AN EXCERPT: My Fellowship at The Vatican Archives

I went to The Vatican in January 2023 to study Louisiana Catholic history. I got more than I hoped for.

I’m working on a book about my time spent studying Cajun-Creole Catholic records at The Vatican. It will be part factual reporting, part memoir.

Here’s a bit of my story:

(all photos are mine except those explicitly stated)

Vatican gardens, Jan. 2023

I wake up disoriented, nauseous, and severely confused for a moment, but no worse than any morning I had in college where I probably should’ve gotten my stomach pumped.

I stumble across the room in pitch blackness, glasses smudged to hell and nearly useless at this point, but I manage to fling the windows open. Old decrepit things, wood painted over so many times that the gumminess of it makes it stick to the hundred year old window with a heavy metal lock that latched in a way I can’t comprehend with or without the jet lag.

I’m alone overlooking the city of Rome, sitting on the windowsill of the tiny room I’ve got in the seminary. Nothing is on the walls save for the most modest crucifix I’ve ever seen and a painting of a saint I can’t identify offhand. My immediate thought was that he was kinda hot for the 1500s, and the thought following it was an apology I didn’t really mean.

Portrait of a Saint, c.1500, Jan. 2023

It’s a barren room, cold and a little sterile, but nothing worse than my first dorm. It was a little haunting, the sheer amount of marble steps and Post-Renaissance statues of icons at every turn, but the fear I should’ve felt was quelled by fascination.

When I finally pry the windows open, I’m greeted with the early morning sunrise over Gianicolo Hill. A real sunrise. The way I saw the sunrise at my Maw Maw’s house as a kid– real and radiant.

I’m almost in a state of disbelief as I rest my head on the windowpane. I look out at the sky, attempting to absorb as much of it as I can into my memory. I rub the sleep out of my eyes because I have to still be dreaming. But nope. It was there. Warm and rich and—

Holy shit there’s a rainbow, too.

Rainbow over Gianicolo Hill, Jan. 2023

It rises and falls just over the jewel toned houses on the hill, stretching from the rooftops up into the cloudless sky. The oranges and yellows and ochres and reds of the homes’ facades wouldn’t be out of place in the French Quarter back home, and suddenly, I realize just how European a city New Orleans is. Intricate wrought iron fences adorn balconies that overlook cobblestone streets that aren’t nearly wide enough for the modern crowds that traipse them.

Gianicolo Hill, Jan. 2023

I wonder what my ancestors were doing when the city was being built. I’ve traced back enough to know that my ancestors on my father’s side come from Calabria and Sciacca, far enough off in either direction. I imagine them laboring, working with their hands in ways I now feel the urge to pay tribute to.

My own shake a little as I remember what I’m actually doing here. It’s more than just a trip to the Old Country, it’s a personal mission of preservation that I embarked on for them.

With them, they whisper to me.

The time comes to summon my courage and follow the Giallo Brick Road.

Trevi Fountain, Jan. 2023

******

Later that day, I find myself in a seminar held in Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, the immaculate church built by Borromini where the Vatican Archives began and where State Archives of Rome are now held.

I’m enthralled as I listen to the archivist explain how to preserve thousand year old folios in the warmest Italian accent I’ve ever heard.

State Archives of Rome, Jan. 2023

I’d done my research on everything humanly possible about Louisiana Catholic history before I came, particularly my own Cajun-Creole Catholic ancestry, in hopes of taking some enlightening information home to the people I love most.

My best friend and grew up in the same hometown in Louisiana. Tiny Catholic schools riddle the not-so-rural-anymore area, and we went to neighboring ones before we met. There’s always been a strong connection between us, but in my research, I discovered something incredible.

She and I have an ancestral line that dates back to the Avignon Papacy.

That’s an insane sentence to write, but with a new, desperately-needed methamphetamine script pumping through my veins and through my neurons, I was able to trace us back together eight hundred years.

Both of our something-great grandfathers served as Cardinals under the same Pope in Avignon in the 1200s.

Her Roman ancestors, the Colonnas, apparently got excommunicated from the church after a while for trying to kill one of the Popes, so they dropped one of the “n”s and the Colonas found their way to South Louisiana. (Her grandfather jokes that he’ll never tell which of the “n’s” they dropped on the boat over.)

How our ancestors found their way to the same small Louisiana town? Who knows at this point?

Who knows how her Roman ancestors and my French ancestors lived and worked under the same roof, to then be split apart for nearly a millennium?

Her father’s family’s excommunication, some of her other ancestors escaping the Holocaust, and my own fleeing the Acadian genocide, all somehow ended up bringing the two of us together– an eight minute drive apart.

State Archives of Rome, Jan. 2023

I’ve believed in fate in various ways throughout my life. I’ve believed that the troublesome things that have plagued me have led me to where I need to be, and I’ve believed if you’re meant to meet someone, nothing will keep you apart.

The moment we met at 16 years old, it was like we’d known each other all our lives, and maybe a little lagniappe, a little extra.

We can speak without words, even a thousand miles apart across the country. I think of her and she texts me. I send her the worst tweet I’ve ever seen and then see that she sent it to me at the exact same time. She’s in my heart more than my head. She just exists with me.

Fate brought us together somehow. Fate brought me to the State Archives of Rome, and now I’m sitting in a library sculpted during the Renaissance watching the head archivist sift through paintings and drawings from the 11th century and it all feels kind of fake.

Inside the Vatican Archives, held upstairs in the Great Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, January 2023

My phone buzzes in my pocket and it feels almost wrong to have such an obnoxious thing in the library Pope Alexander had Borromini build to recreate the Library of Alexandria.

But at the same time, I have to send her a picture somehow.

Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, Jan. 2023

My attention zones in on the book the archivist is reading from. He notes that the blueprints for a community hospital built by a wealthy Cardinal are held here, and shows us the sketches while telling the story of the family.

The Cardinal noted in his will that this hospital shall always be free and open to the public, and if at any point the Roman government should change that, the property would be revoked and given back to the family. The Italian government recently made that change.

Now that’s a story. I write it in my notes app in the quickest shorthand I can, and just as I think to myself that I didn’t catch the name, the archivist speaks again.

“The family of the Cardinal Colonna.”

Biblio Alexandrina, State Archives of Rome, Jan. 2023

******

The crypts should be frightening. Descending 40 feet underground through pitch black brick tunnels and winding staircases, tombs of various prominent Ancient Roman families are illuminated, warmly but faintly, behind thick panes of glass. Huge stone coffins lie inside a room carved into the brick. Completely intact, startlingly visible.

Where I’m standing was hidden beneath the earth before Constantine built the original St. Peter’s Basilica around the year 333 AD, the tour guide says. 333 is my lucky number. It’s tattooed on me.

I gaze into the elaborate papal tombs, imagining what my own ancestors’ tombs look like.

Nothing like this, a voice tells me, and I laugh a little despite myself.

St. Peter’s Papal tomb, courtesy of The Holy See

We descend lower, deeper and darker than before, the passages we walk through getting tighter.

I’ve been claustrophobic all my life. Somehow I’m able to breathe down here.

The heels of my boots click against the cobbled walkway under my feet, and I briefly remember that I’d only bought them a couple days ago because the ones I packed gave me blisters. Two day old leather on two thousand year old stone.

The hair on my neck stands up. I can suddenly feel every vertebrae in my spine. I shake it off like a dog when it hears thunder, and I’m struck with the thought that I’m so far beneath the ground that I wouldn’t be able to hear a thunderstorm if I tried.

Vatican Catacombs, courtesy of The Holy See

“That little red light,” the tour guide says, and my attention snaps back. It’s late and my Adderall is wearing off, but I’m fighting the comedown.

“Just in that passage, can you see it?” She asks, and I stand on tiptoes to look up at it.

Just across from me, nestled in deep, black brick is a cutout hole the size of a small window. It’s about the width of a bottle, I note. Or an urn.

Within the opening, there is a gleaming red light. I’m drawn to it like a moth, trying desperately to search inside for…something. Anything. But it’s empty. Curiously, I look up again just in time to hear our guide.

“The red light,” she notes, “indicates the place St. Peter’s remains were found.”

I’m silent for a long while as she explains they were excavated in the early 1940s, and archaeologists discovered the tomb’s location through ancient graffiti that was scratched into the walls descending through the crypts.

Proclamations of I’m with Peter or Peter lies here were etched into stone like breadcrumbs, and they followed it directly to the source.

I’m still attempting to process just where exactly on Earth I’m standing while I hear about the verification of the remains. I find myself tearfully staring into the gaping earth– where the remains are no longer even kept– like Cameron staring into that Seurat painting in Ferris Bueller.

St. Peter’s Tomb, Catacombs, courtesy of The Holy See

Art and history invoke the same feelings in me. Like when you see a painting you’re enraptured by and your mind’s eye lights up but you can’t quite come up with words for it. It’s a feeling energetically, it’s a feeling in your neurons that you can’t explain away.

The feeling overtakes me as I stand face to face with the tomb of the first Pope, my eyes level with the place his urn would lay.

I’m rendered speechless, thoughtless, which was a first. I sit with this feeling. It’s… I’m uncomfortable.

For a moment, I’m angry. For reasons anyone else would be. I’m angry because I wonder why my loved ones have had to suffer so much. I wonder why these tragedies happen every day.

I wonder why did we have to suffer through Katrina? Why do these innocent children keep dying? Why? Why, God da–

A shiver wracks my body. I stop breathing.

Not even the tour guide speaks.

I summon my courage and straighten my spine. And even though I’m suddenly stricken with fear, I stand at the tomb of St. Peter half-defiant.

I don’t know what the other half is. But this half is angry. This half is afraid. This half is desperate and confused.

This half begs why do you let me suffer when everyone tells me you love me?

A jolt shoots up my spine.

Why have I had to suffer so much? My personal struggles are an afterthought here.

How could you love me and let me hurt?

I’m not alone here. I’m surrounded by fifteen others in the group. Kind people, intelligent people, good people. People I wouldn’t want to feel in front of.

So I hold it in. I grit my teeth and cross myself, head chest shoulder shoulder amen, just like they taught me in Sunday School.

St. Peter’s Square, January 2023

I remember being young in bits and pieces. But I remember the good feelings the most.

I look into the empty tomb again and a resigned tear falls down my cheek.

I don’t hate you, I think. I fear you.

I feel another shiver across my shoulders, like the one that shot up my spine. This one’s warmer though. I don’t fear this one. In the same strange way I don’t fear the tight space I’m cramped in.

I feel years of tension release from my shoulders. I can’t explain it. It’s like marionette strings were cut. I feel like I just finished running a marathon. I haven’t moved, but it’s like all the fear and anger in my body bursts. I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but I relax.

I was neurotic as a six year old in Catholic school. Sitting in church, I was anxious in the pews. I mentally rehearsed stand sit kneel stand sing sit stand Communion kneel until the words lost all meaning. (That’s called “semantic satiation” if you were curious.)

I tried to keep every thought in line because God hears everything in your head and he knows when you’re misbehaving. The concept of omnipotence doesn’t fare super great in the mind of a glorified toddler with OCD, for those wondering.

Even then, I never felt comfortable with blind faith, blind trust, blind anything. I used to ask my Sunday School if there were fossil records to corroborate the timeline of Noah’s Ark.

As comical as that image is, I realize at this moment that maybe this mindset is what led me here. If one half of me is defiant, the other half is insatiable. Starving to know why.

Life isn’t fair. None of this is fair. It hurts and it hurts and it hurts. The only thing that can give me any sense of certainty– and I’ve always felt it in my gut– is that the world must exist in balance. If I can’t let myself have blind faith that everything will be okay, I’ll let myself have the understanding of karma. Of yin and yang. Of bittersweetness.

I’ll also have the understanding that I will never be satisfied. I’ll always be searching.

Like right now. I’m searching through the darkness of Peter’s humble tomb and I see that warm red flash. I feel the heat of it in my chest.

St. Peter’s Basilica, January 2023

I imagine Peter. I imagine a fisherman two thousand years ago.

My Paw Paw is a fisherman. He used to take me catfishing down in the bayou by their old house before Katrina. I remember him teaching me how to reel them in, how he learned from everyone who came before him.

I remember that feeling of peace. That feeling of a loving grandfather.

I remember what he gave up for my grandmother, then my mother, and then me.

I imagine him beside me here. I imagine being six years old again, and I imagine him holding me here.

“I got ya,” he’d say, hitching me up on his back. “I ain’t gon’ let you fall.”

He never did.

A real tear falls now, one I don’t hold back.

I perform the sign of the cross again, but it feels more sincere this time. Less obligatory. More honorific. Head chest shoulder shoulder. I move to kiss the tips of the fingers I crossed myself with, and I taste the salt of my tear.

I believe you.

******

There’s no one here. Save for scattered priests, nuns of various orders, and the odd hidden security guard, I am alone in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Alone in front of Michelangelo’s Pieta, St. Peter’s Basilica, January 2023

It’s late January, the holiday crowds have filed out and the Easter crowds have not yet filed in. I haven’t been in a church in years, but here, in the sprawling vastness of Vatican City’s crown jewel, where I am completely alone, it feels like it’s the right place to be.

I stare up at the ceiling agape, standing in the center of the church under the massive dome. I’ve studied every inch of this place on my own, read every book and floor plan on how it was undertaken, and I thought I was prepared.

I can know the Basilica’s size (247,000 square feet), how long it took to complete (120 years), and whatever other technicalities that’ll earn me a spot on Jeopardy eventually (91 Popes are buried under the Basilica, all the paintings inside are actually mosaics, Borromini and Michelangelo hated each other, etc.)

Vatican Gardens, January 2023

But to be here, really be here in the silence, with the smells of Holy Water and ancient marble and lingering incense, I begin to feel the spirit of all my ancestors who came before me. The women who were forced to never speak, let alone travel in the pursuit of knowledge.

I feel them, each one of them, nestling in my heart. My Sicilian grandmothers, my Cajun grandmothers, my Creole grandmothers, my Irish grandmothers, my Native grandmothers, My African grandmothers, my grandmothers who I have never even dreamed of knowing– they’re here.

I take a deep breath and look around. Completely alone. Again.

I freeze when I notice where I am. Just across from me, and just beneath my feet, rests the tomb of St. Peter.

St. Peter’s Tomb, St. Peter’s Basilica, January 2023

A simple wooden kneeler faces the elaborate altar, emblazoned with rows of candles and a spiraling staircase that descends into the depths of the crypts below. It’s painfully humble looking– one single wooden kneeler before the grave of the first Pope.

I suddenly remember my ancestors, both Catholic and not, who lit candles for me before I was born, who placed the visage of the Virgin Mary everywhere they could to protect their homes, and who, despite having nothing, were brilliantly rich in spirit.

I imagine my first grandmother to come to Louisiana. I imagine her fear, bringing a baby on a refugee ship to flee an ethnic cleansing, praying to God that her child survives. I imagine her in the first church she stepped foot in in Cajun country. I imagine– not Catholicism as I know it today– but the folk Catholicism she practiced. I imagine the way she might pray to Saint Peter to protect her at the crossroads of the unknown, perhaps at the same sort of simple wooden kneeler, maybe carved from a cypress tree grown along the swamp she made a home in.

“This circa-1960s postcard contains the Conrad S. Lanz poem that has moved the Crucifix Fish from Gulf Coast lore into a broader world of Easter and good-luck folklore, Kat Bergeron.” Biloxi Sun Herald.

I look at the elaborate tomb, then back to the kneeler. I feel shivers wrack my body. She’s with me. She’s here. And I can hand-deliver her prayer.

I fall to my knees and weep. Unashamed, unabashed, unafraid.

I am alone.

Michelangelo’s Pieta, St. Peter’s Basilica, January 2023