The House of Peter

Tu es Petrus - You are Peter. (Matthew 16:18)

 
 Tibi dabo claves regni caelorum - I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 16:19)

One night during the October 1999 Synod of Bishops, National Catholic Reporter editor Tom Fox and I  I had been out for dinner with colleagues, an afterwards, shortly before 11pm, we began to make our way across St Peter's Square. It was a cold autumn evening, after the peak of tourist season, the square was virtually deserted. From a distance I caught site [sic] of a tall figure wearing a long black coat, with a briefcase perched at his feet, standing alone near the obelisk in the center of the  square. It took me a moment to realise it was Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna. At the time he was just fifty-four, the second-youngest cardinal in the world and an ecclesiastical wunderkind....

Seeing Schönborn standing there alone, my first impulse was to try to wrest some insight from him about the synod. As we approached, I noticed him starng up at the windows of the papal apartments. My cynical side prevailed, so I walked up and jokingly asked: "Thinking about what kind of drapes you want when you move in?"

Schönborn was startled, then, as he placed who we were, he had the good manners to fake a sort of quite amusement. I broke the silence that followed by asking him what he was doing.

"You want to know why I'm really here?" he asked, in his polished English.


I waited.


"Because Peter is here." he said.


What?

"Peter is here," he repeated. "He was crucified alongside this obelisk when it was a Neronian circus, just over there," he said, pointing beyond the Palazzo di Sant'Ufficio. "But Peter is also up there, in the papal apartment, watching over the the Church, just as he has been doing for two thousand years. It's an awesome sensation, standing in the space that has been the focus of a tradition that goes back to Christ himself, and to the prince of the apostles. This is Peter's house."

Schönborn was not making a speech; he spoke softly, almost not caring if we heard. The words obviously came from deep within his personal spirituality, his devotion to the papacy and the person of the Pope....[I]t was an emotional moment, because it brought home how deep the feeling for the papal office runs among those for whom Christ's words, "You are the rock and upon this rock I shall build my Church," remain the expression of a living spiritual ideal.

- John L. Allen Jr., All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks. pp.188-9.

Yes! It really is an awesome feeling to walk into St Peter's Square. I was thrilled, and almost bursting with joy. It's a place I've seen many times on TV - and I was finally there, actually walking on the cobblestones of the focal point of the Catholic Church, surrounded by Bernini's beautiful colonnade, which reaches out to embrace Rome and the World, a fitting reminder of the universality of the Church and the Petrine ministry.

  

Once we walked to St Peter's Square in evening - the place was quiet and sleepy, resting after the hectic rush of pilgrims and tourists that takes places every day. And the windows of the Pope's rooms were lit - Pope Benedict was presumably in his room. It felt a bit unreal to be gazing up at the Holy Father's rooms - Peter's house - hoping he would come to the window for a breath of fresh air, or to take in the peaceful scene outside.