Relics of St. Peter to Go On Public Display
Exposition will be one of the closing events of the Year of Faith
For the first time and to coincide with the end of the Year of Faith, the Vatican is to put on public display the relics of St. Peter.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, announced the Vatican’s plans in a Nov. 8 article in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
Recalling how many pilgrims have made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Peter during the Year of Faith, he said that a “final culminating sign will consist of the exposition for the first time what tradition recognises as the relics of the apostle who gave his life for the Lord.”
“Peter's faith, therefore, will confirm once again that the door to meeting Christ is always open and waiting to be passed through with the same enthusiasm and conviction of the early believers,” the archbishop continued. “It is a journey that Christians today know they must follow tirelessly, strengthened and reassured by the contemplation of the face of Christ.”
The tomb of St. Peter is located in the Vatican necropolis – the so-called ‘Scavi’ – under the main altar of the Vatican basilica. It was excavated in the 1940s and after detailed testing, Pope Paul VI verified them as St. Peter's relics. The ‘Scavi Tour’ has long been a very popular attraction at the Vatican.
The bones of St. Peter have always been kept in the grotto of the basilica and never placed on public display.
Archbishop Fisichella did not say exactly when or how the relics will be displayed but that it will happen before the Year of Faith concludes on November 24, the feast of Christ the King.
Edward Pentin Edward Pentin is the Register’s Senior Contributor and EWTN News Vatican Analyst. He began reporting on the Pope and the Vatican with Vatican Radio before moving on to become the Rome correspondent for EWTN's National Catholic Register. He has also reported on the Holy See and the Catholic Church for a number of other publications including Newsweek, Newsmax, Zenit, The Catholic Herald, and The Holy Land Review, a Franciscan publication specializing in the Church and the Middle East. Edward is the author of The Next Pope: The Leading Cardinal Candidates (Sophia Institute Press, 2020) and The Rigging of a Vatican Synod? An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (Ignatius Press, 2015). Follow him on Twitter at @edwardpentin.
