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Everyone belongs at St. Peter’s Basilica
By Dorothy Cummings McLean
June 22, 2011
Dorothy Cummings McLean
As the bus trundled down the sun-baked New Appian Way, I found myself in Rome yet again. This time I was there to visit a sick friend. Hilary White, Rome correspondent for LifeSiteNews, had been curled up on her couch for weeks, lonely and bored. It occurred to both of us that she needed someone to make her a cup of tea, so I flew from Edinburgh. This is much less expensive than it sounds, thanks to the miracle known as the discount airline.
Hilary has the best gig in Canadian Catholic media for it entails living by the Mediterranean Sea in a small town within an hour’s train journey of Rome. This town is home to other Canadian Catholic expatriates who travel to the Eternal City for work or study and then come back to bask on the shore. Within two hours of my hot and sleepy arrival, I found myself on a seaside terrazzo owned by one Canadian expat toasting another Canadian expat with champagne for his birthday.
The next day Hilary had an appointment in Rome, so we took the train together—eyes dazzled by a sudden expanse of sunflowers—and had lunch on a quiet side-street near the Piazza Farnese, the Roman home of the Brigantine Sisters. Fettuccini con flora zucca was one of the specials, and I was delighted, for I have long wished to try squash blossoms. They were delicious. Hilary went to her appointment, and I lingered, ordering a plate of tomatoes and chatting with the waiter. As I always do after a successful Italian conversation, I thanked heaven for Mrs. Angelini, my high school Italian teacher.
Hilary has the best gig in Canadian Catholic media for it entails living by the Mediterranean Sea in a small town within an hour’s train journey of Rome. This town is home to other Canadian Catholic expatriates who travel to the Eternal City for work or study and then come back to bask on the shore. Within two hours of my hot and sleepy arrival, I found myself on a seaside terrazzo owned by one Canadian expat toasting another Canadian expat with champagne for his birthday.
The next day Hilary had an appointment in Rome, so we took the train together—eyes dazzled by a sudden expanse of sunflowers—and had lunch on a quiet side-street near the Piazza Farnese, the Roman home of the Brigantine Sisters. Fettuccini con flora zucca was one of the specials, and I was delighted, for I have long wished to try squash blossoms. They were delicious. Hilary went to her appointment, and I lingered, ordering a plate of tomatoes and chatting with the waiter. As I always do after a successful Italian conversation, I thanked heaven for Mrs. Angelini, my high school Italian teacher.
There are a number of churches where Catholics can pray in Rome—over 400, in fact, so it is a brave pilgrim who tries to visit them all. I wouldn’t dare. After my lunch, I crossed the Tiber and made a beeline for Sancta Dorotea. It appeared before me, ochre and cream, with red velvet curtains screening the tall, narrow doors. Above them a plaque announced the dedication, Omnipotentei Deo in onorem S.S. Silvestri Papae ac Dorothae Virginis et Martyris.
There has been a church on this site since the fourth century. The present church was built between 1750 and 1756, and there are relics of Saint Dorothy of Caesarea underneath the high altar. Historians are not as certain now as then that my patroness actually existed, but I comfort myself that there is more proof that she did than that she didn’t. The church was closed, as most Roman churches are between noon and four, so I went back to the bridge, descended a flight of evil-smelling stairs and walked along the ancient, green-brown river to the Via Pio X. I clambered up nicer stairs and turned a corner. St. Peter’s Basilica rose before me like a mirage. The sudden view of the Basilica made my heart swell. This was not just because it is spectacular, but because it is so much a home. Millions of Catholics know the Basilica from photos and television, and thousands of Catholics throng to its square every Wednesday for the Holy Father’s general audience. Pilgrims and tourists pour in and out through the embracing colonnades or the arrow-like avenue. Everyone who wants to belong, belongs.
There was a queue to get into the Basilica, but it was swift-moving, bottle-necking only at the x-ray machines by the Porta Angelica. My bag and I went through them smoothly, and I trotted along the path into the cloakroom and then back outside and up the stairs into the Basilica itself.
Although St. Peter’s is immense, able to hold more than 60,000 people, it does not overwhelm. It feels perfectly proportioned and, when you know who is buried in it, peopled with friends. The biggest crowd of tourists clustered in front of the bulletproof window protecting Michelangelo’s Pietà. But the biggest crowds of pilgrims prayed before the miraculously incorrupt body of Blessed John XXIII and the new altar housing the remains of Blessed John Paul II.
At five o’clock there was a bell, and a procession of white-robed priests moved into the westernmost chapel, right under the great throne of Peter. It was the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua. A choir of young people from New York began to sing. I slipped past the barricades, nodding at the guards, and joined the sparse but international congregation.
To my astonishment, the celebrant was praying in Latin. The Mass, except for the readings and homily, which were in Italian, and the choir’s hymns, which were in English, was entirely in Latin. It was the Novus Ordo, the ordinary form, unmediated by translators, and because it was Latin, language of the Latin Church, it belonged to us all, equally, regardless of nationality. St. Peter’s is like that, too.
(Cummings McLean is a Canadian writer and author of Seraphic Singles.)
There has been a church on this site since the fourth century. The present church was built between 1750 and 1756, and there are relics of Saint Dorothy of Caesarea underneath the high altar. Historians are not as certain now as then that my patroness actually existed, but I comfort myself that there is more proof that she did than that she didn’t. The church was closed, as most Roman churches are between noon and four, so I went back to the bridge, descended a flight of evil-smelling stairs and walked along the ancient, green-brown river to the Via Pio X. I clambered up nicer stairs and turned a corner. St. Peter’s Basilica rose before me like a mirage. The sudden view of the Basilica made my heart swell. This was not just because it is spectacular, but because it is so much a home. Millions of Catholics know the Basilica from photos and television, and thousands of Catholics throng to its square every Wednesday for the Holy Father’s general audience. Pilgrims and tourists pour in and out through the embracing colonnades or the arrow-like avenue. Everyone who wants to belong, belongs.
There was a queue to get into the Basilica, but it was swift-moving, bottle-necking only at the x-ray machines by the Porta Angelica. My bag and I went through them smoothly, and I trotted along the path into the cloakroom and then back outside and up the stairs into the Basilica itself.
Although St. Peter’s is immense, able to hold more than 60,000 people, it does not overwhelm. It feels perfectly proportioned and, when you know who is buried in it, peopled with friends. The biggest crowd of tourists clustered in front of the bulletproof window protecting Michelangelo’s Pietà. But the biggest crowds of pilgrims prayed before the miraculously incorrupt body of Blessed John XXIII and the new altar housing the remains of Blessed John Paul II.
At five o’clock there was a bell, and a procession of white-robed priests moved into the westernmost chapel, right under the great throne of Peter. It was the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua. A choir of young people from New York began to sing. I slipped past the barricades, nodding at the guards, and joined the sparse but international congregation.
To my astonishment, the celebrant was praying in Latin. The Mass, except for the readings and homily, which were in Italian, and the choir’s hymns, which were in English, was entirely in Latin. It was the Novus Ordo, the ordinary form, unmediated by translators, and because it was Latin, language of the Latin Church, it belonged to us all, equally, regardless of nationality. St. Peter’s is like that, too.
(Cummings McLean is a Canadian writer and author of Seraphic Singles.)
Dorothy Cummings McLean