St. Peter's Tomb Under the High Altar

( Originally Published 1907 )

The figure kneeling so devoutly between us and the tomb is a marble effigy of Pope Pius VI, the first victim of the revolutionary rage which swept over France in 1789. He was taken prisoner by the orders of the French Directory and died in exile at Valence, France, 1799. His special devotion to this shrine, and the mournful end of his career, are commemorated in this beautiful marble figure.

The floor of the crypt down there before us is marble, the same which was used in the crypt of the ancient church; for the effort is always to keep this tomb as it has been for centuries. The Confession, as this place is called, was constructed by the noted architect Maderna, at the command of Pope Paul V. The gilt bronze doors, near which the altar boy is seen, are an ancient work of art. Behind them in a sarcophagus lie the ashes of the Fisherman of Galilee. In the niches at the right and left are statues of St. Peter and St. Paul. Soft light from the golden lamps above lights up the marble floor and the gilded doors of the tomb and the kneeling figure of the pope who died in exile.

This is what you see; what you feel is much deeper than the seeing. In the man whose ashes lie here, so carefully and devoutly guarded, Christ placed the charge of His little flock and the guardianship of the Kingdom on earth. The spot is as dear to one Christian as another on that account, let theories be as they may. Peter established the kingdom of Christ in Rome, fixed too his own successors in a dynasty beyond the grasp of political understandings, and lives today more superbly than in the days of Nero, when he was to the court and the world only a despised Galilean fisherman. The kings, states and civilizations of his day have long been ashes; new kings, states, and civilizations have come and gone; new forms of government are starting into life every little while; but the dynasty of the Fisherman remains fixed, immovable amid change, a living force in the world.

It is easy to understand the feelings of Pius VI, dying in exile, with regard to this sacred spot. The first thirty Popes died by the hand of the executioner, martyrs to the faith ; many others died in exile, captives to conquering monarchs; but the line of Pontiffs never lost existence, for the successor was always provided.

In St. Peter's we are often reminded of the mighty architect so long connected with it. Michelangelo had the cunning of universal genius, as if the soul of a seraph worked in a human body.

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free,
He builded better than he knew;
The conscience stone to beauty grew."

He gave form to the marble, tinted the canvas, shaped the living word, with almost equal power; he was an engineer, sculptor, painter and poet. We shall now take a look at his beautiful sculpture of Mary and her dead Son, familiarly known as the Pietà, a work of which there are many copies in this country. Consult the map to find the spot from which you are to view the famous marble, which stands in a side chapel in the northeast corner of the church, just to the right as one enters through the doors from the open square. Find there, on the map, the red circle enclosing the figure 6. We are to stand at that spot to view the Pietà. The high altar and the statue of St. Peter will be far away at the left, and we shall be facing a marble wall that separates the basilica from the palace of the Vatican.