The Vatican on Tuesday unveiled newly restored frescoes in the
Catacombs of Priscilla, known for housing the earliest known image of
the Madonna with Child — and frescoes said by some to show women priests
in the early Christian church.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, presided
over the opening of the "Cubicle of Lazzaro," a tiny burial chamber
featuring 4th century images of biblical scenes, the Apostles Peter and
Paul, and one of the early Romans buried there in bunk-bed-like stacks
as was common in antiquity.
The labyrinthine cemetery complex stretching for kilometers
(miles) underneath northern Rome is known as the "Queen of the
catacombs" because it features burial chambers of popes and a tiny,
delicate fresco of the Madonna nursing Jesus dating from around 230-240
A.D., the earliest known image of the Madonna and Child.
More controversially, the catacomb tour features two scenes said by
proponents of the women's ordination movement to show women priests: One
in the ochre-hued Greek Chapel features a group of women celebrating a
banquet, said to be the banquet of the Eucharist.
Another fresco in a
richly decorated burial chamber features a woman, dressed in a dalmatic —
a cassock-like robe — with her hands up in the position used by priests
for public worship.
The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, which includes women
who have been excommunicated by the Vatican for participating in
purported ordination ceremonies, holds the images up as evidence that
there were women priests in the early Christian church — and that
therefore there should be women priests today.
But Fabrizio Bisconti, the superintendent of the Vatican's sacred
archaeology commission, said such a reading of the frescoes was pure
"fable, a legend."
Even though the catacombs' official guide says there
is "a clear reference to the banquet of the Holy Eucharist" in the
fresco, Bisconti said the scene of the banquet wasn't a Eucharistic
banquet but a funeral banquet. He said that even though women were
present they weren't celebrating Mass.
Bisconti said the other fresco of the woman with her hands up in prayer was just that — a woman praying.
"These are readings of the past that are a bit sensationalistic but aren't trustworthy," he said.
Asked about the scenes, Ravasi professed ignorance and referred comment to Bisconti.
The Vatican has restricted the priesthood for men, arguing that Jesus chose only men as his apostles.
The Priscilla catacombs are being featured in a novel blending of
antiquity and modern-technology: For the first time, Google Maps has
gone into the Roman catacombs, providing a virtual tour of the Priscilla
complex available to anyone who can't visit the real thing.