St. Peter's Bones: How the Relics of the First Pope Were Lost and Found . . . and Then Lost and Found Again by Thomas J. Craughwell

Author:Thomas J. Craughwell [Craughwell, Thomas J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780307985101
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2014-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

PAPAL PRUDENCE

While the archaeological team and the sampietrini were excavating and studying beneath St. Peter’s high altar, in the outside world Europe, Asia, North Africa, and part of Australia were being torn apart by World War II. In July 1943, Allied troops landed in Italy; in September of the same year, Nazi forces occupied Rome. In October, the Nazis began a roundup of Jews in the city. Of the approximately eight thousand Jews in Rome at the time, the Nazis seized fewer than two thousand. According to Israeli diplomat, historian, and theologian Pinchas Lapide, Pope Pius had thousands of Jews concealed in monasteries, convents, and churches across Rome, with as many as three thousand sheltering in Castel Gandolfo, the pope’s summer residence. On June 5, 1944, the Allies liberated Rome, and on April 25, 1945, all of Italy was freed from Nazi occupation.

By the end of the eventful year 1945, the archaeological team had completed their work in the necropolis. Nineteen mausoleums had been emptied of soil, as had the narrow street along which these family tombs had been built. The interiors and exteriors had been swept clean of dirt, their murals, mosaics, sculpture, and sarcophagi carefully examined and photographed; the many more simple graves that the archaeologists had found had all been opened and their contents recorded; the layout of the street, the positions of the tombs and graves, had been drawn meticulously to scale. Now the archaeologists were ready to begin writing their report.

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