ST. PETER'S RELIC ON DISPLAY

ROME (RNS) The Vatican said it would display for the first time bones believed to be the mortal remains of St. Peter, the leader of Jesus' 12 apostles, to mark the end of the Year of Faith, Nov. 24.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the...
Pontifical Council for
Promoting New Evangelization, wrote in Monday's editions
ofL'Osservatore Romano, that the Catholic faithful making a pilgrimage
to St. Peter's tomb to mark the end of the Year of Faith will enjoy
"the exposition … of the relics traditionally recognized as those of
the apostle who gave his life for the Lord on this spot."
Fisichella was referring to the long-held belief that Peter was
crucified upside down and died in either A.D. 64 or 67 on the spot now
marked by the Clementine Chapel inside the basilica that bears his
name.
The church never officially declared the bones — which were discovered
in the 1940s — authentic. But a series of exhaustive tests conducted
on the bones between their discovery and 1968 convinced Pope Paul VI
they had been "identified in a way we can hold to be convincing."
Previously, only the box containing the bones was on display.
Pope Benedict XVI declared the Year of Faith would begin on Oct. 11,
2012, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the opening of the
Second Vatican Council. Benedict said at the time that the Year of
Faith was a "summons to an authentic and renewed conversation to the
Lord."