Not Just for Catholics

I am not a Roman
Catholic, but I love the churches of Rome. Where else on earth is there such a
concentration of hallowed houses of worship, sermons in stone and light, in art
and architecture, that reveal so completely the antiquity and historical
density of the Christian faith? That is why I was delighted to see George
Weigel’s beautiful new book, Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches (New York: Basic Books, 2013).

Many of the churches
in Rome are built over or near the tombs of the martyrs, those who willingly
faced (an often tortuous) death rather than renounce their faith in Jesus
Christ. Ever since Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna (Izmir in modern Turkey) was bound
and burned at the stake in the mid-second century, Christians have remembered
the martyrs in a special way. Already in the Book of Revelation, the martyrs
are lauded as white-robed saints in heaven who have “come through great
tribulation” (Rev. 7:14). They belong to the great cloud of witnesses who are
cheerleaders for believers here on earth still on journey to “that city which
has foundations” (Heb. 11:10).

The practice of making
a Lenten pilgrimage to certain churches in Rome associated with the early
Christian martyrs goes back to the fourth century. The pilgrims would gather at
a church, known as the collecta, where they would be met by the bishop and
other clergy of the city. Together they would process to a particular statio, or martyr church,
designated for that day in Lent. Their visit to the church would conclude with
the service of vespers, complete with the public reading of Holy Scripture,
singing, prayers, and the solemn celebration of the Eucharist. This Lenten
discipline has been revived in recent years by seminarians at Rome’s North
American College and is still followed today.

Roman Pilgrimage, was brought together
by George Weigel along with his son, the photographer Stephen Weigel, and the
superb art historian Elizabeth Lev. These three walked the Lenten station
church pilgrimage in preparation for this book, which features biblical
exposition, stunning photographs, and expert historical comment. But this publication
is neither a mere guide for tourists nor a handbook for antiquarians. Rather it
is a manual of Lenten faith: an invitation to the spiritual landscape of
martyrdom, pilgrimage, prayer, and lectio divina. The description of
each of the station churches begins with suggested Bible readings and other
texts from the commentaries and sermons of the church fathers, followed by a
meditation.

To process with the
pilgrims to these ancient churches, as Weigel and his collaborators did, is to
enter into the storied history of a place that belongs to all Christians. If
Rome is not, as it was called in the days of the Caesars, the caput mundi, it is nonetheless a
place of sacred memory made such by the dual apostolic martyrdom of St. Peter
and St. Paul, and the many others who followed their example. To walk this path
is to enter into the plenitude of the Church and to take up an itinerary of
conversion. As Weigel reminds us:

Here walked Peter and
Paul, and perhaps others of the apostles and the evangelists. Here walked Leo
and Gregory, two popes popularly acclaimed as “the Great”; here walked
another pope, John Paul II, whom many believe history will remember with the
same title.

Martin Luther strode
these pathways, as did John Henry Newman, two men of genius who came to
dramatically different conclusions about the place of Rome in the Christian
scheme of things. . . . And here, in the late twentieth century, Orthodox and
Protestant leaders began to pray in common with the Bishop of Rome for an end
to the fragmentation of the Christian world.

In
my various visits to Rome across the years, I have found, a haven of rest and
reflection in many of the churches described in this book. I remember sitting
late one afternoon in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, atop the Esquiline Hill,
with the rays of the setting sun reflecting on the Byzantine mosaic of Mary Theotokos—“the one who gave
birth to the one who was God,” as Jaroslav Pelikan described the title given to
the mother of Jesus at the Council of Ephesus in 431. I recall worshipping one
Sunday morning at a family communion service in St. Mary Trastevere, one of
Rome’s first churches. Here, in New Testament times, immigrants to the imperial
city, especially Jews, found shelter. On this very site, or nearby, Paul’s
Letter to the Romans might first have been read aloud in a Christian house
church. The Basilica of St. Clement, near the Coliseum, is built like a cake in
three layers. The ground floor, far beneath street level today, takes one back
to the late first century. Here one can still see the remains of an altar to
the Persian god Mithras, whose devotees included many soldiers in the Roman
army. Around, and then later above, this pagan altar the early Christians gathered
to worship Jesus Christ and to build there a sanctuary dedicated to the memory
of the bishop-martyr Clement.

The largest and most
visited of the station churches, of course, is the Vatican Basilica, dedicated
to St. Peter. This famous place is said to be “the parish church of the
entire Catholic world.” For all of its Renaissance splendor, the most
impressive thing to me about St. Peter’s is the necropolis, the ancient Roman
cemetery far beneath the magnificent church of Bernini and Michelangelo. Here
one can see what are said to be the actual bones of Peter himself. While this
claim cannot be historically proven beyond doubt, it is certain that we are
looking here at the mortal remains of an early martyr whose burial site was a
place of reverence and pilgrimage from the first days of the Christian era.

Though not as lavish
as St. Peter’s but even more impressive in its own way, especially to
Protestants, is the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. According to
tradition, St. Paul, the great missionary apostle, was beheaded not far from
this site at a place called Aque Salvie on the road to Ostia. Recent
archeological work has encouraged the time-honored belief that the bone
fragments still preserved beneath the altar of this Constantinian church once
resided in the worn-out body of the Apostle to the Gentiles. The chain by which
Paul is said to have been bound to the Roman guard can be seen in a glass case
near his tomb. Approaching the end of his earthly journey, St. Paul wrote: “I
am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith” (2 Tim. 4:6-7).

The churches of Rome
remind us, as Weigel says, that “the truths of Christianity are truths
embedded in reality.” Christianity is about stuff: material, fleshly
stuff. Such stuff—ashes, bones, chains, wood, stone, color, light—are on
display in the churches of Rome’s hills, corners, and catacombs. These are
churches of the Great Tradition, and their doors are open to all followers of
Jesus. While they serve Catholic spiritual traditions in a distinctive way, they
are clearly not for Catholics only.

Timothy George is dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University and general editor of the Reformation Commentary on Scripture. His email address is [email protected].

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