On the eternal allure of Rome

As Peter preached the first sermon on Pentecost, he could hardly have imagined that he was shaping a Catholicism—a new way of life in Christ for all people—that would become Roman. There was nothing Roman about Jesus’ life until His saving death. The cross, Christianity’s central symbol, was a Roman execution device.

But the fact that Rome supplied the cross that redeemed mankind is not the cause of Catholics’ intense veneration of the city, which began just a few decades after Peter’s first sermon.

It comes, rather, from Peter himself, the rock of the Church, whose martyrdom and subsequent burial in Rome sanctified the city and who became the draw of pilgrims for centuries on end. His physical presence beneath the basilica named in his honor emits a holy aura, generates a religious fascination, and inspires a pious hope. To this man, and this man alone, the Son of God gave the keys to the kingdom of Heaven. If we seek him and ask humbly, perhaps he will help us gain admittance to that kingdom.

If Peter hallows Rome, his fellow martyrs add to the city’s cachet. St. Jerome writes that on Sundays, he and his friends would visit the catacombs “to make tours of the tombs of the apostles and martyrs.” The tenth-century poem “O Roma Nobilis” salutes this “most excellent of all cities made red by the martyrs’ rose-colored blood.” Hymns honor particular Roman martyrs: Agnes, Martina, Cosmos, and Damian, whose bones, along with those of so many others, inspire devotion from believers who wish they could have a modicum of the faith these holy ones had.

Yet it is Peter and his successors who today tower as the city’s most alluring draw. Oscar Wilde, though not Catholic (he would convert on his deathbed), captured the faithful’s papal sensibilities in “Rome Unvisited:”

A pilgrim from the northern seas –
What joy for me to seek alone
The wondrous temple and the throne
Of him who holds the awful keys! …

O joy to see before I die
The only God-anointed king,
And hear the silver trumpets ring
A triumph as he passes by!

“Did you see the pope?” asks almost every person when responding to a friend who traveled to Rome. The Wednesday papal audience, the Sunday Angelus, major feast days, and the annual Urbi et Orbi address attract throngs to St. Peter’s Square, and, with the possible exception of the Urbi et Orbi, pilgrims come not necessarily to hear the pope, but to see him. What else explains the regular presence of non-Italian speakers at these events?

Like Thomas in the upper room, Catholics long to see for themselves the man wearing the Great Mantle, for in his office as Pontifex Maximus, he embodies the fullness of faith. It is no wonder, then, that after seeing the pope himself, Catholics love visiting the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to see in one place mosaic portraits of St. Peter and all his 266 successors.

The reigning pope is not the only one who draws pilgrims’ fervor. Pope Leo XIV’s predecessors, whose tombs are scattered around the city, are also recipients of filial devotion. This fact was pressed home to me during Easter week when I saw the extensive line to visit Pope Francis in his newly carved resting place in St. Mary Major Basilica. When it comes to papal tomb visitations, currency helps: Catholics naturally want to see their pope, the man who led the Church of their lifetime. Hence Francis, Benedict XVI, John Paul II, Paul VI, and John XXIII receive far more interest than, say, Benedict XIII (r. 1724-1730, buried in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva), Pope Paul V (r. 1605-1621, buried in Saint Mary Major), or Pope John XIII (r. 965-972, buried in St. Paul Outside the Walls).

Rome and the papacy are intrinsically linked for reasons both holy and practical. The global Church that now selects the sovereign pontiff from anywhere in the world forgets that popes once had a more provincial existence, ruling Rome and her countryside as both spiritual father and temporal king. It was once the task of popes to defend the city and surrounding areas from invaders, to provide sustenance for the poor, and to lead during times of pestilence.

Tensions and even hostility sometimes have existed between Romans and the pope, but he was always their pope, their father, and they loved him—even when he failed in his duty, even when he abandoned the city for residence elsewhere. In these painful moments, the sensus fidelium, led by St. Brigid of Sweden and St. Catherine of Siena, knew better than the pope himself that Rome belongs to the pope and the pope belongs in Rome.

This sensus endures today among pilgrims and among Catholics who will never set foot in the Eternal City. Modern media beams the pope from Rome to every corner of the globe in real time so they, like the Romans of yesteryear, can know him, honor him, and be drawn to him as a shepherd and as a man.

Of course, nothing excites and unites Catholics like the election of a new pope: the white smoke, the resounding bells, the pouring of throngs into St. Peter’s Square, and the pageantry surrounding the revealing of the new pope’s identity are all enmeshed with the city itself. It’s impossible to imagine a new pope stepping forth anywhere except from St. Peter’s Basilica, the grandest church of the city and of the world. At that moment, the successor of St. Peter stands above Peter himself as he imparts his first blessing upon the faithful whom he has been charged to deliver unharmed to God.

At the Last Supper, Jesus instructed Peter: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32). Peter continues to strengthen his brethren through the Eternal City that, sanctified by his blood, beckons the faithful from across the world to imbibe apostolic fervor and life-giving charity. Jesus may not have been Roman, but the Roman flavor of His Church in the West leads us into the inner mystery of discipleship that Peter embodied in a unique way.