Today in History

On this day in 1626 Pope Urban VIII dedicated the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome. Completed after 176 years of construction, the present-day St. Peter's stands on the site of the fourth century basilica of Constantine, which in turn was built above the circus of Nero, as illustrated. St. Peter was crucified in this circus around the year 67 and tradition has always held that the two successive basilicas on the site were built upon his tomb. Excavations beneath St. Peter's in the 1940's, originally begun to extend the existing space beneath the high altar, uncovered a network of tombs, both Christian and pagan, which once comprised a Roman cemetery immediately to the north of Nero's circus. One of these tombs, directly beneath the high altar, was found to contain what are very likely the mortal remains of St. Peter himself, rediscovered centuries later in precisely the spot tradition had placed them.

My visit to Rome this summer included a tour of the excavations, or Scavi. Walking the ancient streets of a Roman cemetery just beneath the marble floors of the basilica was a powerful encounter with what George Weigel calls the Grittiness of Catholicism, the inescapable sense of historical reality in a place where the apostolic foundations of the Church are made tangible across the centuries.

Chesterton once wrote, "There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth." I like to think that it was in such a moment of hidden mirth that Jesus spoke His wonderful play on words to Simon Bar-Jonah:

"And so I say to you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it." (Mt 16:18)