The Dead and Alive City

Two thousand years ago you could start out on any road anywhere, and if you kept on going far enough you would at last come to a great city in Italy called Rome, for at that time “all roads led to Rome.” Rome was then the largest, the richest, the most beautiful, the most important city in the World. It was the capital of the World.

Rome was built on seven hills, and seven was supposed to be a lucky number. Through Rome runs a river called Tiber, whose waters the Romans thought were ruled over by a god called Father Tiber, to whom they prayed to save them from drowning and shipwreck.

The old Rome of that time is now dead, mostly in ruins, but there is a saying that Rome will live forever—that it is “Eternal”—and though old Rome is in ruins, there is a new Rome. The new Rome, however, is no longer the capital of the World. It is now only the capital of Italy.

Rome is still the capital, however, of all Roman Catholics in the World, and the head of all the Roman Catholic churches in the World lives there. He is called the Pope, which means “Papa.”

St. Peter is supposed to have been crucified and his bones buried in Rome. It is said that on this spot a religious service has been held every single day since the time of St. Peter to the present—that is, for about 1,900 years. At first these services had to be held in secret at night, for most of the Romans did not believe in Christ, and any one who did was likely, if caught, to be thrown into prison or even put to death. But over this same spot, many hundreds of years later, was built the largest church in the World. It is called St. Peter’s.

On the top of St. Peter’s is an immense dome copied after Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence, but much larger. It was built by that great artist Michelangelo, who, I told you, was an architect as well as sculptor and painter. St. Peter’s is so large that on the roof is a village of small houses, a village in which live the caretakers of the church.

The front door of St. Peter’s is never closed night or day, but just to the right of that door is another door of bronze that is never opened except every twenty-five years. It is called the Holy Door and it is walled up with stone. At the end of every twenty-five years this wall has to be taken down in order to open the door.