In Via
Planning a trip? Or just on the pilgrimage of daily living? We are the podcast at the intersection of faith and travel, assisting you on the journey to encounter Christ. Hear stories, discover travel tips, and learn more about our Catholic faith. Along the way, we’ll show you that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, Rome, Lourdes, Mexico City, or Santiago, he also wants to encounter you - right there in your car, on your run, or in the middle of your workday.
In Via
The Tomb of the Rock: What Lies Beneath Rome's Greatest Church
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.
Welcome to In Via, the podcast where we're navigating the pilgrimage of life. We are all in via on the way and 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 that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, he also wants to encounter you right there in your car, on your run or in the middle of your workday. On today's episode of Envia, we are going to talk about the scavi. What is the scavi, you ask? Well, luckily, as my guest I have a former scaVI guide, father Tom Sidlick, a priest of the Diocese of Peoria. He was ordained in 2003 and now serves as pastor of the parishes in Clinton, farmer City, in Wapella, illinois, and he is here to regale us with the story of the SCAVI. So we were just in Rome together.
Speaker 2:We were, yes, good time, fantastic, you know, and I mean, you know, I, I lived there, for I lived there for five years and it's, um, this is one of my favorite. I've only been back, so I left in 2004. I think this is the fourth time I've been back since then, so it's been, you know, 21 years since I, since I lived there. This is probably one of my favorite times to go back, um, uh, just, I don't know, I think for being a Jubilee year and then kind of going back and reflecting on on what I, what I enjoyed when I was there, and also just being able to pray at the sites of the uh, the uh, the tombs of the apostles, and, yeah, just, great city, great city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there's so much, you know I mean, you lived there and there's so much to see that whenever I take a group I'm always like, oh, there's so much more, but just realizing, okay, give them something, because it's more than we can even imagine, and yeah. I don't know, it's just, I always have a hard time taking groups because I want people to live there, I want people to have gone to 80 churches instead of five.
Speaker 2:But you know, even if you myself experienced church fatigue, towards the end, where it's like you visit, you visit the tomb of Padre Pio and like, and that was the first time I'd been to his I lived in Italy for five years and it was the first time I'd visited Padre Pio you know, prayed at his tomb and I mean it's an awesome event and what an individual. And and I already like, oh, I was tapped out because it's so much, there's so much to your point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, the church fatigue in rome. After a while you walk in and you're like, oh, this is pretty, this is nice. Oh, there's saint catherine. Okay, you're like, wait a minute. Yep, like this is the most beautiful church you know and and I think, our tour guide said something really funny.
Speaker 1:Well, not our tour. I think our tour guide said something really funny. Well, not our tour guide, but our tour escort said something really funny on our trip where we went to Santa Croce, which is where the relics of the passion are. It's this beautiful basilica. I think it's a beautiful basilica. Absolutely, and he was kind of like nah, it's okay.
Speaker 1:And I was like if this was in America it would be the place regardless. I mean, his point was we're going to see the passion relics more than the beautiful apps, mosaic or the architecture. And he's right, you go to see the relics. But it was just so funny. He's so jaded and used to gorgeous churches that he's like, yeah, it's not the prettiest yeah, it's not saint peter's. Well, no, it's true, true enough yeah yeah, so it is easy to have church fatigue and just be like, oh, there's another beautiful church and have to kind of get like out of your, out of your.
Speaker 1:I also think it's funny when people sometimes people go to Rome and I tell them like where, what they need to see, and okay, Most of it is true, I'm going to tell you all these churches, right. But if you've never been there, you're like, okay, like, why are you sending me to eight churches? Like, if, if you went to DC, I wouldn't have a list of eight churches?
Speaker 2:for you to visit Right.
Speaker 1:But you go to Rome and I'm like, oh, you have to go to this church and this church and this church and this. And they're like, well, I'm not really a churchy person, I'm like I don't care, like that's where the art is, that's where the history is.
Speaker 2:That's where the saints stand in Rome. I still don't understand the fascination with the Spanish steps. I mean they're pretty, they're pretty, but you know, at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like I'm trying to remember who it was yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2:It's a set of steps and there's probably you can get ice cream nearby and that's pretty much it so it's just kind of like where all the tourists hang out right, don't confuse them with the holy stairs.
Speaker 1:I had somebody one time say oh, I'm supposed to go see the Spanish steps, because that's where jesus and I was like no, no, no, that jesus has nothing to do with the spanish yeah, yeah, yeah, along the, along the lines of the holy steps.
Speaker 2:It's. It's interesting to me with pilgrimage groups that I've taken over, um, did I say this is the fourth time, maybe it's more than that. That time it's four, maybe like six, whatever, it's not that many, but um, with uh, the one thing with this pilgrimage group and then the last one I took. People are really struck by by praying on the holy steps. It's, it's just, it's one of the, it's one of the moments that just really really brings it home to people.
Speaker 1:You know, and the uh, yeah, yeah, just meditating on the, on the passion of Christ and you know, it's a little again, a little bit of Jerusalem in uh in Rome, which is pretty cool so the holy stairs for listeners who don't know are the stairs, that that Helen Empress. Helen brought over the mother of Constantine, brought over from Jerusalem.
Speaker 2:Saint Helen even.
Speaker 1:Saint Helen right, that was.
Speaker 2:that's her greatest title right Forget Empress of the, of the of the known world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um. So St Helen brought them from Jerusalem and they were the stairs that Jesus would have climbed up and down on his way to trial with Pilate. So it's tradition to go up those stairs on one's knees and I think one of the profound things like, yes, I'm going up these stairs, that Christ went up, that's amazing. But also that millions of pilgrims have gone up on their knees, that you know that these wooden 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 gone up them. And so I think it's that profound pilgrimage moment where you're not just walking in the footsteps of christ or walking in the footsteps of the saints, but you're also walking the footsteps of millions of pilgrims before you and it's uncomfortable when you do it because of the divots and the steps.
Speaker 2: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 my mind intellectually made the connection between those steps and and the first station in the Via Dolorosa.
Speaker 2:So in thinking like like on the Via Dolorosa, when you walk that in Jerusalem itself the first station is, in my opinion is relatively anticlimactic, it's like you get to it. It's basically it's a post on the wall, which is pretty cool, but it's marking the spot where Jesus was condemned to death by Pontius Pilate, but yeah, but that those steps would have been right in that spot, right in that area. Yeah, that's a pretty cool thing to kind of think about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a pretty cool thing to kind of think about.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and I think that kind of leads us into our topic today because we're talking about Rome, but why? You know, it's interesting, we did a whole episode in our first season about Rome. And why Rome and Peter being in Rome? Cause we have to say, like, why go on pilgrimage to Rome when I should be going to Jerusalem? I should be, walking in the footsteps of Christ. You know why? Rome? And that's a big question, right?
Speaker 1:There's lots of answers and, like I said, we did an episode on Rome. But I guess we're going to talk today about the Scavi, and so I'm going to ask you you know what is even the Scavi, but you know how did Peter end up in Rome? 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's Basilica?
Speaker 2:So, um, to? I mean just to answer the first, the first question. First, the scavia are the excavations that have been done underneath St Peter's Basilica and, um, we care about. We care about St Peter's Basilica because, for one, st Peter's buried there and because St Peter and all of his successors have been, we refer to them as the Bishop of Rome and with Peter and his successors being the Vicar of Christ here on earth, effectively Jesus' prime minister. That's, in a sense, it's the seat of mission within the church, in kind of reflecting on it myself.
Speaker 2:Jerusalem is, I mean, obviously it's the holy city, it's the place where Jesus died, rose and ascended. It's a phenomenal place and if I 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 heaven and we're not in heaven. I mean, even you might say, with all the wars, whatever that's going on there, the intifadas, and fine, granting that, granting that still it's, on some level it's, it's reminiscent of heaven.
Speaker 2:But Peter, in coming to Rome in the first place, came to Babylon, which is sort of like it's the center of the world. It was, it was at the time and these days it's symbolically, the, the center of the world in the sense of this, is where it was at the time. It was pagan, you know. It was pagan, roman, even today, you know. It's interesting as as as Catholic as it as it as it is, or as much Catholic symbolism as it has, it's astounding Like people don't realize that the? Um, the because, because the popes have been there, are there, um, there's, there's a lot of evil that happens there. There's actually um of.
Speaker 2:Satanism surprisingly so. It's sort of, when Peter comes to Rome, in a sense it's the church heading out on mission, it's the church militant going into battle, and so, in a real way, when we have the Pope living there, it's a sign that this is, that our general, the head of the army of Christ, is here and we're at war. So, you know, spiritual. But so that's why it's important that Rome is the center of the church, is the head of the church, that that that Rome is is the center of the church, is the head of the church, and um, or the central office of the church might be the best way to put it. And uh, why St Peter's Basilica matters? Not just because that's where Peter varied, but uh, but also because it's, you know, it's symbolic of what we're supposed to be about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the site that our general was killed.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think it's such a reminder to us that we follow Christ. We follow Christ crucified. Paul preaches that very profoundly right. We follow Christ crucified, and our first Pope was crucified right there in the circus and then buried on Vatican Hill.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1: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 St Peter's Square, we're walking across the circus, we're walking across where Peter was martyred and that's who we follow. I mean that's kind of dumb in the world's eyes, right? Why are you following and many?
Speaker 1:of his successors were martyred after that right, Like we follow a line of martyrs, but so Peter ends up crucified upside down on Vatican Hill after Christianity, because Christianity is punished for crimes against humanity. I always like to remind people of that. People can say, oh no, christians were killed in the Colosseum. Yeah, because their crime wasn't Christianity. Their crime actually, legally, was a crime against humanity which.
Speaker 1:I think is important for us to remember that they were seen as enemies of the Roman state. So if we're ever seen as enemies against humanity, enemies against what the world defines, we're in good company, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So he's crucified and he's immediately buried. So could you kind of walk us through so I do want to introduce Father as, like a former tour guide, I guess what would be your original former?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would have been. I was a tour guide of the Scavi underneath St Peter's Basilica, so it's interesting when you take a look at St Peter's Basilica when we were in seminary, there were basically two sets of guides that were there. There were the upstairs guides and the Scavi guides no-transcript. Oh, really, really, I was a guide for my last three years over there. I think is what it ended up being. So, yeah, it was a great privilege and again, just getting to know about St Peter and again, I guess, circling back to your question about the or your comments about Peter and walking you through his death and all that. The one thing I think I would want 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 he was killed in the.
Speaker 2:I think they referred to it as the Adrovata Iconis, like the Vatican field, which is where the circus of Nero was Clegane and Nero was built. It was a relatively small circus. I think it can only hold something 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 the Romans was a stadium. It was a place where they would have gladiatorial combats and chariot races and things like that, as opposed to like circus for us, which is kind of like sending 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 violent place. So you had, you had people that were again gladiatorial combats, the chariot races. I mean, if you've ever watched Ben-Hur, these are not, these are not, for the faint of heart, you know, these aren't your. You know the Kentucky Derby or anything like that. Um, right, so, um, so it was. It was there that Peter was killed, along with, uh, with the first, with the first martyrs of Rome, and it was under the persecution of the emperor Nero, and it was an astounding sight.
Speaker 2:Apparently because they had Nero, had it's believed that Nero himself caused the fire in Rome. You could have people argue back and forth on it. At the very least, he prevented Rome from the fire. Rome caught on fire. He prevented people from fighting the blaze, the city burned down and he wanted to take advantage of the moment to rebuild the city and the people in Rome, before they got to the point of rebuilding the city, they wanted somebody's head.
Speaker 2:They were really angry, understandably, because the city burned, people died, and so Nero pointed the finger at the Christians and said, to your point, as you were saying, joan, the Christians were guilty of a crime against humanity and we need to exterminate them from our midst in order to appease the gods. So Nero kind of had a twofold thing where, in appeasing the gods, he put the Christians to death. 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 to the stadium to a circus and put them to death. When it got he crucified them, and when it turned to night he covered them in pitch and lit them on fire to serve as torches. And and so it was interesting was apparently the romans at the time were more disgusted than entertained, like they even. Even the that level of brutality was even a um, a step too far for them, and so there was some sympathy that arose for the Christians.
Speaker 2:So Peter was among the group of Christians that were first killed in Rome under Nero, and it's believed that the common tradition, like the long standing tradition, is that, as you said, he was crucified upside down. After he was crucified. He was crucified and he died. He was taken down off the cross, carried up the side of the Vatican Hill and then buried in a pauper's grave in what was at the time a pagan necropolis. So Peter was a Christian buried among people that were not Christians, and so a necropolis was a pagan city of the dead, and so Necropolis was a pagan city of the dead In precise terms. It's like. Basically, it was a cemetery Cemetery and not seminary.
Speaker 2:There are plenty of seminaries in Rome these days but it was a pagan burial ground and so Peter was buried there in a pauper's grave with basically six. It was a shallow grave. They had six tiles over his body basically to keep him from dogs or other animals from digging 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 became a place of pilgrimage. They built a new monument on top of it, which is traditionally called these days it's called the Trophy Monument, and it was actually referenced in Christian writings too about like that. The reason why Rome is important is because we have the trophy. We have the tomb of both Peter and Paul here, and so that's kind of where the devotion to Peter and to his tomb and his grave really began, right out of the chute, and was a consistent place of pilgrimage.
Speaker 1:And so here we are today 2,000 years later.
Speaker 1:Christians were able to visit it because in the City of the Dead and the Necropolis people would go visit their family's tombs like we do today, but even more than we do today. They would have parties, they would celebrate, they would celebrate, they would eat, they would celebrate, you know, um, not celebrate, but they would commemorate the, the the deceased, they would. So christians, in a sense, could kind of do it without being noticed because they were doing what everybody else was doing. They were going and, like, have you know, pouring out libations on, you know, just like the neighbor, yep, um.
Speaker 1:And so I think we have to remember, you know, peter wasn't buried in what we'd call a catacomb, because the catacombs were new, I mean, they were. They developed later as Christians wanted to bury people amongst, you know, other Christians, and so it's important for people to realize that's why Peter was buried in this pagan area, the city of the dead, but that Christians could visit him without being, you know, and I suppose eventually, probably Christians were caught visiting his grave because it became known that he's Peter, but Christians could kind of look like other people. And so we know that there are other huge family tombs around Peter's tomb now because we've done the excavations. So there's this little tiny not tiny but this little shrine built over Peter.
Speaker 1:And then what's our next step in history when Christianity becomes legalized?
Speaker 2: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 St Peter's Basilica. And so, like I said, peter was buried on the side of the Vatican Hill, in this necropolis, in this burial ground, and the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and decided that he was going to really be a benefactor to the church, and so he wanted to build a number of churches and ultimately built St Peter's Basilica and did not want to move the grave of Peter, and really sort of like. That was the center point of the basilica and initially the Basilica of St Peter. Even though we know it for having all these people, masses, it was not originally built as a church, as a church per se. It was built as a big monument to the Apostle Peter, and so you'd walk in and then what was at the center of what was to be the Basilica, this new Basilica, was the tomb of St Peter, and eventually masses were celebrated there, but it gets a little ahead of the story. But Constantine, in building this basilica, was running into the problem of it being on the side of a hill, and so it ended up being an amazing engineering feat that they accomplished, where, basically, they leveled the Vatican Hill and built this church Effectively.
Speaker 2:Today, when people talk about the Vatican Hill and like where's the Vatican Hill? Really St Peter's is on it. In some ways it's effectively been leveled. In a lot of ways it's technically there, but it's basically encompassed by St Peter's Basilica. But Constantine leveled the hill in order to build the first basilica of St Peter on top of it. In the process, peter's grave was saved, but all these other graves that were around Peter were destroyed. Not so great, but here we are and it's interesting. So the tombs that were there, many of which were very well constructed.
Speaker 2:What they ended up doing in many cases like when you talk about tombs they had roofs on them, some of which were absolutely beautiful. What they did in some cases was they lopped off the roofs and then filled in the tombs with dirt and then used these tombs as sort of foundations for the basilica that was going to be built on top of it. So as all this was going on this was in the early 300s St Peter's Basilica was ultimately dedicated in 326 AD. As all this was going on, you had pagans taking their loved ones out of tombs to bury them elsewhere and Christians who were then bringing their own loved ones in because they really wanted to be buried near St Peter. So putting all sorts of Christian bodies right near the tomb of St Peter for burial. So that was all going on. Like I said, it was ultimately completed in the year, in year 326 um, that was the first basilica of saint peter.
Speaker 1:So and I. I think it's important to note that 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 my basilica here, we're on a side of a hill, I'm gonna lop off the top, put it next to it. You know, level the field, level the hill and disturb graves, which technically was illegal.
Speaker 2:The.
Speaker 1:Romans do not touch right.
Speaker 1:We don't want to mess with dead bodies. We don't want to disturb. I mean, for the pagan Romans, you're disturbing the gods, you're disturbing their ancestors. And so I think, historically, we have to recognize Constantine could have built this church anywhere, and he did not. He wanted to build it over. He wanted to build the basilica, which, if you look at the term basilica nowadays we assume basilicas are all churches In the Roman the Roman term is simply a big assembly building. So basilica now we've Christianized it, we assume it's a church, but it was essentially an architectural style that the Christians adapted. But so I think it's just important for us to remember we're not guessing where Peter was buried, right? Constantine made a lot of mess to make sure his basilica was on this spot.
Speaker 2:Yes, he did Like and to your point it was, it was what he did. If he wasn't the emperor, what he did was illegal. So, because he was the emperor, he basically suspended the law. And because, if I think, I think um disturbing people's, disturbing graves, I think was uh, I think it was might've been punishable by death even. So, yeah, kind of speaks to the seriousness with which they, they regarded the, uh, they regarded their deceased loved ones. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the first St Peter's is built 4th century Constantine, and then there's a series of altars right, because then eventually, we begin celebrating Mass over the tomb.
Speaker 2:Yes, so eventually there was a whole series of altars, like you said, and initial constructions that are begun and started and built and that are really impressive, and then you'll have periods where one group of invaders or another will come in, or there's neglect and there's a sack, or like things fall into ruin, and and so the same thing, same thing held true for saint peter's basilica, so as, as time went on, there was development and there was growth within the basilica and, and you know various monuments that were 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 built for the old one was the famous statue of St Peter that's in the basilica, whose foot has been worn down so badly because pilgrims touch it.
Speaker 2:That was in the original St Peter's Basilica, but as time went on, the building again was built up and developed, but also neglected. I'm trying to remember there was one of the walls at one point was something like the reference point wouldn't work, but it was just wildly out of plum.
Speaker 2:Like they just talk about you. Just look at the wall, and it was leaning so badly and this is an enormous, enormous building and it was falling apart. And then, in the 1400s, the decision was made I think it was Nicholas V made the decision to in 1450, to tear that basilica down so a new one could be built, and so he began the process and then, ultimately, the new basilica that we know today was dedicated in 1626. So 300, 1300 years after the original one was dedicated. So, yeah, so we have so, um, yeah, so one you know, one basilica built by constantine torn down, new one built, and that's the one that we see today yeah, and it's same place and there's some things like you mentioned.
Speaker 1:there's some things from the old basilica that are in the new basilica, the Pieta was originally in the old just towards the end, very end, of the old basilica. I mean that would have been a huge deal to say, okay, now we're going to tear down this beloved church. But it wasn't disrepair. They probably did it for Jubilee.
Speaker 1:So I had to laugh when you said you know there's this like almost like waves of of we're gonna clean up, we're gonna, we're gonna build, we're gonna build. Oh, we got destroyed, we're, we're gonna build. And a lot of that does revolve around the jubilee year, which um, the sea line, the sea line on the metro.
Speaker 2:They have been working on this. So rome has two metro lines right now, the a line and the b line, and they've been working on 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 were doing right, you know, investigations into a sea line. At that time that's 25 years ago. And, um, here they are, they're working on the sea line again. I'll believe. Keep finding stuff right when they open it. You know I'll I'll be the first passenger, but yeah, I'll believe when I see it.
Speaker 2:But there are beautiful things like the Jubilee they did really clean things up for the Jubilee. They have a new piazza for the.
Speaker 1:Jubilee, um, and so it's.
Speaker 2:it's fun to see like it was impressive, I mean, when we were over there, the, it was impressive to see the, um, the, the intentional care that they took for pilgrims, um, you know, heading into, uh, you know, especially into saint peter's basilica. I was impressed by that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, yeah, um okay, so we have the new basilica and we know saint peter'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's somewhere. But can you talk us through how we decided to actually excavate? Because you took people actually through the excavations, through underneath the basilica, which wouldn't have existed this whole time?
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah, so the um, what um? The, the old, effectively the old, the floor of the old basilica, the main floor of the old basilica, became the effectively became the floor level of the crypt of the new basilica. So that's where that crypt area is, where the popes are buried. So it's where Benedict XVI is currently buried. Pius XII, Pius XI, I think, is there, isn't he? Yeah, he's there because XVI is currently 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's where the, that's where the, the popes and and others, uh, some other uh famous um, some royalty as well, are, are buried there, at any rate in the um.
Speaker 2:In 1939, pope Pius XI passed away and at the time of his passing, they were constructing his tomb and they took advantage of the opportunity to begin doing excavations underneath St Peter's Basilica, with the permission of Pope Pius XII, and started digging around.
Speaker 2:And there had been rumors for many years. There was always the general belief that St Peter's was built around the tomb of St Peter, that St Peter's tomb was underneath the altar and that there was also a pagan burial ground underneath St Peter's Basilica. But these are all kind of like. You know, there was a belief about St Peter, there were rumors about the pagan burial ground, but there wasn't a lot of evidence. So Pope Pius XII gave permission to actually do excavations underneath St Peter's to see if well if all these rumors were actually true and what was actually down there. So they began the excavations in 1939 and carried on a good chunk of them during the Second World War, and they wanted to keep them in secret. Keep all of it in secret because of the closeness that Mussolini had to Hitler and then, ultimately, the Germans themselves took over the city of Rome and Hitler had an interest in all sorts of odd occult things.
Speaker 2:And they were concerned that if their word came out that they were doing excavations underneath the St Peter's Basilica and toward the tomb of St Peter and St Peter being such a close friend of Jesus and all that that Hitler might take an interest, more of an interest than he should have. So they kept it all quiet and they again just they excavated first a variety of pagan tombs and then, ultimately, pope Pius XII gave them permission to excavate towards the high altar and to see if the bones of Peter were there.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is all pretty amazing that first of all, it's kind of happening if the bones of peter were there. So just I mean, this is all pretty amazing that first of all.
Speaker 1:It's kind of happening in the dark of night, right that, um. But while people are, people are walking, pilgrims are walking in saint peter's basilica, completely unaware that underneath them this excavation is happening. That we have the technology to support a basilica of this size, just I mean, I think in a sense, the excavations might not have even been able to happen before this before the 20th century and there is a book about kind of.
Speaker 1:There are two books I would recommend. I'll put them in the show notes. One, the Fisherman's Tomb, is a more recent book and it kind of details how even an American was involved in financing this secret plan. And there are some details in the fisherman's tomb that are not correct and so I sometimes I'm like I, you can read it. It's a really fun story. Just don't believe everything, because there's some stuff at the end that I'm just like that's not right.
Speaker 1:But there's another book as well, called the bones of St Peter. And it's a little more scientific, it's like the tome. It's by W walsh and so I'll put both of those in the show notes that I always recommend the bones of saint peter because I think it's a little more detailed, it's just a little heavier, and the fisherman's tomb is a little more dramatic.
Speaker 1:Yeah mystery, you know um, but okay, so we're excavating during world war ii in secret. We're getting closer to the main um altar, the main, the two I mean there had to have been some superstitious like like fear too. Or getting closer, are we going to disrupt the bones of St Peter? I don't know. I feel like there's probably some Roman superstition there too.
Speaker 2:There's got, there's got to be with that, yeah, it's, yeah, the the Italians tend to be a little on the superstitious side, but you know, at any rate, the um, yes, they're avoiding it. Then pope isaac 12 gave, gave permission to excavate towards it and, um, so, as they're, as they're excavating, they're with one of the things they they well as they uncovered as they, as they approached the, the high altar, 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 by means of their excavations, because they didn't really have the sketches at the time or didn't have the whole story about how it was all done, how it was all built up. But they did the excavations and then kind of reverse engineered oh, this must have been how they did, oh, this must have been how they did, how they put it all together.
Speaker 2:Well, they ended up coming up underneath the altar, in the spot where they expected to find the bones of St Peter, like smack dab underneath the altar and there was a grave. And so they, they, with permission of Pope Pius XII, they opened up the grave and found bones there and found what they believed to be the bones of St Peter. Unfortunately, after doing a scientific analysis of the bones and I can't remember the exact details I think they found that it was actually the bones of. It was like two men, a woman and a dog, or something like that.
Speaker 2: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 St Peter was, and instead it was like this mixed jumble of bones, like what's going on. And so poor Pope Pius XII, who gave permission for all this, went to his grave believing that the bones of St Peter were not, that we're not actually there.
Speaker 2:And uh and and in that spot they actually 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. It's one of the things that's worth telling, and we know a couple of different examples of this. Rome was sacked so many times historically that when threat of sack came up on more than one occasion, they would take precious relics and hide them so that those who were doing the sacking would not find name the precious relics. So another good example of that was actually in our previously mentioned Santa Croce. If you remember the story, I think it was, was it the titulus plate or maybe it was all the relics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the titulus at least.
Speaker 2:They, you know, in this church that had been built for the sake of the preservation of the relics yeah, I think the titulus, at least In this church that had been built for the sake of the preservation of the 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 the church or something like that? They opened up some plaster and found these relics. What the heck, here they were. And how did they get there? Well, likely what happened was they were squirreled away there in the middle of a sack so that they wouldn't be pillaged, they wouldn't be stolen. And we do know as well that the I believe it was the bones of both apostles, both Peter and Paul, were taken to the catacombs of St Sebastian, I think was during the persecutions of Valerian. Was that what it was? I think in the 200s, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I think?
Speaker 2:Valerian was like 256, something about Paul Park At any rate. So it wasn't out of the ordinary for the relics to be moved around. So, all right, taking that as a sort of okay, here we are as a given. Still, where are the bones of Peter then? If they didn't put him back in his grave, then where did they put him?
Speaker 2:Well, in the excavation work that was done, the scientists, the archaeologists were meticulous 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 bones that were that were discovered, that um, that in in this wall that had been attached to um, to Peter's tomb. I'm trying to remember the whole story now. They had in going through. Oh gosh, it's such a good story and I'm blowing the punchline here. There was a fellow who would. There was a priest who would regularly go through, go through the excavations and if he found bones that were not being cared for, he himself would gather them up, label them, and here's where they would go. Well, on this one occasion, in this wall that was attached to the trophy monument, the priest had gone through, found these bones in this wall and boxed them up and put them away and really didn't tell anybody about where you know that he had done this, except for his close assistant and you know this assistant as they were having discussions about, well, where are the bones? Of Peter, this assistant's like well, there were these bones that were found in this wall. And of Peter, this assistant's like well, there were these bones that were found in this wall. And, um, you know, we could take a look at them, see if they might be. Well, it turns, turns out that these bones belong to it.
Speaker 2:It sort of like ticked all the descriptions that you'd want for the apostle Peter that, um, he was a man of about 65 years old, um, that he um was short in stature and the bones themselves had been wrapped in purple cloth, which was a royal garment, in order to this particular type of purple. It was an imperial color, meaning only the emperor could use it, an imperial color, meaning only the emperor could use it. And so at some point, some emperor had given some cloth for the sake of this particular individual, for these bones, and these bones had been buried. They had dirt. Remains from this particular type of soil was only found in what was the grave of Peter, so where those other mixture, those other you know mixture of bones had been found. So these bones of this one guy had been in that spot. Um, they had been dug out of that 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 like the, the purple had stained the bones themselves.
Speaker 2:Um, and the other little interesting factoids was that all the bones of the body were represented there, except for the feet. There were no feet bones. And kind of curious, they say well, why might that be? Well, if these were the bones of Peter, which they're now believed to be, and if Peter was crucified upside down, then if they were looking to take Peter off of his cross in a hurried fashion, they probably just cut his feet off as they were taking him down off the cross and were taking him to his grave and were taking him to his grave. So yeah, just kind of an amazing story.
Speaker 2:So Pope Paul VI made the declaration that we believe that we have found the bones of Peter, and so now the bones are in this little wall that was on the trophy monument. They were put back in there and they're kept in little plasticized storage storage cases. Um, supposedly from, supposedly built by nasa. That's the way the story goes. Um, I've got a reason to disbelieve that, so, um, but the? Uh, that's where they're kept today, so I've seen them with my own eyes at the end of the scabby tour.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the, the, the beautiful moment where you get to pray in front of these, these bones that you know, the bones of the the who denied Christ, the bones of the man who was given the keys.
Speaker 2:Pretty cool.
Speaker 1: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 for a reason. But you're seeing that graffiti that Peter is here and the keys, and you see all this evidence of people who want to be close to Peter.
Speaker 2:It's just a really dramatic moment, then, to be in that dark room and to see his bones there. You're telling the story better than I did.
Speaker 1:No, I you know this. This whole season is on the Jubilee, and this this season too, and so the theme of the Jubilee is hope, and so this might be putting you on the spot a little bit. But how do you see the scabby? How do you see the the, the story of Peter, how do you see this as a sign of hope for us?
Speaker 2:So the the whole discovery of Peter's bones is just so, so wild and crazy, and I mean and believable, but it's just so wild and crazy and it really speaks to the Lord's ability to basically bring about victory, pull the victory out of the jaws of defeat. And so just this little event, and something that brought great joy to one of Peter's successors, to Pope Paul VI, is just a reminder to us of the ways in which God can bring great good into our own lives, and in surprising fashion, and for that reason we always believe. Our hope is not optimism. It's not. In many cases, as we take a look around at ourselves, there's a variety of reasons not to 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 beings but on the Lord's ability to work. So, within the scabby, there's no question that, like the whole series of events that were orchestrated by the Lord, ultimately led to the discovery of Peter's bones, which was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the twists and the turns.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks, father. Thanks for joining us today on this episode and sharing the story of the scabby. I would encourage anybody going on pilgrimage the the story of the scabby. I would encourage anybody going on pilgrimage to try to tour the scabby, although it's getting harder and harder to do, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Tickets more and more people are hearing about it, so yeah yeah, it's great, but check out those books if you, if you want to know more about the story and the twists and the turns and the involvement of all the different characters. There's a lot of different bones.
Speaker 2:The saint peter will. Uh that that. It tells the story much better than I ever could.
Speaker 1:No, no, this is great.
Speaker 2:That's give you a little bit of an insight to begin.
Speaker 1:Thank you Father, Thank you listeners, Thank you for sharing, for subscribing and for listening. God bless. Do you want to experience this historic event in the life of the church for yourself? Whether you want to take a group or you're just an individual looking for a trip, verso ministries can make that dream a reality. Visit verso ministriescom slash jubilee for all our jubilee dates and for more information.
