Using advanced AI and photogrammetry, this project will provide millions of people throughout the world a virtual gateway to one of Catholicism's holiest sites. The launch coincides with preparations for the 2025 Holy Year Jubilee.

The initiative, known as "Petros Eni" (Greek for "Peter is here"), employs Microsoft's cutting-edge AI and Iconem's photogrammetry to produce a hyper-detailed, 3D digital "twin" of St Peter's Basilica.

Visitors to Rome will experience the exhibit in person, while an online version will make the basilica accessible to those who cannot travel. Additionally, schools worldwide will have access via Minecraft Education, the popular video game platform.

400,000 high-resolution images

Microsoft's president Brad Smith described the project as "the oldest organisation in the world collaborating with the newest technology".

At a press event, Smith highlighted the extraordinary scale of the effort. For three weeks, drones coordinated by AI from Iconem, a French startup, captured over 400,000 high-resolution images of the basilica's intricate architecture, art and structure. Laser scanning allowed precise location mapping and AI algorithms processed the data to create the replica, ensuring a model accurate to one millimetre.

Smith emphasised that Microsoft provided its services free-of-charge, underscoring the collaboration's significance.

The Fabric of St Peter, the Vatican institution overseeing the basilica's preservation, plans to use the digital data to aid future restorations, noting its value in preserving the site for generations.

According to Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St Peter's Basilica, the digital twin project will allow visitors "to see this basilica as no generation has seen it before" - from missing mosaic tiles to previously hidden architectural details.

Pope Francis affirmed the project's spiritual significance, seeing St Peter's Basilica as "a place where everyone, whether in search of faith or in admiration of art, feels welcome".

Sources

Religion News Service

Technical Master

Pilgrims and visitors can now behold this storied relic directly in front of the basilica's main altar, just above the tomb of St Peter, where it will remain on display until Dec 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

The last major public viewing of the chair occurred in 1867, when Pope Pius IX exposed the Chair of Peter for the veneration of the faithful for 12 days on the 1,800th anniversary of the martyrdoms of St Peter and St Paul.

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While women have worked for the Fabbrica di San Pietro — the department that oversees maintenance, restoration, and repairs of the Vatican's papal basilica — before, it is the first time women are officially part of the "Sanpietrini" maintenance staff, according to Vatican News.

Two teams of Sanpietrini "work simultaneously daily to fulfil their principal tasks of reception, stewardship, cleaning, and maintenance of the Vatican basilica and its facilities respectively," the basilica's website says.

The two Italian women, aged 21 and 26, studied masonry and decorative and ornamental plastering at the basilica's School of Fine Arts and Traditional Trades.

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Last Thursday's incident marks the latest in a series of recent security breaches.

Two weeks ago, a man found to be mentally ill was arrested after ramming his car into the St Anne's entrance gate to the Vatican and driving through the small city-state.

Last August, climate activists entered the Vatican Museums and glued their hands to the base of the famed "Laocoön and His Sons" statue. The first-century sculpture is considered one of the most important ancient works in the Vatican.

The activists also hung a banner reading, "Last Generation: No gas and no carbon".

And in 2019, another man described as "psychologically disturbed" was arrested by Vatican gendarmes for climbing onto the main altar in St Peter's Basilica and tossing a candelabra onto the floor

Source

• Daily Mail
• Crux Now
• Reuters

The March 12 circular was written on the letterhead of the Vatican Secretariat of State and carried the initials of its No. 2, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra.

It immediately raised questions, given the implication that it was an effort to limit the celebration of the Latin Mass favored by traditionalist Catholics who have expressed hostility to Pope Francis.

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Electronic devices and documents have been taken from the offices of the Fabbrica following a report by the Holy See's auditor, in what could look like an investigation into financial irregularities.

However, the Holy See says the move was taken following a new transparency law issued by the Pope on the use of outside contractors by the Church's central administration - an important step forward in Francis's ongoing reforms of Vatican finances.

There is no suggestion Cardinal Angelo Comastri, who leads the Basilica's management, is under investigation.

The Vatican says retired nuncio Bishop Mario Giordana has been given the task of "updating the statutes, clarifying the administration and reorganizing the administrative and technical offices" to comply with new Vatican norms on procurement and contracting.

Giordana will carry out "this delicate task" together with a commission", a Vatican statement says.

The Fabbrica is the office which responsible for running and maintaining St Peter's, which is the symbolic heart of the Catholic Church.

St Peter's Basilica is home to the tomb of St Peter, who was the first pope. Along with being the principal church of the Successor of St Peter, the Basilica contains a vast array of renaissance artistic treasures.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• AP
• The Tablet
• Image: Italy Magazine

Guides who regularly take pilgrims and tourists to pray and to see the Basilica's priceless art and artifacts are resisting tightening security, saying suggestions of glass barriers risk compromising the sacred nature of the space.

It is a church, they point out.

In one recent incident a man described as "unstable" was reportedly arrested by Vatican police after tossing a candelabra off the main altar in St Peter's.

Two days later, a similar event took place.

British tour guide Agnes Crawford said she was standing near the entrance of the basilica when she heard banging from the main altar.

"This guy climbed onto the altar and started smashing the crucifix and the candle sticks," she said.

While many people immediately began running toward the scene, she advised her group to stay back until the situation was resolved.

"What struck me as quite bizarre was that quite a lot of people, before realizing what was happening, were rushing to take photographs.

"If I see a guy who's clearly losing his mind, the last thing I want to do is get closer," she said.

Crawford said he was shouting something "incomprehensible," but was otherwise calm and did not resist when security officials came to take him away.

"It's surprising that things like this don't happen more often, because there's something about big churches which does attract quite strange people."

Nonetheless, Crawford is not in favour of tougher restrictions.

"If you think in the grand scheme of things, these sorts of things happen very, very rarely," she said.

"I think that places being accessible is very good."

"If every time somebody tries to do something, you put up fences and walls and glass barriers, then everything becomes hermetically sealed, when the vast majority of people are perfectly reasonable," she said.

St. Peter's, which welcomes millions of visitors a year, "is primarily a church, it's not primarily a museum, and it would be rather sad if everything becomes sanitized,".

More vigilance is needed, not blockades or restrictions, she said.

Other regular Vatican guides are similarly concerned that sacred artifacts would be seen only behind a wall of glass.

This is the case with the Pieta, which has been glass-encased since an incident in 1972 when a deranged man attacked the sculpture with a hammer.

Source

• Crux Now

Image: Crux Now

Pius XII then began the excavations under St. Peter's Basilica, in order to fulfill the last will of his predecessor.

With that single gesture, he also showed confidence in both archaeological science and the countless generations of Christians who had considered the Basilica as, indeed, the burial place of the Apostle.

After the excavations, which were followed by exhaustive historical, archaeological and architectural studies, Pius XII ended the jubilee of 1950 exclaiming: "The final conclusion of the works and studies carried out in the Basilica is a very clear ‘yes': the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles has been found."

From the Circus of Nero to St. Peter's Basilica
After the fire of Rome in 64, Emperor Nero started a new Christian persecution, during which — according to tradition — St. Peter was crucified upside down, in the circus (an oval ground used for racing and other public spectacles) located in the Vatican Hill.

The body of the saint was then put to rest in a tomb under a small roof tile, in the pagan necropolis on the very same hill.

Quickly, as the necropolis stretched to the banks of the Tiber, St. Peter's burial place began to attract pilgrims, even if discreetly at first.

In the 4th century, Emperor Constantine allowed the development of Christian worship and decided to build a basilica in honor of St. Peter, its altar being aligned with the tomb of the apostle.

Above the original tomb, Constantine had a monument built, three meters high, in marble and porphyry, of which a column and a section of wall are still preserved.

When the present majestic basilica was built, the papal altar was then placed on top of the tomb of St. Peter. Continue reading

Sources

• Aleteia
• Image: Gidget Goes to Rome

With the words, "And I tell you, Peter, that on this rock I will build my church," Jesus appoints Peter as head of his new church and charges him with the responsibility to build it from the ground (Matt. 16).

Throughout the centuries, biblical scholars and theologians have taken these words to imply that Jesus gave unique authority to Peter.

But Catholics understand Jesus' words differently: The new Christian church would be physically built on Peter's remains.

There's not much mention of Peter's eventual fate in the New Testament, but John's gospel says Jesus told Peter that, when he became old, Peter would "stretch out his hands."

John's gospel interprets this as an allusion to Peter's death, by which he "glorified God" (21:18), implying Peter was crucified and died a martyr. An apocryphal text, the Acts of Peter, even claims Peter was crucified upside down.

In 2013 Pope Francis publicly displayed what the church believes to be the genuine bones of St. Peter, discovered during excavations below St. Peter's Basilica in the 1940-50s.

While most scholars agree that archaeologists did uncover Peter's tomb, the story of the bones is quite perplexing. In addition to a complex archaeological site, secrecy and miscommunication at the time of the excavations have complicated the findings.

Over the centuries, the belief that St. Peter was buried under the Vatican supported early papal authority and established Vatican City as the physical center of Catholicism. And this belief is not just legend or tradition, but based in a large part on historical sources.

The Roman historian Tacitus writes in The Annals that the emperor Nero blamed Christians for setting Rome on fire as a pretext for savagely persecuting them. Furthermore, the church historian Eusebius specifies in Church History that Peter was crucified under Nero.

Other ancient writers corroborate—Peter was probably crucified under Emperor Nero, most likely between 64 and 67. This probably took place in Nero's circus, or horse track, located on what we now know as Vatican Hill. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by Matt Tedeschi, a faculty member in the religious studies department at St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago, in U.S.Catholic.
• Image: Ufficio Scavi

The National Catholic Register reported sources stating that Bishop Samuel Salmi of Oulu in Finland and other Finnish Lutherans indicated to the Catholic priests at the Mass that they wanted a blessing.

They reportedly tried to show they were ineligible to receive by putting their right hands on their left shoulders.

But the priests, who were reportedly aware that the people coming forward were Lutherans, offered them communion anyway.

The bishop said Pope Francis was not at the Mass.

But Bishop Salmi added that the Pope has repeatedly indicated he would like to develop unity between different denominations.

Bishop Salmi told a news agency that Pope Francis has theological enemies in the Vatican and so may be limited in how freely he can speak.

After news reports came out about Lutherans receiving Catholic communion, the Finnish Catholic Church called the incident a mistake and an obstacle to unity.

In November, Pope Francis urged a Lutheran woman married to a Catholic to "talk to the Lord" about receiving Catholic communion.

She should then "go forward" the Pope said, but he cautioned that he "wouldn't ever dare to allow this, because it is not my competence".

The Pope's words were interpreted by Rome's Lutheran community to mean that Lutherans could receive Catholic communion in accordance with their conscience.

But just before Christmas, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said this was not correct.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller told the National Catholic Register that "misunderstandings come up again and again because of a failure to take account of the fact that, unfortunately, there is actually a different understanding of the Church between Catholics and Protestants".

These differences, he said, "are not only theological-conceptual, but of a confessional nature".

He added that the Church continues in its ecumenical goal to reach "visible and institutional unity", with the Pope as head of the Church.

In October, Pope Francis is to participate in a joint ecumenical commemoration in Sweden marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

Sources

• National Catholic Register
• Catholic Herald
• National Catholic Reporter
• National Catholic Register
• National Catholic Register
• Vatican Radio
• Image: Crisis Magazine

On Saturday, the Pope tripped up on the steps of St Peter's Basilica, stopping his fall with outstretched arms.

Two aides helped him back to his feet.

On Monday, the Pontiff faltered on his way up the steps during a service at the Basilica of St John Lateran.

Officials flanked the Pope and took him by the arm.

In September, Francis slipped while climbing a staircase to board a flight during his visit to the United States.

Continue reading

The Pope had already celebrated Mass in his residence very early that morning and had gone to the tomb of his predecessor to pray for catechists.

When the celebrant of the Mass at St Pius X's tomb, Msgr Lucio Bonora, arrived at the altar, he looked at the Pope, who nodded, as if to encourage him to continue.

About 70 people were sitting or kneeling in pews in front of the tomb when the Pope joined them.

Msgr Bonora went down to the Pope during the sign of peace.

For Communion, the Pope stood in line with others from the small congregation, L'Osservatore Romano reported.

After Mass, outside the basilica, Pope Francis told the monsignor that he went to St Pius's tomb "to pray for all catechists, entrusting them to his protection as I did every year in Argentina".

"I came to say a private prayer," Francis said, "because I celebrated Mass early, but then I saw you coming to the altar to celebrate and I decided to stay . . . I told you I'm a devotee of St Pius X."

As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, on the feast of St Pius X, Jorge Mario Bergoglio would meet catechists from the diocese.

Early in his pontificate, Pope Francis ordered that the preparation of the basilica's nativity scene be moved away from the Chapel of St Pius X, as it blocked people from praying at the saint's tomb.

St Pius X wrote a catechism in 1908 and is also remembered for his promotion of Communion for children.

In the first few months of his pontificate he began a deep reform of the Roman Curia and he wanted priests to be shepherds of souls, paying particular attention to the poor.

He presented the Eucharist not as a prize for those who are already perfect, but as a daily support for people to get closer to God.

He was also uncomfortable with many of the trappings of papal office.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Vatican Insider
• Image: Lifesitenews

This year therefore marks the 17th centenary of the official recognition of Christianity, which was accorded the same rights as all other religions throughout the Roman Empire, thus instituting the concept of religious tolerance. As a result, the Christian religion emerged from the catacombs, prospered and spread throughout the empire and beyond. The hundreds of church buildings standing in Rome alone bear witness to the proliferation of Christian places of worship over the past 17 centuries, leaving a rich artistic and spiritual legacy.

What led to such a historic decision? In the turbulent year 312 AD, while preparing for a decisive battle, Constantine received a vision: In hoc signo vinces - By this sign you shall conquer. Profoundly struck by the message, Constantine took the Christian symbol of the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ (X and P, the one superimposed on the other, known as the Chi-Rho symbol) and ordered his soldiers to mark their standards with this sign before going into battle. He and his troops marched to victory against the army of rival emperor, Maxentius, at Rome's Milvian Bridge - where even today tourists can stroll across the River Tiber.

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge was depicted in all its triumph and carnage in a fresco in one of the Vatican's Raphael rooms many centuries later, and another by Piero Della Francesca (in Arezzo). With this historic victory, Constantine secured undisputed power over the Roman Empire and in gratitude legalized Christianity the following year.

Subsequently, Constantine gave orders for the construction of a basilica over the burial ground of St Peter himself. After many changes over the centuries, today a magnificent and imposing St Peter's Basilica and Square inspire reverential awe and welcome pilgrims from across the globe. Continue reading

Sources

• MercatorNet
• Image: News In Faith

Marcello De Finizio, owner of a beach-front concession and restaurant in Trieste, climbed the dome Tuesday evening.

He unfurled a hand painted sign reading: "Help! Enough with (Prime Minister Mario) Monti, Enough with Europe, Enough with Multinationals!" — referring to President Mario Monti, the architect of Italy's economic reforms.

De Finizio came down on Wednesday after a 24-hour protest.

"I am not a crazy who wants to kill himself," De Finizio told a television channel from his perch. "So far there have been only promises, they have only made cuts."

"I have spoken by phone with some ministers, but I won't get down to receive only a pat on the back and a kick in the behind, like always," he said.

Italian media reported that De Finizio spent three nights on a 70-meter tall metal structure in Trieste earlier this year in a similar anti-reform protest.

He demanded that officials hold talks with the owners of Italian beachfront concessions to discuss government reforms that will force auctions for existing establishments and limit the length of the licenses.

Sources

• Reuters
• BBC
• AP/New York Daily News
• Image: AP/NY Daily News