Chapter Seventeen

Ferrua’s Revenge

The publication of Guarducci’s report in February 1965 initiated one of the greatest firestorms of controversy in archeological history.184 The critics were led, not surprisingly, by Antonio Ferrua.¹⁸⁵

He attacked Guarducci’s earlier book on the inscriptions as the product of an authoress “with faith that ought to move mountains,” but who was “fundamentally wrong.”¹⁸⁶ She was portrayed as doctoring her results to support her faith — a curious inversion of the facts, since it seems her faith had come alive as a result of the inscriptions. She was ridiculed for identifying the remains of the mouse that had crawled into the storage box and died as the relics of Peter. Further, Ferrua pointed to two coins found nearby, one dating from A.D. 357, the other from the Middle Ages. Ferrua relied on this as proof that the bones could not possibly date as early as Guarducci supposed. He also submitted a report to Pope Paul VI ridiculing Guarducci’s claims and pleading with the pope to ignore them as wholly speculative and only a woman’s act of faith.¹⁸⁷

Reading the attacks, it is hard to ignore Ferrua’s repeated reference to Guarducci as “a woman” operating only on unsupported faith. Perhaps this is simply an example of the endemic sexism of mid-twentieth-century Italy, but coming from a priest it certainly gives one pause. After all, Christ’s first chosen messenger was a woman — the Samaritan Woman at the well in the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to John. This woman had been married five times and was living unmarried with a sixth man, yet Christ chose her as his first messenger to the Samaritans. Many early Christian inscriptions depicted her with her jar, including inscriptions in the Necropolis. What’s more, given the scientific investigation and mountain of evidence assembled by Guarducci, Correnti, and the team of five experts, it seems like willful blindness on the part of Ferrua to dismiss the results as simply an act of Guarducci’s faith.

Guarducci, who had already spent nearly fifteen years on the Apostle Project, worked for almost three more years to answer Ferrua and other critics with additional scientific and forensic studies. Examination of the purple and gold threads by chemists at the University of Rome proved once again that they were textiles from the first through the third centuries. The weave and purple dye had been used only by Imperial Romans of the period. It was also determined that the later coins and many others left by Christians had fallen through cracks in the walls over the millennia, particularly since a coin was found in the Graffiti Wall dating from A.D. 14 — before the Graffiti Wall was even framed. The Graffiti Wall niche, where the bones had initially been found, was dismantled by experts. Bricks of Roman origin proved the niche and the bones had remained untouched since original construction — certainly before the construction of the first basilica circa 337.

In 1966, Guarducci responded to her critics by pamphlet and article. In her view, overwhelming cumulative evidence proved that these bones, located only two feet from the center of the Necropolis and surrounded by at least twenty inscriptions predating 337 indicating “near Peter,” “Peter is here,” and the like, belonged to Peter.188 She asserted they were buried originally in the soil under the Trophy of Gaius, then moved between 250 and 337 into the concealment of the Graffiti Wall. She believed it likely that the bones had been moved to protect them during the construction of the original St. Peter’s Basilica.¹⁸⁹

Ferrua organized a furious resistance by numerous Vatican insiders, begging the pope to ignore the bones. He argued there was no real evidence that Peter’s body was ever buried on the hill as opposed to thrown in the Tiber. Ferrua later described Paul VI as simply “deaf” like Pius XII.¹⁹⁰

On June 26, 1968, Pope Paul VI announced to the world that Peter’s bones had been found, concluding that the bone fragments recovered by Guarducci from the Necropolis had been identified “in a way that we can consider convincing.”¹⁹¹ The following day, the bones were returned in fiberglass boxes to the Graffiti Wall niche from which they had emerged more than twenty-five years before. The largest of them remained visible in the wall through transparent fiberglass.

But in the Vatican that day there remained at least one who rejected and bitterly resented these findings — Guarducci’s archnemesis, Antonio Ferrua.¹⁹² Following his exclusion from active participation in the excavation after Guarducci was placed in charge,¹⁹³ he continued to hold a variety of powerful positions within the Vatican. By the late 1970s, he had been made head of the Commission on Archeology — and he waited.

Requiescat in Pace

Pope Pius XII died in 1958. Fittingly, George Strake established the Pius XII Memorial Library at St. Louis University, leading a fund drive to endow it with $5 million to microfilm and thereby preserve all of the ancient documents of the Vatican library in Rome that had provided the clues guiding the Peter excavation. Strake wanted to preserve these invaluable documents. As happened in the catastrophic destruction of the ancient libraries at Alexandria and Constantinople, a single fire, bomb, or modern vandal could have destroyed the only copies of the vast array of ancient documents housed within the Vatican Library. The work involved the filming of well over a million books and manuscripts, and more than thirty-seven thousand ancient codices, some crumbling.

In the 1950s, Strake also gave away his beloved Glen Eyrie, selling it for a nominal price to a Protestant organization associated with Billy Graham’s message. The buyers also sought to acquire Strake’s legendary acreage at nearby Eagle Lake, but he refused to include it. He simply couldn’t bring himself to part with it. On the day of closing, however, Strake said he had prayed about it all night and threw in his beloved Eagle Lake property for nothing. This generous act was consistent with a life spent sacrificially giving away even the things he treasured most.

In 1969, Strake died suddenly, at the age of seventy-four. On August 6, his car stopped while he was on a drive near Columbus, Texas.194 He climbed out and began to push it in the hot August sun. The task was too much — his great heart stopped. He did not reach his objective of giving away his last dollar with his last breath, but he made a strong attempt. He left almost all of his remaining assets to a foundation to continue his work. Friends mourned him from Texas to Rome, including his friend, Pope Paul VI. His financing of the Apostle Project remained secret, even at his funeral and in his obituary. But Strake died secure in the knowledge that Peter had been located.

Within a short time, another great tree fell — Archbishop Joseph McGeough. Following his involvement in the Apostle Project and in the various events of World War II, Paul VI sent him as a special emissary to South Africa to oppose apartheid, and then on a final, unsuccessful mission to Ireland to end its religious conflicts.

These deaths were a blow to Guarducci, whose friends and defenders were slowly vanishing. Only Paul VI himself remained to maintain her position in the Vatican.

Ferrua meanwhile continued his campaign against Guarducci and her discoveries. In reviews, which he wrote directly or inspired, Ferrua questioned Guarducci, her findings and, specifically, the authentication of the Graffiti Wall bones now on display in the Necropolis as those of Saint Peter. Over time, Ferrua slowly became the most powerful Vatican official in archeology, gaining control of the vast Necropolis.

In December 1971, National Geographic published an article describing Guarducci’s great discovery and featuring her as central to the excavation project. Ferrua was mentioned only as an unnamed scientist who questioned the discovery.195

In 1977, the Vatican published a small book by Guarducci, Peter: The Rock on Which the Church Is Built, beginning with Paul VI’s thanks for the successful discovery of Peter’s relics. Clearly, Guarducci’s great work was held in great esteem by those at the highest levels of the Catholic Church. But very soon the tide would turn.