George Matulaitis Journal

and pride, and also by closing down churches, imprisoning bishops and priests, and persecuting the faithful — even to the point of killing and tor- turing them, just as during the first centuries of Christianity? Do we not see as well how these waves of deceit and corruption are dissipated as they crash against the supernatural power of the Rock of Peter? A breath of peace wafts up from the Holy See. What divine power emanates from it; how it touches the souls of men ever more deeply. Nowhere is this more profoundly felt than at the tomb of St. Peter and at the throne of his successor. The Basilica of St. Peter is incomparably beautiful, and the Vatican is magnificant. But it is not the size of its walls, nor the purity of the exhibited marbles, nor yet the splendor of its paintings and works of art that comprise its value and power! The Basilica of St. Peter contains the Blessed Sacrament—Jesus himself; under the Basilica is a small chapel with the relics of St. Peter. In this consists the glory of the Basilica, its value and splendor! In the many rooms of the Vatican where the works of the greatest artists are kept also lives the Bishop of Bishops, a white-robed old man—or so he appears to earthly eyes—a weak prisoner*, he is the soul of the Vatican and its glory, for he is the head of all the faithful on earth. Between this white-robed old man, Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, and St. Peter under the Basilica exists an indissoluble bond and a continual closeness. That old man is the vicar of Christ on earth, the true successor of St. Peter. Through him Jesus Christ himself governs us, teaches us, and guides us toward salvation. St. Peter lives on in him and fulfills the duties entrusted to him by Christ. “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The pagan world look- ing at St. Peter crucified most probably laughed at these words of Christ. And today, the world, looking at the old man in the Vatican deprived of his earthly throne and of his armed forces, sometimes says that the rule of the popes has come to an end.** And even the faithful who see how the waves of infernal corruption, originating either in the enemies of the Church or in her own wayward children and crashing against the Rock of 348 * After September 1870, when King Victor Emmanuel II seized the Papal States during the reign of Pius IX, he and the following popes—Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV—refused to leave Vatican City in protest and thus were called “prisoners of the Vatican.” ** On October 28, 1922, the Italian army led by Mussolini marched into Rome, demonstrating that the city belonged to the Italian Government. Pope Pius XI finally resolved the controversy by giving up the last vestiges of civil authority. The Vatican became a sovereign State when the Lateran Pacts were concluded on February 11, 1929.