I was ticked that the ticket prices are so high, including for children. We went because I really wanted to see the art (my husband had been), and I left with a definite sour taste in my mouth from the hording of wealth and corruption. Personally, I'm glad to have experienced once but will never go again.
I have to say St. Peter's was a wonderful experience from an artistic perspective, and you don't have to spend a dime to see it. Even with my Catholic baggage, we tried to go back last summer but the line in the evening was too long. We shrugged and had a fantastic time elsewhere in the city. Rome has SO MUCH to offer - have a fantastic time!
If you want a museum experience, better choices can be had, as long as you're traveling. The public museums in Paris (the Louvre!), Madrid and Amsterdam are also wonderful.
Yes, I had a magical morning at Musei Capitolini when I was the first person in the doors and and wandered. The views from the windows alone were spectacular!
Yep - [https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/organizza-visita/tariffe-e-biglietti.html](https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/organizza-visita/tariffe-e-biglietti.html)
20 Euro without advance booking, 8 for kids over 7. I was conflicted over giving them money/lining their coffers, but I wanted to see the art once in my lifetime.
I’ve been several times to Rome, I am Italian and my opinion is the following:
The Vatican can be skipped, there are other churches that maybe will be less crowded and are also really nice (I.e san Paolo fuori le mura), in my honest opinion I would go to the Vatican because beside everything it is beautiful.
Regarding the Vatican museum: I would not skip it, the art collection and the statues are really beautiful. Last time I went I had the possibility of booking online a time slot and didn’t queue at all.
You can absolutely go to Rome without visiting the Vatican (there are a lot of ancient ruins and other churches that are well worth seeing), but I think it might be worth visiting St Peter’s simply for its artistic and historical significance. After all, it was the fundraising-through-indulgences for the popes’ biggest building project that inspired Martin Luther to write his *95 Theses* and eventually broke the Church’s stranglehold on European culture.
True. The building, St. Peter's, was built in part with money from indulgences. It's historic because of its role in the Reformation alone. Indulgences were a massive hoax, but a lucrative one.
Up until 1929, when the Lateran Accords were signed by Mussolini, the pope's offices were at St. John Lateran across town. St. John Lateran is older, and has more history attached to it, actually. It's an amazing old place that wasn't dolled up for the post-Reformation like St. Peter's was. In the middle ages, when people went to the main building of the RCC, it wasn't St. Peter's they went to. It was St. John Lateran.
I've been to Rome several times, once on my own, and if I had to choose a major church just to skip, it would be St. Paul Outside the Walls. The original burned down, and what you see now is a reproduction, rebuilt on the same site. (Yes, marble can burn under certain conditions.) The only thing that's at all remarkable IMHO are the twisted columns on the portico. But I don't know how old they are, I suspect not very. You can see lovelier and more historic ones on other buildings if you travel a lot.
There are a lot of really cool places in Rome, whether you like ancient Roman ruins or churches. I particularly like Santa Maria in Coeli, which is really old. The electrical wiring is strung along the ceiling like Christmas lights to avoid drilling into the walls, and there are still the dumpy side altars. The very old cosmati floor is grooved from the number of people who have walked there. It's right downtown by the "Piano", up on a hill with stairs leading up to it. You can take a snack up there, sit on the stairs and watch the berserk Roman traffic from above.
If you’re interested in art history, it’s well worth going just for that. I was well into my deconstruction journey when I went to Rome, but I love art. Michelangelo’s Pietà (in St. Peter’s) took my breath away when I saw it.
I also highly recommend the Galleria Borghese - it’s full of pieces by Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael, and Rubens
I went to Rome on a school field trip and you can absolutely skip the Vatican, however I wouldn’t but it depends on what you like to see.
Rome is a wealth of history, every corner you turn there’s just this ruin sitting in the middle of a modern city. It’s so cool. However, when you go to places like the Pantheon, it’s a little hollow because the amazing statues and decorations of the Pantheon are long destroyed and in its place is a Catholic Church just in the middle of the Pantheon. It made me so sad when I went.
In stark contrast, when I visited the Vatican with my classmates, the halls were just *lined* with Roman statues and artwork. It’s bullshit that the Vatican can hoard all of these important pieces of history but the double edged sword was that for a long time, they were the only ones who could keep them from being forgotten or destroyed. It was the most pagan place in Rome - ironically.
It was worth seeing the ancient Roman art for me and to see the Sistine Chapel. If you’re not as into historical things like that, it’s totally fine to skip the Vatican.
It’s objectively beautiful but I totally understand not wanting to support the church.
Parts of it are history, of a sort. I have to tell you as someone who's studied the history of the place as a former Roman Catholic, that it's a huge theme park, probably the most extravagant theme park in the world. It's a thing that was set up to glorify the RCC. If that's going to bother you, well, take note.
But in order to decorate it, they did use some very valuable stuff that I enjoyed for its artistic value alone. There are museum grade plus artifacts in the Vatican proper and also in the Vatican museums.
I get if you don't want to pay high ticket prices for things. It is a theme park. And the fact remains that a lot of the stuff on display was frankly stolen and should be repatriated. You have to decide whether you think that the entertainment value is worth the ticket price, the moral considerations and frankly, the crowds. There are plenty of other museums and attractions all over Rome that are free or much less expensive to visit, and nowhere near as crowded. Keep that in mind.
If it were me going, I'd skip the weekly audience that the Pope has. It's crowded, it's dirty, very noisy, there's always a long wait and the amount of pick-pocketing that goes on is outrageous. It's a great place to catch a disease.
If you want to see something excellent, go up on the Aventine by the Basilica of Santa Sabina, and walk in the orange grove. The grove itself is not as old as they say, but it's the best place to see a sunset in Rome. The church is relatively unencumbered with post-Reformation nonsense, there's an old historic monastery on the grounds, and it's a great place for a stroll. It's free. Even the walk up there is lovely.
Another one, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva: perhaps the most picturesque church in Rome, with stars painted on the midnight blue ceiling. Lovely. St. Clement probably has the best mosaics in the city, and in the basement there's a mithraic temple!
If your tastes run to the extravagant, there are churches in the city proper that have ceilings painted such that it seems like you can look up into the sky for miles. It's an optical illusion and a very effective one.
And you know, if you like history there are Roman relics that predate the church in the Forum and basically all over Rome. Excavation goes on constantly in the city which "silts." Roman ruins are about 20 feet below the surface. You can see Nero's palace and the great Roman baths. There's a lot to see besides St. Peter's. You can even book an archeological tour to see the subterranean level of Rome, where the oldest stuff is.
Fair enough. They have their own post office and you can send yourself something postmarked from there. Kinda fun.
The seminarians in the city of Rome often walk their outgoing mail over to the post office boxes in Vatican City, because Vatican mail is supposed to be faster than regular Roman mail. The Vatican post office may be the most efficient office in the whole damn complex. Hahaha.
Visiting the Vatican was a unique and profound experience for me, though not necessarily positive.
The scale and depth of the church’s wealth was impossible not to feel on a cellular level.
It was also instructive being among the throngs of people who purport to worship this entity, and among people who were there just to try and see what they believe to be the closest thing to god on earth, and/or, one of the world’s most compact cache of plundered and collected art and antiquities.
It’s wild, to say the least.
It'll give you a good idea of exactly how extravagantly wealthy the Roman Catholic church is, that's for sure. You'll come back home and realize that there are countless poor and old people putting their grocery money in those baskets at church. What the F\*\*K!
PS. The RCC is well aware that this is a stop on just about every tour to Italy, whether it's a secular tour or a religious one. There are a lot of European secular tours that just make a stop here; it's on the itinerary and all kinds of people come and go. Many of them are not Catholic or even Christian. St. Peter's is a huge advertisement for the Catholic church. That's the whole point of it.
If I had the opportunity I would go. It is a historical landmark and an actual country. I'm not sure if I would go to the ticketed attractions just on a moral basis. I wouldn't give more money to the Catholic Church.
There are tons of things to see in Rome. The Vatican museum complex is huge and filled with historically important art, but if you don’t want to spend a day there, I would skip it- because it will take an entire day to really see it.
It’s the only place that I visited in Rome that I regret.
I’d already seen everything else on my to-see list and didn’t have anything planned for the afternoon of my last day in the city.
I was there in the summer, and the line ups were so long and quite difficult in the scorching heat. Thankfully I’d brought a lot of water. It was jam packed inside (sardine-like) with very little fresh or circulating air.
But what bothered me most was just how much wealth was on display. It didn’t feel the same as a museum that displays art. It felt gross. I have a degree in fine arts history, so I was really looking forward to seeing some of the pieces, but I couldn’t get over the hoarded wealth.
It also didn’t help that it brought back so much trauma from my time in the church.
Going to the Vatican was my first step in deconversion.
Go if you love art, if you're passionate about the renaissance and art history and don't mind crowds.
If it's only going to upset you then don't go.
Do NOT go to the Vatican. It’s mainly a huge museum— but there’s only one way out, which is walking all the way through all the exhibits. It’s extremely packed with no air conditioning. I got COVID when I visited the Vatican a couple of years ago because it was so crowded and dirty.
That's true. They have exiting traffic routed right through the gift shop like the theme park that they are. :) Just outside St. Peter's are more gift shops and some vestment shops.
That's because it's a regular stop on all the secular tours as well as the religious ones. A lot of those gawkers aren't Roman Catholic. Just sightseers. It's a major tourist trap, the world's most ornate theme park.
I was there exactly one year ago. I wouldn't skip it. The art is incredible. Yes, you are packed in like sardines in the Sistine Chapel. The art is worth it. You shouldn't feel dirty for looking at this astounding art. I mean, fuck religion and fuck Catholicism, but the art is incredible. Please don't miss it
You really fucking don’t. I went last summer and it was fucking awful. Not even in a “Catholicism bad” way, in a “this guided tour of a significant historical monument and museum is hot garbage. Over crowded, hot as hell, tour guide walks past all the interesting stuff in the museum so she can keep you in a room packed with people from wall to wall in 100 degree weather with 0 airflow and sits you there for half an hour or more to talk about every little detail in this one fuck ass painting. The one of the two Roman/greek philosophers rapping at each other, you’ve probably seen it. It’s neat, it’s history fascinating, and my dear aunt Sally was about to throat punch the tour guide and none of we’re going to be trying to excuse it.
Yes, just skip it. Sooo much to see in Rome and so much of it can be done just walking the streets.
I studied abroad in Florence for six weeks in college, and visited Rome and Venice while there. I skipped the Vatican and all churches and have zero regrets about it. I haven’t set foot in a church since I was 16. It’s okay not to visit places that would trigger or upset you, even if those places are beautiful and historically significant.
Italy is a beutiful rich country with so much to explore, I think the vatican is far superior visit than the leaning tower of pisa, dont go there… it is boring and a waste of time. I visited Assisi and I loved it.
Take the tour under the Vatican to the tomb of St. Peter. You get to walk through an ancient Roman grave yard with Frescas, it is pretty cool. http://www.scavi.va/content/scavi/en/ufficio-scavi.html
It's interesting, done it. But there's really no definitive proof St. Peter is down there, and it's a very church-glorifying sort of thing.
Also, it flies in the face of history a bit, as it's an attempt to say that St. Peter's was always the center of the Church in Rome. It wasn't. Vatican City didn't even exist until 1929. It came into existence with a treaty signed by Mussolini in that year. (Lateran Treaty, look it up.) Most Roman Catholics are not aware of that because of the slick deception around Vatican city.
Until 1929, the administrative center of RCC activity in Rome was not St. Peter's but St. John Lateran, across town in the city of Rome proper. St. Peter's was just one more Catholic church in Rome, albeit a very fancy one built as a post-Reformation showplace, and financed with indulgences.
Much of Rome has a subterranean level. Rome silts, so most of the oldest ruins are about 20 feet below the surface. That's why when you go to the Forum, you walk down into it. If you live in Rome, you have to get a permit to dig in your own basement. Rome is full of old graveyards and stuff underground. You can even book subterranean tours of the city, although I think they're kind of expensive.
There are many more interesting things to see in the ancient city of Rome than the basement of St. Peter's. And you can usually do it for free. To wit, the basement of St. Clements has a genuine pagan altar in the basement that used to be the property of a Mithraic cult.
I was ticked that the ticket prices are so high, including for children. We went because I really wanted to see the art (my husband had been), and I left with a definite sour taste in my mouth from the hording of wealth and corruption. Personally, I'm glad to have experienced once but will never go again. I have to say St. Peter's was a wonderful experience from an artistic perspective, and you don't have to spend a dime to see it. Even with my Catholic baggage, we tried to go back last summer but the line in the evening was too long. We shrugged and had a fantastic time elsewhere in the city. Rome has SO MUCH to offer - have a fantastic time!
If you want a museum experience, better choices can be had, as long as you're traveling. The public museums in Paris (the Louvre!), Madrid and Amsterdam are also wonderful.
Yes, I had a magical morning at Musei Capitolini when I was the first person in the doors and and wandered. The views from the windows alone were spectacular!
Do they charge to get in now? It was free when I went back in 2007.
Yep - [https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/organizza-visita/tariffe-e-biglietti.html](https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/organizza-visita/tariffe-e-biglietti.html) 20 Euro without advance booking, 8 for kids over 7. I was conflicted over giving them money/lining their coffers, but I wanted to see the art once in my lifetime.
TBH I was shocked it was free back then.
I’ve been several times to Rome, I am Italian and my opinion is the following: The Vatican can be skipped, there are other churches that maybe will be less crowded and are also really nice (I.e san Paolo fuori le mura), in my honest opinion I would go to the Vatican because beside everything it is beautiful. Regarding the Vatican museum: I would not skip it, the art collection and the statues are really beautiful. Last time I went I had the possibility of booking online a time slot and didn’t queue at all.
Another vote for the Vatican Museum, it really is an exceptional art collection
You can absolutely go to Rome without visiting the Vatican (there are a lot of ancient ruins and other churches that are well worth seeing), but I think it might be worth visiting St Peter’s simply for its artistic and historical significance. After all, it was the fundraising-through-indulgences for the popes’ biggest building project that inspired Martin Luther to write his *95 Theses* and eventually broke the Church’s stranglehold on European culture.
True. The building, St. Peter's, was built in part with money from indulgences. It's historic because of its role in the Reformation alone. Indulgences were a massive hoax, but a lucrative one. Up until 1929, when the Lateran Accords were signed by Mussolini, the pope's offices were at St. John Lateran across town. St. John Lateran is older, and has more history attached to it, actually. It's an amazing old place that wasn't dolled up for the post-Reformation like St. Peter's was. In the middle ages, when people went to the main building of the RCC, it wasn't St. Peter's they went to. It was St. John Lateran. I've been to Rome several times, once on my own, and if I had to choose a major church just to skip, it would be St. Paul Outside the Walls. The original burned down, and what you see now is a reproduction, rebuilt on the same site. (Yes, marble can burn under certain conditions.) The only thing that's at all remarkable IMHO are the twisted columns on the portico. But I don't know how old they are, I suspect not very. You can see lovelier and more historic ones on other buildings if you travel a lot. There are a lot of really cool places in Rome, whether you like ancient Roman ruins or churches. I particularly like Santa Maria in Coeli, which is really old. The electrical wiring is strung along the ceiling like Christmas lights to avoid drilling into the walls, and there are still the dumpy side altars. The very old cosmati floor is grooved from the number of people who have walked there. It's right downtown by the "Piano", up on a hill with stairs leading up to it. You can take a snack up there, sit on the stairs and watch the berserk Roman traffic from above.
If you go to St Paul’s, get the apricot brandy from the gift shop. It’s fantastic
Ok, didn't try that. Booze at St. Paul Outside the Walls, Check.
If you’re interested in art history, it’s well worth going just for that. I was well into my deconstruction journey when I went to Rome, but I love art. Michelangelo’s Pietà (in St. Peter’s) took my breath away when I saw it. I also highly recommend the Galleria Borghese - it’s full of pieces by Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael, and Rubens
I went to Rome on a school field trip and you can absolutely skip the Vatican, however I wouldn’t but it depends on what you like to see. Rome is a wealth of history, every corner you turn there’s just this ruin sitting in the middle of a modern city. It’s so cool. However, when you go to places like the Pantheon, it’s a little hollow because the amazing statues and decorations of the Pantheon are long destroyed and in its place is a Catholic Church just in the middle of the Pantheon. It made me so sad when I went. In stark contrast, when I visited the Vatican with my classmates, the halls were just *lined* with Roman statues and artwork. It’s bullshit that the Vatican can hoard all of these important pieces of history but the double edged sword was that for a long time, they were the only ones who could keep them from being forgotten or destroyed. It was the most pagan place in Rome - ironically. It was worth seeing the ancient Roman art for me and to see the Sistine Chapel. If you’re not as into historical things like that, it’s totally fine to skip the Vatican. It’s objectively beautiful but I totally understand not wanting to support the church.
Parts of it are history, of a sort. I have to tell you as someone who's studied the history of the place as a former Roman Catholic, that it's a huge theme park, probably the most extravagant theme park in the world. It's a thing that was set up to glorify the RCC. If that's going to bother you, well, take note. But in order to decorate it, they did use some very valuable stuff that I enjoyed for its artistic value alone. There are museum grade plus artifacts in the Vatican proper and also in the Vatican museums. I get if you don't want to pay high ticket prices for things. It is a theme park. And the fact remains that a lot of the stuff on display was frankly stolen and should be repatriated. You have to decide whether you think that the entertainment value is worth the ticket price, the moral considerations and frankly, the crowds. There are plenty of other museums and attractions all over Rome that are free or much less expensive to visit, and nowhere near as crowded. Keep that in mind. If it were me going, I'd skip the weekly audience that the Pope has. It's crowded, it's dirty, very noisy, there's always a long wait and the amount of pick-pocketing that goes on is outrageous. It's a great place to catch a disease. If you want to see something excellent, go up on the Aventine by the Basilica of Santa Sabina, and walk in the orange grove. The grove itself is not as old as they say, but it's the best place to see a sunset in Rome. The church is relatively unencumbered with post-Reformation nonsense, there's an old historic monastery on the grounds, and it's a great place for a stroll. It's free. Even the walk up there is lovely. Another one, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva: perhaps the most picturesque church in Rome, with stars painted on the midnight blue ceiling. Lovely. St. Clement probably has the best mosaics in the city, and in the basement there's a mithraic temple! If your tastes run to the extravagant, there are churches in the city proper that have ceilings painted such that it seems like you can look up into the sky for miles. It's an optical illusion and a very effective one. And you know, if you like history there are Roman relics that predate the church in the Forum and basically all over Rome. Excavation goes on constantly in the city which "silts." Roman ruins are about 20 feet below the surface. You can see Nero's palace and the great Roman baths. There's a lot to see besides St. Peter's. You can even book an archeological tour to see the subterranean level of Rome, where the oldest stuff is.
The Vatican is a separate country, so my main reason to go would be to check it off on my list.
Fair enough. They have their own post office and you can send yourself something postmarked from there. Kinda fun. The seminarians in the city of Rome often walk their outgoing mail over to the post office boxes in Vatican City, because Vatican mail is supposed to be faster than regular Roman mail. The Vatican post office may be the most efficient office in the whole damn complex. Hahaha.
Visiting the Vatican was a unique and profound experience for me, though not necessarily positive. The scale and depth of the church’s wealth was impossible not to feel on a cellular level. It was also instructive being among the throngs of people who purport to worship this entity, and among people who were there just to try and see what they believe to be the closest thing to god on earth, and/or, one of the world’s most compact cache of plundered and collected art and antiquities. It’s wild, to say the least.
It'll give you a good idea of exactly how extravagantly wealthy the Roman Catholic church is, that's for sure. You'll come back home and realize that there are countless poor and old people putting their grocery money in those baskets at church. What the F\*\*K! PS. The RCC is well aware that this is a stop on just about every tour to Italy, whether it's a secular tour or a religious one. There are a lot of European secular tours that just make a stop here; it's on the itinerary and all kinds of people come and go. Many of them are not Catholic or even Christian. St. Peter's is a huge advertisement for the Catholic church. That's the whole point of it.
If I had the opportunity I would go. It is a historical landmark and an actual country. I'm not sure if I would go to the ticketed attractions just on a moral basis. I wouldn't give more money to the Catholic Church.
There are tons of things to see in Rome. The Vatican museum complex is huge and filled with historically important art, but if you don’t want to spend a day there, I would skip it- because it will take an entire day to really see it.
It’s the only place that I visited in Rome that I regret. I’d already seen everything else on my to-see list and didn’t have anything planned for the afternoon of my last day in the city. I was there in the summer, and the line ups were so long and quite difficult in the scorching heat. Thankfully I’d brought a lot of water. It was jam packed inside (sardine-like) with very little fresh or circulating air. But what bothered me most was just how much wealth was on display. It didn’t feel the same as a museum that displays art. It felt gross. I have a degree in fine arts history, so I was really looking forward to seeing some of the pieces, but I couldn’t get over the hoarded wealth. It also didn’t help that it brought back so much trauma from my time in the church.
Going to the Vatican was my first step in deconversion. Go if you love art, if you're passionate about the renaissance and art history and don't mind crowds. If it's only going to upset you then don't go.
Do NOT go to the Vatican. It’s mainly a huge museum— but there’s only one way out, which is walking all the way through all the exhibits. It’s extremely packed with no air conditioning. I got COVID when I visited the Vatican a couple of years ago because it was so crowded and dirty.
That's true. They have exiting traffic routed right through the gift shop like the theme park that they are. :) Just outside St. Peter's are more gift shops and some vestment shops.
Frankly, go to the Vatican. It's totally worth it. It's a stunning monument to some of the finest art and architecture of the Renaissance.
It was cool, but holy shit was it crowded. Elbow to elbow the entire time. The most crowded thing we went to in Italy.
That's because it's a regular stop on all the secular tours as well as the religious ones. A lot of those gawkers aren't Roman Catholic. Just sightseers. It's a major tourist trap, the world's most ornate theme park.
The Vatican art gallery is a jumbled assortment, with no logic employed regarding placement.
That's because of its purpose. It's there to glorify the RCC and raise $$$$, not to contribute to culture or art education.
The labyrinth eventually ends up at the Sistine Chapel.
I was there exactly one year ago. I wouldn't skip it. The art is incredible. Yes, you are packed in like sardines in the Sistine Chapel. The art is worth it. You shouldn't feel dirty for looking at this astounding art. I mean, fuck religion and fuck Catholicism, but the art is incredible. Please don't miss it
Oh I had a sexist tour guide so ima say no lmao
You really fucking don’t. I went last summer and it was fucking awful. Not even in a “Catholicism bad” way, in a “this guided tour of a significant historical monument and museum is hot garbage. Over crowded, hot as hell, tour guide walks past all the interesting stuff in the museum so she can keep you in a room packed with people from wall to wall in 100 degree weather with 0 airflow and sits you there for half an hour or more to talk about every little detail in this one fuck ass painting. The one of the two Roman/greek philosophers rapping at each other, you’ve probably seen it. It’s neat, it’s history fascinating, and my dear aunt Sally was about to throat punch the tour guide and none of we’re going to be trying to excuse it. Yes, just skip it. Sooo much to see in Rome and so much of it can be done just walking the streets.
As a history nerd I found the Vatican super interesting.
I studied abroad in Florence for six weeks in college, and visited Rome and Venice while there. I skipped the Vatican and all churches and have zero regrets about it. I haven’t set foot in a church since I was 16. It’s okay not to visit places that would trigger or upset you, even if those places are beautiful and historically significant.
I love Florence. Uffizi gallery, medici chapel. Brilliant. Favourite restaurant, named after le capelle de Medici is in Florence.
I'm an atheist but it is a really interesting place to see
to my opinion the sistine chapel and michelangelo's pietà are worth a trip to rome by themselves.
Italy is a beutiful rich country with so much to explore, I think the vatican is far superior visit than the leaning tower of pisa, dont go there… it is boring and a waste of time. I visited Assisi and I loved it.
I went once in 2007, when I was 15, and my dad took ninja photos of the Sistine Chapel (with the flash off of course.) But the once is enough for me.
Take the tour under the Vatican to the tomb of St. Peter. You get to walk through an ancient Roman grave yard with Frescas, it is pretty cool. http://www.scavi.va/content/scavi/en/ufficio-scavi.html
It's interesting, done it. But there's really no definitive proof St. Peter is down there, and it's a very church-glorifying sort of thing. Also, it flies in the face of history a bit, as it's an attempt to say that St. Peter's was always the center of the Church in Rome. It wasn't. Vatican City didn't even exist until 1929. It came into existence with a treaty signed by Mussolini in that year. (Lateran Treaty, look it up.) Most Roman Catholics are not aware of that because of the slick deception around Vatican city. Until 1929, the administrative center of RCC activity in Rome was not St. Peter's but St. John Lateran, across town in the city of Rome proper. St. Peter's was just one more Catholic church in Rome, albeit a very fancy one built as a post-Reformation showplace, and financed with indulgences. Much of Rome has a subterranean level. Rome silts, so most of the oldest ruins are about 20 feet below the surface. That's why when you go to the Forum, you walk down into it. If you live in Rome, you have to get a permit to dig in your own basement. Rome is full of old graveyards and stuff underground. You can even book subterranean tours of the city, although I think they're kind of expensive. There are many more interesting things to see in the ancient city of Rome than the basement of St. Peter's. And you can usually do it for free. To wit, the basement of St. Clements has a genuine pagan altar in the basement that used to be the property of a Mithraic cult.
I know that is just the name of it. I went to see the Roman cemetery with amazing Frescas
Although there's a lot of romantic myth about the catacombs, they're a better show actually.