Father Richard Kunst: Roman catacombs in Duluth

Apologetics

A couple months ago I wrote a column about how when you are in an empty Catholic church by yourself you are not alone, because if God the Son is present in the reserved Blessed Sacrament, then all the saints are present in the church as well, since heaven is being in perfect union with God. 

As I have also mentioned in past columns, the church makes this reality tangible by placing altar stones in our altars. Altar stones have embedded in them a small relic, usually a bone chip of a saint to drive home this reality that when at Mass, the saints indeed are worshiping along with us. As an aside, in the Diocese of Duluth most of our altar stones have a relic of the early church father St. Irenaeus embedded in them. 

By the time you are reading this, we will have already celebrated All Saints Day, which happened on Nov. 1, but the month of November in general is one in which we celebrate the saints — those people who went before us and are now with God in heaven. And what the whole Catholic world does with their altars and altar stones, Rome does in spades. 

Rome, Italy, is my favorite place in the world, and when I am not there, I wish I were. One of the things you cannot miss when visiting the churches in Rome is that many, perhaps maybe even most of the altars have not just a bone chip of a saint but actually the whole saint within the altar. For example, we tend to think of the Apostle Peter being buried in St. Peter’s Basilica, but he is far from being the only saint in that most impressive church. Just off the top of my head, some of the other saints in St. Peter’s Basilica are Pius X, John XXIII, John Paul II, Paul VI, the Apostles Simon and Jude, St. Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Gregory Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, and many others. 

And yet there is even more than what can be seen. For the first 300-plus years of Christianity there was a near continuous persecution of Christians by the Roman government in which untold thousands of people were killed simply for their faith in Jesus. We will never know how many Christians were martyred during that time, but what we do know is that the underground cemeteries known as the catacombs became packed with the remains of these people who witnessed to Christ with their blood. In fact, the very first piece of property owned by the Catholic Church was a cemetery specifically for Christian martyrs, the Catacomb of St. Callisto, which can still be visited today. 

Throughout the centuries, different popes have authorized the removal of these early martyrs’ remains so they can be placed in the different churches of Rome and even outside of Rome. A notable example of this is the Basilica of St. Prassede, which is most famous for its amazing ancient mosaics, but what most people don’t know when they visit the basilica is that it also has the remains of 2,300 martyrs taken from the various catacombs. Another example is the Pantheon in Rome, which was built as a temple dedicated to the many gods of the Roman religion. This ancient wonder still exists but is now officially called the Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs. When this pagan temple was transferred to being a Catholic church in the seventh century, it is said that 28 cart loads of saint’s remains were removed from the catacombs and placed under the floor near the main altar of the newly dedicated church. Presumably they are still there. 

Popes throughout the years have done this, and sometimes it gives rise to popular devotions, perhaps most famously St. Philomena, whose remains were discovered in the Catacombs of Santa Priscilla in May 1802. Although nothing is known about her life, her popularity grew quickly. Basically what we know for sure about her is that she was a young girl killed for the faith during the Roman era. Before the canonization process was regularized, pretty much anyone who was martyred for the faith was considered a saint. 

An announcement: Recently, I was able to acquire the full remains of one of these early martyrs. A young girl by the name of St. Papia, whose remains were taken from the catacombs of St. Bibian Ad Ursum Pileatum by Pope Pius VII on December 18, 1804. Her relics have been placed under the altar of St. James the Less Catholic Church in Duluth. 

Though St. James is not quite Rome, it is certainly the only parish in our diocese to have the full remains of a saint. These relics will be at St. James for at least as long as I am pastor. I invite you to come and pray to St. Papia the next time you are in Duluth. The reliquary containing her complete relics is visible underneath the altar from the back side. 

St. Papia, pray for us! 

Father Richard Kunst is pastor of St. James and St. Elizabeth in Duluth. Reach him at [email protected].