Pilgrimage series: Catacombs of St. Callistus

Editor's note: Eleventh in a series on the sacred places and tombs of saints included in The Compass pilgrimage to Rome and Paris that retired Green Bay Bishop Robert Banks will lead May 3-13. (More information on pilgrimage)

By Tony Staley

	Catacombs of St. Callistus What: One of the early church's burial grounds When: Second century Where: On the Old Appian Way in Rome

The fourth day of touring in Italy, the pilgrims will go to the Catacombs of St. Callistus on the Old Appian Way.

The catacombs are ancient Jewish and Christian underground burial places near Rome. It's been estimated that two million bodies - a half-million in St. Callistus alone - are buried in the 40 known catacombs in that area.

Christians began burying their dead - the belief in bodily resurrection ruled out cremation - in the catacombs during the Roman persecutions.

The catacombs were dug in soft rock outside the city, because the Roman law forbade burial in the city. Originally, they also were the site of memorial services on the anniversaries of Christian martyrs, but they probably were not used for regular worship.

At first, only the area by the Appian Way between the tomb of Caecilia Metella and Rome were referred to as "catacombs," but later, all underground cemeteries were called that. The early Christians called their burial places koimeterion or coemeterium (from the Greek word koimáo, to sleep) because they were a place to rest until the resurrection of the dead.

The catacombs - some are three or four stories high - are 22-to-65 feet underground and include a connected network of galleries. It's said that if the galleries in just the Catacomb of St. Sebastian were placed in a straight line, they would stretch the length of Italy.

Each of the catacombs is named for a specific martyr buried there. Burial niches were carved into walls and the clothed bodies were wrapped in linen and placed in stone sarcophagi. The chamber was sealed with a slab listing the name, age and date of death - or birth into eternal life.

The inscriptions tell what the person did - bishop, priest, deacon, lector, physician, baker, smith and so on. Some speak of the hope of eternity and of the grace received through faith in the one God and Christ, his Son. Married couples were often buried side-by-side so they could rise together on the Last Day.

Paintings depicting eternal bliss, baptism, the Good Shepherd and the loaves and fishes also are on the walls.

The catacombs were cared for by fossores or excavators, whose job was one of self-sacrifice because of the physical effort involved, the odor of decay and risk of disease.

The Catacombs of St. Callistus is complex and stretches nearly 10 miles. It was named for its deacon administrator and dates to the end of the 2nd century. Pope Zephyrinus (199-217) enlarged it to serve as an official church burial place for more than 50 martyrs and 16 popes.

St. Cecilia is among those buried at St. Callistus, along with St. Gaius and St. Eusebius.

By the end of the 4th century, when Christianity became the state religion, the dead were increasingly buried in church cemeteries. By the 6th century, catacombs were used only for memorial services for martyrs. Various groups that sacked Rome broke into the catacombs, possibly seeking valuables, so by the 10th century the relics of saints were moved to the basilicas for safekeeping.

Eventually the catacombs were forgotten, until 1578 when they were accidentally rediscovered. But it took the archeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1822-1894), who published the first extensive professional study on catacombs, to convince Pope Pius IX to go with him to the Catacombs of St. Callistus. After listening to De Rossi explain the inscriptions in the Crypt of the Popes, a tearful Pius IX knelt in prayer.

The papacy oversees maintenance of the Catacombs of St. Callistus.

Next: The Pantheon, Rome

(Staley is a retired editor of The Compass.)