Ink-Stained Wretches

THE FISHERMAN’S TOMB

The True Story of the Vatican’s Secret Search

By John O’Neill

Francine Paino AKA F. Della Notte

In novels, mystery often equates with danger. Whether in fiction or reality, it requires determination, dedication, and a willingness to face the unknown, which can be dangerous on many levels.

In The Fisherman’s Tomb, by John O’Neill, the quest to find the bones of the man Jesus appointed the first among the apostles, Simon, called Peter, upon which Jesus would build his church, became a 75-year search beneath the Vatican, and fraught with politics and dangers, including a world war. On a religious level, it was a courageous undertaking because, over the centuries, opinions proliferated about whether or not Peter ever entered Rome and whether or not he was crucified there. Was it fact or unsubstantiated legend?

John O’Neill was no stranger to archeology or Ancient Roman history. He had made a lifetime study of Roman Archeology, traveling throughout what was once the Roman World to visit sites and digs. An Annapolis graduate and lawyer, the author of the best-seller, Unfit for Command, and a former U.S. Supreme Court law clerk, it was when he became friends with the children and grandchildren of George Strake that he learned the story of this massive project and its discoveries. O’Neill felt it was a story that had to be told, and it became the book, The Fisherman’s Tomb.

The author acquaints us with the major players. George Strake, the man who financed much of the research. A quiet Texas oilman, and devout Catholic,  Strake was the discoverer of the immense Conroe field in Houston. Two popes. Pius XII, “who, unlike some of his predecessors, saw science – particularly archeology-as an ally, not an enemy of Christianity,” and Paul VI, who brought in an outsider and a woman. Despite any misgivings or fears about the possibility that Peter was never in Rome and never crucified there, which would have changed and possibly destroyed the traditions dear to the hearts of the faithful,  both popes encouraged and supported the search. The truth, they felt, was too important.

Pope Pius XII, began the project and was determined to keep it a complete secret except for George Strake. It began in earnest in 1939, with the death of Pius XI, who had one request: “to be buried under St. Peter’s Basilica in a simple grave.” To honor his request, an excavation team began to dig beneath the basilica. When a workman fell through the floor where they were digging, he found himself in a stunning and unknown world that had existed hundreds of years before. A city of the dead where both pagans and early Christians had been buried.

To understand the project fully, O’Neill tackles the ancient Roman world pertinent to the search. In those days, many pagan Romans delighted in blood sports, particularly involving Christians. Under Nero, the worst of all, “even hardened Romans like the historian Tacitus found his treatment of Christians extraordinarily cruel.” During Nero’s rule, two great leaders of the Christian Church, Peter, and Paul met their deaths. Paul, a Hellenistic Jew born in Tarsus and a Roman citizen was beheaded, but Peter met his death hanging upside down on a cross in Nero’s Circus at the foot of Vatican Hill in 64 A.D.  

In 1939, Pius XII assembled a team that eventually ended up being led by Antonio Ferrua, a priest with a degree in archeology. He would remain in control until 1952, when Cardinal Giovani Montini, who would later become Pope Paul VI, invited a brilliant woman, archeologist, and epigraphist, Margherita Guarducci, to tour and study the excavation. And then the sparks began to fly.  Margherita Guarducci, was an archeologist with an expertise in epigraphy. An Epigraphist, according to O’Neill is the Sherlock Holmes of archeology, which Guarducci showed she was. It was Guarducci, who linked and interpreted the signs and partial writings. Exceptional difficulty was added because many of the signs had meanings used for only a few decades.

Contrary to the Ferrua conclusions, Guarducci revealed the actual location of Peter’s tomb and identified the bones already in storage as belonging to Peter, and sadly the best, intentions and lofty goals of the project were then derailed by ego, and professional jealousy. Guarducci’s battle with the Vatican experts was epic, and after Paul VI’s death, her findings were almost obliterated by pride, sexist prejudices, and professional jealousy. 

The Fisherman’s Tomb is not a dry textbook. It is a page-turner worthy of any well—written mystery novel covering all aspects of the project, from its accidental beginnings to the shift of monies and attention to saving Jews during World War II, and the amazing, and behind-the-scenes individual, George Strake. The book explains the lives of Christians in ancient Rome, the apostle Peter, and the Great Fire, probably started by Nero, who wanted land and a lot of it to build his palace. He then targeted the Christian sect as those responsible, enflaming the hatred and fears already in existence.

O’Neill addresses the Popes’ gamble in supporting the ongoing search, the archeological dig, and the super problems of digging under the structure of the Basilica and an existing city. The discoveries in the necropolis, and the interpretations of symbols, pieced together the meanings and identifications of the individuals buried there. It was accomplished by the unwelcome involvement of a woman, in a time when the fields of her expertise were dominated by men. 

Guarducci’s story alone is worthy of a biography. The resentment of Ferrua, his revenge discrediting her brilliant findings, and her ultimate victory, which came long after her death, are powerful stories within the story of the search for the Fisherman’s tomb.

The hunt for Peter’s bones is a treasure hunt with twists, and turns, complicated by fears, politics, jealousies, revenge, and vindication. And ultimately, a confirmation of Peter’s presence and crucifixion in Rome. 

A worthy note: O’Neill ends the forward by comparing the current slaughter and persecution of Christian communities in the Middle East to the fates of their ancient brothers and sisters in faith and contributes all proceeds of this book to their relief.

A great read.

By K.P. Gresham

Believe it or not, the mystery novel is considered a “young” form of literature. Yep, that’s right. Mystery fiction didn’t exist before 19^th century England. Many suggest two reasons why this was the case. First, the ability to read was now reaching “below” the upper class educated citizens. Farmers and factory workers and children were being taught to read. Secondly, back then, most towns relied instead on constables and night watchmen. No centralized police forces existed.

So what happened that caused the change in policing? The public’s morbid national obsession with murder.

Two cases in particular were instrumental in beginning this fixation on crime, according to Lucy Worsley, chief curator at the Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity responsible for maintaining the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace State Apartments, and more.

In her BBC four-part series, “A Very British Murder” (2013), Worsley suggests that the first murder, known as The Radcliffe Highway Murders, took place in 1811. Only a constable was available to the poor maid who realized something dreadful had happened when she returned to the home of her employers only to find the door locked, and a woman screaming inside. The newspapers hyped the crime, stirring the public into a frenzy.

Sussex Advertiser | 16 December 1811

Then, less than a week later, a second family was attacked and murdered. Sensationalism reached a fever pitch.

Star (London) | 20 December 1811

Eventually John Williams was arrested and charged with the crimes. He committed suicide in his jail cell before the trial, though his trial was carried on without him. It was speculated that this was done to calm the public’s fear.

            The second case, “The Red Barn Murder”, took place in 1826. Here a woman was found dead in a barn, apparently the victim of an elopement gone wrong. Again, the public fixated on the murder to the extent that a very macabre execution took place. On 11 August 1828, the convicted murderer, John Corder, was taken to the gallows and hanged shortly before noon in front of a large crowd. One newspaper claimed that there were 7,000 spectators, another as many as 20,000. But that wasn’t all. The body was taken back to the courtroom at Shire Hall, where it was slit open along the abdomen to expose the muscles. The crowds were allowed to file past until six o’clock, when the doors were shut. According to the Norwich and Bury Post, over 5,000 people lined up to see the body.

            So now the British public was ripe to read anything that would feed their fascination with murder. All it needed was a writer to satiate their thirst.

            Enter Edgar Allen Poe and his short story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” which was published in Graham’s Magazine in 1849. It has been described as the first modern detective story and featured the world’s first fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin. Though Baltimore-born Poe was known in America for his literary critiques (several of which named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow a plagiarist), he was much more popular in Great Britain where he became well-known as an author.

(It should be noted that two books are also considered early mysteries but had little following due to their foreign languages. The first may have been Voltaire’s Zadig written in 1747, and Das Fraulein von Scuderi by E.T.A. Hoffmann in 1819.)

            And the floodgates opened. Wilkie Collins’ novel The Woman in White was published in 1860. Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes mystery, A Study in Scarlet, in 1887. Doyle’s series is credited with being singularly responsible for the huge popularity of the mystery genre.

            Mystery novels have gone far beyond the private detective motif. The genre now covers romantic suspense, noir, cozies, thrillers, traditional, etc.: even comic books, graphic novels and web-based detective series now carry on the mystery tradition.

            I read mysteries, watch mystery movies, (probably have most of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies memorized line by line), and write mysteries. However, I had no idea I was entertained by such a “young” form of literature.

            So, whodunnit next?

Note: Sources for this blog included Lucy Worsley’s BBC’s four-part series, A Very British Mystery, and the Biblio Blog “What Exactly is a Mystery Book”.

K.P. Gresham, Author

Professional Character Assassin

K.P. Gresham is the award-winning author of the Pastor Matt Hayden Mystery Series as well as several stand-alone novels.  Active in Sisters in Crime and the Writers League of Texas, she has won Best Novel awards from the Bay Area Writers League as well as Mystery Writers of America.

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Books by

K.P. Gresham

Three Days at Wrigley Field

The Pastor Matt Hayden Mystery Series

The Preacher’s First Murder

Murder in the Second Pew

Murder on the Third Try

Four Reasons to Die

by

Francine Paino A.K.A  F. Della Notte

Mardi Gras! The wild celebrations and not-so-good behaviors that have come to be associated with Fat Tuesday take place on the last day before the solemn period of Lent begins for Christians around the world. 

In the fourth century, when Christianity became recognized in Rome, church leaders incorporated the ingrained pagan Roman festival of Lupercalia, an ancient festival held every year on February 15 to purify the city, promoting health and fertility. The church fathers thought it an easier task to incorporate it into the new faith –than to abolish it – giving rise to excess debauchery that remains a common prelude to Lent even today. 

In medieval Europe, the traditions of Mardi Gras changed and spread worldwide over the centuries, passing through Rome and Venice in the 17th and 18^th centuries in the House of the Bourbons. And it came to North America from France in 1699, landing either in New Orleans or, some say, in Mobile, Alabama, in 1703. But the rapid spread of the eat, drink, and be merry tradition had a practical side too. 

Lenten restrictions were stringent, and  Christians were required to abstain from all meats and other foods that came from animals, such as butter, cheese, eggs, and milk, but there was no way to keep such foods from spoiling; thus everything in the larder had to be eaten, or it would rot and be thrown away. Hence a final feast-like meal the night before Ash Wednesday, the first day of the forty days of fasting and penance until Easter Sunday, became ritualized, but the good intentions of Mardi Gras the tradition also had and still has, a dark side.

As Lenten restrictions loosened, the seedier side of the festivities became more popular and disorderly. Unfortunately, the more solemn and spiritual reasons associated with this day have been pushed into the background, despite the ashes distributed on Ash Wednesday in churches worldwide. Crosses of ash are traced on foreheads as the priest or minister intones the warning, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  

French customs that traveled to the States were eating pancakes, waffles, beignets, and crepes, and throwing beads and flowers from parade floats to people in the streets, but over time, the parades and floats in New Orleans took on another life. Sumptuous and sexy costumes became the rule, with characters on the floats shouting to women in the street “show me what you’ve got,” encouraging girls to bare their breasts to get cheap, plastic beads.  

The Mardi Gras tradition in Italy is called Carnevale (from the Latin, Carne–meat; vale-goodbye), harkens back to their original intent. In Venice, there are genuine Renaissance costumes worn by city workers who must remain silent and stay in character when circulating among the revelers. Food, family entertainment, face painting, games, and the famed Venetian masks are everywhere.   

Never meant to be a celebration for its own purpose, Mardi Gras also projects an atmosphere of secrecy. People can hide behind their masks, be who they want and do things they usually wouldn’t consider. It is a fertile setting for destructive behaviors and crime and the backdrop for the first book in the Housekeeper Mystery Series.  

Traveling from Venice, Italy, to Austin, Texas, where the Mardi Gras celebrations are more along the lines of the original intent of stuffing oneself with food and drink, it is the underlying sense of something evil lurking that opens the story on Fat Tuesday in I’m Going to Kill that Cat.  The following morning, Ash Wednesday, before ashes can be distributed in the church, a body is found in the alley next to the rectory. And now, on the first day of Lent, Father Melvyn and Mrs. B. are pulled into a murder investigation, forcing them to confront shocking old scandals and vengeance.