M any of us wonder what the new millennium has in store for the church. Church membership is falling behind population growth. A more irritable mood penetrates society.
Tax laws are more aggressive toward the church.
Two images from that trip give me hope for the future. As we descended beneath the papal altar at St. Peter's in Rome, we went back through time. Layer after layer of buildings had been built on earlier ruins, so our descent took us back to the original Roman road that once ran beside an imperial racecourse. Tradition places Peter's execution somewhere near here. As we peered into these tombs from the first 200 years of Christian history, we discovered one that had a small mosaic gleaming in its ceiling.