have the tomb of both Peterand Paul here, and so that's
kind of where the devotion toPeter and to his tomb and his
grave really began, right out ofthe chute, and was a consistent
place of pilgrimage.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And so here we are today 2,000 years later.
Christians were able to visit itbecause in the City of the Dead
and the Necropolis people wouldgo visit their family's tombs
like we do today, but even morethan we do today.
They would have parties, theywould celebrate, they would
celebrate, they would eat, theywould celebrate, you know, um,
(18:29):
not celebrate, but they wouldcommemorate the, the the
deceased, they would.
So christians, in a sense,could kind of do it without
being noticed because they weredoing what everybody else was
doing.
They were going and, like, haveyou know, pouring out libations
on, you know, just like theneighbor, yep, um.
And so I think we have toremember, you know, peter wasn't
buried in what we'd call acatacomb, because the catacombs
were new, I mean, they were.
They developed later asChristians wanted to bury people
(18:49):
amongst, you know, otherChristians, and so it's
important for people to realizethat's why Peter was buried in
this pagan area, the city of thedead, but that Christians could
visit him without being, youknow, and I suppose eventually,
probably Christians were caughtvisiting his grave because it
became known that he's Peter,but Christians could kind of
(19:10):
look like other people.
And so we know that there areother huge family tombs around
Peter's tomb now because we'vedone the excavations.
So there's this little tiny nottiny but this little shrine
built over Peter.
And then what's our next step inhistory when Christianity
(19:31):
becomes legalized?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So the next step in history was effectively with a
few little steps along the way,but effectively it was the
construction of the original StPeter's Basilica.
And so, like I said, peter wasburied on the side of the
Vatican Hill, in this necropolis, in this burial ground, and the
(19:55):
Emperor Constantine legalizedChristianity and decided that he
was going to really be abenefactor to the church, and so
he wanted to build a number ofchurches and ultimately built St
Peter's Basilica and did notwant to move the grave of Peter,
and really sort of like.
(20:15):
That was the center point ofthe basilica and initially the
Basilica of St Peter.
Even though we know it forhaving all these people, masses,
it was not originally built asa church, as a church per se.
It was built as a big monumentto the Apostle Peter, and so
you'd walk in and then what wasat the center of what was to be
(20:36):
the Basilica, this new Basilica,was the tomb of St Peter, and
eventually masses werecelebrated there, but it gets a
little ahead of the story.
But Constantine, in buildingthis basilica, was running into
the problem of it being on theside of a hill, and so it ended
up being an amazing engineeringfeat that they accomplished,
(20:58):
where, basically, they leveledthe Vatican Hill and built this
church Effectively.
Today, when people talk aboutthe Vatican Hill and like
where's the Vatican Hill?
Really St Peter's is on it.
In some ways it's effectivelybeen leveled.
In a lot of ways it'stechnically there, but it's
(21:20):
basically encompassed by StPeter's Basilica.
But Constantine leveled thehill in order to build the first
basilica of St Peter on top ofit.
In the process, peter's gravewas saved, but all these other
graves that were around Peterwere destroyed.
Not so great, but here we areand it's interesting.
So the tombs that were there,many of which were very well
(21:57):
constructed.
What they ended up doing in manycases like when you talk about
tombs they had roofs on them,some of which were absolutely
beautiful.
What they did in some cases wasthey lopped off the roofs and
then filled in the tombs withdirt and then used these tombs
as sort of foundations for thebasilica that was going to be
built on top of it.
So as all this was going onthis was in the early 300s St
Peter's Basilica was ultimatelydedicated in 326 AD.
(22:17):
As all this was going on, youhad pagans taking their loved
ones out of tombs to bury themelsewhere and Christians who
were then bringing their ownloved ones in because they
really wanted to be buried nearSt Peter.
So putting all sorts ofChristian bodies right near the
tomb of St Peter for burial.
So that was all going on.
(22:39):
Like I said, it was ultimatelycompleted in the year, in year
326 um, that was the firstbasilica of saint peter.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
So and I.
I think it's important to notethat this was not an easy feat
for constantine.
To lop off the top of a hill,right, I mean, if to think about
, okay, I need to build mybasilica here, we're on a side
of a hill, I'm gonna lop off thetop, put it next to it.
You know, level the field,level the hill and disturb
graves, which technically wasillegal.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
The.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Romans do not touch right.
We don't want to mess with deadbodies.
We don't want to disturb.
I mean, for the pagan Romans,you're disturbing the gods,
you're disturbing theirancestors.
And so I think, historically,we have to recognize Constantine
could have built this churchanywhere, and he did not.
He wanted to build it over.
(23:28):
He wanted to build the basilica, which, if you look at the term
basilica nowadays we assumebasilicas are all churches In
the Roman the Roman term issimply a big assembly building.
So basilica now we'veChristianized it, we assume it's
a church, but it wasessentially an architectural
style that the Christiansadapted.
But so I think it's justimportant for us to remember
(23:49):
we're not guessing where Peterwas buried, right?
Constantine made a lot of messto make sure his basilica was on
this spot.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yes, he did Like and to your point it was, it was
what he did.
If he wasn't the emperor, whathe did was illegal.
So, because he was the emperor,he basically suspended the law.
And because, if I think, Ithink um disturbing people's,
disturbing graves, I think wasuh, I think it was might've been
punishable by death even.
So, yeah, kind of speaks to theseriousness with which they,
(24:20):
they regarded the, uh, theyregarded their deceased loved
ones.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
So the first St Peter's is built 4th century
Constantine, and then there's aseries of altars right, because
then eventually, we begincelebrating Mass over the tomb.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yes, so eventually there was a whole series of
altars, like you said, andinitial constructions that are
begun and started and built andthat are really impressive, and
(25:18):
then you'll have periods whereone group of invaders or another
will come in, or there'sneglect and there's a sack, or
like things fall into ruin, andand so the same thing, same
thing held true for saintpeter's basilica, so as, as time
went on, there was developmentand there was growth within the
basilica and, and you knowvarious monuments that were
(25:39):
built and the and the like, um,actually one, one of the, um, uh
, one of the famous monuments,one of the famous articles in St
Peter's Basilica that was builtfor the old one was the famous
statue of St Peter that's in thebasilica, whose foot has been
worn down so badly becausepilgrims touch it.
That was in the original StPeter's Basilica, but as time
(26:02):
went on, the building again wasbuilt up and developed, but also
neglected.
I'm trying to remember therewas one of the walls at one
point was something like thereference point wouldn't work,
but it was just wildly out ofplum.
(26:22):
Like they just talk about you.
Just look at the wall, and itwas leaning so badly and this is
an enormous, enormous buildingand it was falling apart.
And then, in the 1400s, thedecision was made I think it was
Nicholas V made the decision toin 1450, to tear that basilica
(26:43):
down so a new one could be built, and so he began the process
and then, ultimately, the newbasilica that we know today was
dedicated in 1626.
So 300, 1300 years after theoriginal one was dedicated.
So, yeah, so we have so, um,yeah, so one you know, one
(27:07):
basilica built by constantinetorn down, new one built, and
that's the one that we see todayyeah, and it's same place and
there's some things like youmentioned.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
there's some things from the old basilica that are
in the new basilica, the Pietawas originally in the old just
towards the end, very end, ofthe old basilica.
I mean that would have been ahuge deal to say, okay, now
we're going to tear down thisbeloved church.
But it wasn't disrepair.
They probably did it forJubilee.
(27:40):
So I had to laugh when you saidyou know there's this like
almost like waves of of we'regonna clean up, we're gonna,
we're gonna build, we're gonnabuild.
Oh, we got destroyed, we're,we're gonna build.
And a lot of that does revolvearound the jubilee year, which
um, the sea line, the sea lineon the metro.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
They have been working on this.
So rome has two metro linesright now, the a line and the b
line, and they've been workingon this mythical c line for the
last I don't know how many years, when I was, when I was a
student over there, they weredoing right, you know,
investigations into a sea line.
At that time that's 25 yearsago.
And, um, here they are, they'reworking on the sea line again.
I'll believe.
(28:11):
Keep finding stuff right whenthey open it.
You know I'll I'll be the firstpassenger, but yeah, I'll
believe when I see it.
But there are beautiful thingslike the Jubilee they did really
clean things up for the Jubilee.
They have a new piazza for the.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Jubilee, um, and so it's.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
it's fun to see like it was impressive, I mean, when
we were over there, the, it wasimpressive to see the, um, the,
the intentional care that theytook for pilgrims, um, you know,
heading into, uh, you know,especially into saint peter's
basilica.
I was impressed by that.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, definitely, yeah, um okay, so we have the
new basilica and we know saintpeter's down there right, yes,
right, like we're just assuming,but now it's been you know 1900
years and we know saint peter'ssomewhere.
But can you talk us through howwe decided to actually excavate
(29:02):
?
Because you took peopleactually through the excavations
, through underneath thebasilica, which wouldn't have
existed this whole time?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Correct.
Yeah, so the um, what um?
The, the old, effectively theold, the floor of the old
basilica, the main floor of theold basilica, became the
effectively became the floorlevel of the crypt of the new
basilica.
So that's where that crypt areais, where the popes are buried.
(29:34):
So it's where Benedict XVI iscurrently buried.
Pius XII, Pius XI, I think, isthere, isn't he?
Yeah, he's there because XVI iscurrently buried.
Pius XII, uh, pius XI, I think,is there, isn't he?
Yeah, he's there because, yeah,he's part of the story to come,
um, yeah, so that's, that'swhere the, that's where the, the
popes and and others, uh, someother uh famous um, some royalty
as well, are, are buried there,at any rate in the um.
(29:56):
In 1939, pope Pius XI passedaway and at the time of his
passing, they were constructinghis tomb and they took advantage
of the opportunity to begindoing excavations underneath St
Peter's Basilica, with thepermission of Pope Pius XII, and
started digging around.
(30:17):
And there had been rumors formany years.
There was always the generalbelief that St Peter's was built
around the tomb of St Peter,that St Peter's tomb was
underneath the altar and thatthere was also a pagan burial
ground underneath St Peter'sBasilica.
But these are all kind of like.
You know, there was a beliefabout St Peter, there were
(30:38):
rumors about the pagan burialground, but there wasn't a lot
of evidence.
So Pope Pius XII gavepermission to actually do
excavations underneath StPeter's to see if well if all
these rumors were actually trueand what was actually down there
.
So they began the excavationsin 1939 and carried on a good
(30:59):
chunk of them during the SecondWorld War, and they wanted to
keep them in secret.
Keep all of it in secretbecause of the closeness that
Mussolini had to Hitler and then, ultimately, the Germans
themselves took over the city ofRome and Hitler had an interest
(31:20):
in all sorts of odd occultthings.
And they were concerned that iftheir word came out that they
were doing excavationsunderneath the St Peter's
Basilica and toward the tomb ofSt Peter and St Peter being such
a close friend of Jesus and allthat that Hitler might take an
interest, more of an interestthan he should have.
So they kept it all quiet andthey again just they excavated
(31:45):
first a variety of pagan tombsand then, ultimately, pope Pius
XII gave them permission toexcavate towards the high altar
and to see if the bones of Peterwere there.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I mean, this is all pretty amazing that first of all
, it's kind of happening if thebones of peter were there.
So just I mean, this is allpretty amazing that first of all
.
It's kind of happening in thedark of night, right that, um.
But while people are, peopleare walking, pilgrims are
walking in saint peter'sbasilica, completely unaware
that underneath them thisexcavation is happening.
That we have the technology tosupport a basilica of this size,
just I mean, I think in a sense, the excavations might not have
(32:23):
even been able to happen beforethis before the 20th century
and there is a book about kindof.
There are two books I wouldrecommend.
I'll put them in the show notes.
One, the Fisherman's Tomb, is amore recent book and it kind of
details how even an Americanwas involved in financing this
secret plan.
And there are some details inthe fisherman's tomb that are
not correct and so I sometimesI'm like I, you can read it.
(32:46):
It's a really fun story.
Just don't believe everything,because there's some stuff at
the end that I'm just likethat's not right.
But there's another book as well, called the bones of St Peter.
And it's a little morescientific, it's like the tome.
It's by W walsh and so I'll putboth of those in the show notes
that I always recommend thebones of saint peter because I
think it's a little moredetailed, it's just a little
heavier, and the fisherman'stomb is a little more dramatic.
(33:07):
Yeah mystery, you know um, butokay, so we're excavating during
world war ii in secret.
We're getting closer to themain um altar, the main, the two
I mean there had to have beensome superstitious like like
fear too.
Or getting closer, are we goingto disrupt the bones of St
Peter?
I don't know.
I feel like there's probablysome Roman superstition there
too.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
There's got, there's got to be with that, yeah, it's,
yeah, the the Italians tend tobe a little on the superstitious
side, but you know, at any rate, the um, yes, they're avoiding
it.
Then pope isaac 12 gave, gavepermission to excavate towards
it and, um, so, as they're, asthey're excavating, they're with
one of the things they theywell as they uncovered as they,
(33:46):
as they approached the, the highaltar, kind of from underneath,
um, a lot of what we know now,a lot of like the descriptions
that I, that I gave about the,the trophy monument and all that
.
Um, that was all determined bymeans of their excavations,
because they didn't really havethe sketches at the time or
didn't have the whole storyabout how it was all done, how
(34:08):
it was all built up.
But they did the excavationsand then kind of reverse
engineered oh, this must havebeen how they did, oh, this must
have been how they did, howthey put it all together.
Well, they ended up coming upunderneath the altar, in the
spot where they expected to findthe bones of St Peter, like
smack dab underneath the altarand there was a grave.
And so they, they, withpermission of Pope Pius XII,
(34:31):
they opened up the grave andfound bones there and found what
they believed to be the bonesof St Peter.
Unfortunately, after doing ascientific analysis of the bones
and I can't remember the exactdetails I think they found that
it was actually the bones of.
It was like two men, a womanand a dog, or something like
(34:52):
that.
It was just a mixture of bones.
It was just kind of like boom,but it was in the spot where
this should have been, where StPeter was, and instead it was
like this mixed jumble of bones,like what's going on.
And so poor Pope Pius XII, whogave permission for all this,
(35:16):
went to his grave believing thatthe bones of St Peter were not,
that we're not actually there.
And uh and and in that spot theyactually they actually were not
.
So, um, there's a, you know,went to his, went to his grave,
uh, and uh, with great sadness,um, but uh, as um, as as the
whole story developed, the um.
(35:36):
It's one of the things that'sworth telling, and we know a
couple of different examples ofthis.
Rome was sacked so many timeshistorically that when threat of
sack came up on more than oneoccasion, they would take
(35:57):
precious relics and hide them sothat those who were doing the
sacking would not find name theprecious relics.
So another good example of thatwas actually in our previously
mentioned Santa Croce.
If you remember the story, Ithink it was, was it the titulus
plate or maybe it was all therelics.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, I think the titulus at least.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
They, you know, in this church that had been built
for the sake of the preservationof the relics yeah, I think the
titulus, at least In thischurch that had been built for
the sake of the preservation ofthe relics of Christ's passion,
the relics basically disappeared.
People are kind of like, well,where did the relics go?
And whatever time goes on, well, as they were doing, wasn't it
during a renovation of thechurch or something like that?
They opened up some plaster andfound these relics.
(36:40):
What the heck, here they were.
And how did they get there?
Well, likely what happened wasthey were squirreled away there
in the middle of a sack so thatthey wouldn't be pillaged, they
wouldn't be stolen.
And we do know as well that theI believe it was the bones of
both apostles, both Peter andPaul, were taken to the
(37:03):
catacombs of St Sebastian, Ithink was during the
persecutions of Valerian.
Was that what it was?
I think in the 200s, I think.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, which I think?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Valerian was like 256 , something about Paul Park At
any rate.
So it wasn't out of theordinary for the relics to be
moved around.
So, all right, taking that as asort of okay, here we are as a
given.
Still, where are the bones ofPeter then?
If they didn't put him back inhis grave, then where did they
(37:33):
put him?
Well, in the excavation workthat was done, the scientists,
(37:54):
the archaeologists weremeticulous about, especially
about human remains.
So whenever they found bones,they would um it just just very,
very meticulous about, um,about their location.
Well, there was a set of bonesthat were that were discovered,
that um, that in in this wallthat had been attached to um, to
(38:16):
Peter's tomb.
I'm trying to remember thewhole story now.
They had in going through.
Oh gosh, it's such a good storyand I'm blowing the punchline
here.
There was a fellow who would.
There was a priest who wouldregularly go through, go through
(38:37):
the excavations and if he foundbones that were not being cared
for, he himself would gatherthem up, label them, and here's
where they would go.
Well, on this one occasion, inthis wall that was attached to
the trophy monument, the priesthad gone through, found these
bones in this wall and boxedthem up and put them away and
(38:59):
really didn't tell anybody aboutwhere you know that he had done
this, except for his closeassistant and you know this
assistant as they were havingdiscussions about, well, where
are the bones?
Of Peter, this assistant's likewell, there were these bones
that were found in this wall.
And of Peter, this assistant'slike well, there were these
(39:22):
bones that were found in thiswall.
And, um, you know, we couldtake a look at them, see if they
might be.
Well, it turns, turns out thatthese bones belong to it.
It sort of like ticked all thedescriptions that you'd want for
the apostle Peter that, um, hewas a man of about 65 years old,
um, that he um was short instature and the bones themselves
(39:42):
had been wrapped in purplecloth, which was a royal garment
, in order to this particulartype of purple.
It was an imperial color,meaning only the emperor could
use it, an imperial color,meaning only the emperor could
(40:03):
use it.
And so at some point, someemperor had given some cloth for
the sake of this particularindividual, for these bones, and
these bones had been buried.
They had dirt.
Remains from this particulartype of soil was only found in
what was the grave of Peter, sowhere those other mixture, those
other you know mixture of boneshad been found.
So these bones of this one guyhad been in that spot.
(40:24):
Um, they had been dug out ofthat spot, they had been wrapped
in the purple cloth.
And it was it.
They, after decomposition,they'd been wrapped in the
purple cloth.
So, um, uh, because it was likethe, the purple had stained the
bones themselves.
Um, and the other littleinteresting factoids was that
(40:44):
all the bones of the body wererepresented there, except for
the feet.
There were no feet bones.
And kind of curious, they saywell, why might that be?
Well, if these were the bonesof Peter, which they're now
believed to be, and if Peter wascrucified upside down, then if
(41:06):
they were looking to take Peteroff of his cross in a hurried
fashion, they probably just cuthis feet off as they were taking
him down off the cross and weretaking him to his grave and
were taking him to his grave.
So yeah, just kind of anamazing story.
So Pope Paul VI made thedeclaration that we believe that
we have found the bones ofPeter, and so now the bones are
(41:30):
in this little wall that was onthe trophy monument.
They were put back in there andthey're kept in little
plasticized storage storagecases.
Um, supposedly from, supposedlybuilt by nasa.
That's the way the story goes.
Um, I've got a reason todisbelieve that, so, um, but the
?
Uh, that's where they're kepttoday, so I've seen them with my
(41:52):
own eyes at the end of thescabby tour.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
That's kind of the, the, the beautiful moment where
you get to pray in front ofthese, these bones that you know
, the bones of the the whodenied Christ, the bones of the
man who was given the keys.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
And, just like as you walk through the SCAVI tour,
you get closer and closer.
You're hearing the story,you're seeing the graffiti.
Graffiti is an Italian word fora reason.
But you're seeing that graffitithat Peter is here and the keys
, and you see all this evidenceof people who want to be close
to Peter.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
It's just a really dramatic moment, then, to be in
that dark room and to see hisbones there.
You're telling the story betterthan I did.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
No, I you know this.
This whole season is on theJubilee, and this this season
too, and so the theme of theJubilee is hope, and so this
might be putting you on the spota little bit.
But how do you see the scabby?
How do you see the the, thestory of Peter, how do you see
(42:51):
this as a sign of hope for us?
Speaker 2 (42:53):
So the the whole discovery of Peter's bones is
just so, so wild and crazy, andI mean and believable, but it's
just so wild and crazy and itreally speaks to the Lord's
ability to basically bring aboutvictory, pull the victory out
(43:16):
of the jaws of defeat.
And so just this little event,and something that brought great
joy to one of Peter'ssuccessors, to Pope Paul VI, is
just a reminder to us of theways in which God can bring
great good into our own lives,and in surprising fashion, and
(43:37):
for that reason we alwaysbelieve.
Our hope is not optimism.
It's not.
In many cases, as we take alook around at ourselves,
there's a variety of reasons notto be happy in the world, and
yet, in the middle of it all,god's at work, and so our hope
is not resting on human beingsbut on the Lord's ability to
work.
So, within the scabby, there'sno question that, like the whole
(44:01):
series of events that wereorchestrated by the Lord,
ultimately led to the discoveryof Peter's bones, which was
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, the twists and the turns.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Well, thanks, father.
Thanks for joining us today onthis episode and sharing the
story of the scabby.
I would encourage anybody goingon pilgrimage the the story of
the scabby.
I would encourage anybody goingon pilgrimage to try to tour
the scabby, although it'sgetting harder and harder to do,
so yeah.
Tickets more and more people arehearing about it, so yeah yeah,
it's great, but check out thosebooks if you, if you want to
know more about the story andthe twists and the turns and the
(44:35):
involvement of all thedifferent characters.
There's a lot of differentbones.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
The saint peter will.
Uh that that.
It tells the story much betterthan I ever could.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
No, no, this is great .
Speaker 2 (44:43):
That's give you a little bit of an insight to
begin.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Thank you Father, Thank you listeners, Thank you
for sharing, for subscribing andfor listening.
God bless.
Do you want to experience thishistoric event in the life of
the church for yourself?
Whether you want to take agroup or you're just an
individual looking for a trip,verso ministries can make that
dream a reality.
Visit verso ministriescom slashjubilee for all our jubilee
(45:12):
dates and for more information.
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