Also via the St. Peter’s website, a great interview with art historian Elizabeth Lev

stpetersbasilica.org
Any personal experiences in St. Peter’s that you’d like to share?

Elizabeth Lev
St. Peter’s is the site of my reversion I’d have to say. I grew up Catholic but I left the church with such a door-slamming, bridge-burning attitude that if you’d have told me that when I was 25 that one day all I would ever want to do is go into St. Peter’s and talk about God, I would have slapped you silly probably. So I think that the moment for me, like many, many other people, was when I went to St. Peter’s during the year 2000, except during the year 2000 I was going for work. And I just saw it as work. During the course of that blessed year, under our magnificent Pope, St. Peter’s began to mean more to me. And I think in that year the moment that stands out, and every time that I’m in there I look at the statue of St. Peter, I remember two priest friends of mine who had taken me to do a lot of tours with their benefactors and their friends, and they never really pushed me to live out more of the religious end of the tour. So they would pray here or stop for the Blessed Sacrament there, and I would do the talking about the art. I remember toward the close of Jubilee Year 2000 when I was pointing out the statue of St. Peter, and the line of people touching the foot. I was saying that this is what the pilgrims do when they thank Peter for the safe journey here, and it’s their way of showing that you’ve finally come to St. Peter’s for your indulgence, and these two big 6 foot priests boxed me in on either side and they walked me over in a way that I really could not move away without screaming or yelling, and they took my hand and they put it on St. Peter’s foot. Within a few months the whole situation of my life had changed so that I was really free to go back to the church. I’ve had a lot of wonderful experiences in St. Peter’s. I’ve seen a lot of interesting things in St. Peter’s that people don’t get to see, done a lot of really cool things in St. Peter’s, but to me the most important moment in St. Peter’s was when my soul was saved.

She’s also got interesting thoughts on the growing crowds at St. Peter’s.

We were blessed enough to have a private tour of the Sistine Chapel from Elizabeth, which, not surprisingly was one of the highlights of our trip. She’s a fantastic, energetic, lively and brilliant person – She’s also starting up, along with a couple of others, a tour company with a specialization:

In our many years of experience as docents with Context Rome/Scala Reale, we have had occasion to bring guests to many of the most important Christian sites in the city. After a decade of taking visitors to the various Christian sites of Rome, we began to notice a growing interest on the part of our guests in Christian history and the devotional significance of the monuments. Calling on our varied backgrounds in art, history and theology we began to design itineraries that would examine in depth the Christian meaning of these monuments, as well as illustrate how 2,000 years of Christian presence has shaped the city we know and love today.

We at Scala Sancta offer pilgrims of the third millennium the eye-opening experience of seeing the works of Michelangelo and Caravaggio not just as technical achievements in the history of art, but also as powerful testimonies of the Christian faith of the artists and their patrons. By showing people the dynamic interaction of history, art, liturgy and doctrine, we hope to close the gap between the Christians of ancient, medieval, Renaissance and modern Rome, as well as demonstrate that we are all part of one great tradition of the followers of Christ.