Today is the feast of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome and the Pope’s church. It is an ancient church, first built in the 4th Century on the Lateran hill in Rome. The Roman family Lateran donated land to the pope for a church. The emperor Constantine first built there with the structure undergoing various changes until the present basilica was constructed in the mid-1600s.
Many people think the pope’s church is St. Peter’s. It isn’t. It is St. John Lateran. I have visited it many times and it is just as inspiring as is St. Peter’s but in a different way. It always have far fewer tourists in it at any one time, and thus there is a solemness about it you don’t find at St. Peter’s.
Under the main altar there is the remnants of a wooden table that tradition holds was the table on which St. Peter himself said Mass.
You may want to take a virtual tour which is now available on-line by logging on to the website sponsored by the Vatican:
www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_giovanni/vr_tour/index-en.html
Because it is the mother church of Rome, it is in a certain sense the mother Church of all of Christendom. I might add that the baptistry (which is in a separate building nearby) has huge bronze doors and when they are moved open or shut make an awful sound that truly sound like suffering souls in hell. The medieval poet Dante heard these very same doors over 1100 years ago and wrote of them in the Inferno.
