SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
We associate popes with St. Peter's Basilica, standing between Bernini's great spiral columns under the enormous dome designed by Michelangelo. But as bishop of Rome, the pope's official seat is actually across town behind the altar of St. John Lateran. NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose brings us there as the city prepares for the papal conclave.
JASON DEROSE, BYLINE: The guides describe St. John Lateran as Rome's oldest church founded in the year 324. Today, the white marble basilica greets visitors with tall columns topped by giant sculptures of saints.
CECILIA: We're here on the Basilica of St. John Lateran, mother and head of all churches in Rome and the world.
DEROSE: Sister Cecilia (ph) gives tours in English and Portuguese. The inside of this mother church today, she explains, is mostly the creation of 17th century architect Francesco Borromini. She stands in front of a high-backed, white marble chair with green and red stone inlay.
CECILIA: We are in a very particular place inside this basilica, which is the cathedra of the pope.
DEROSE: Sister Cecilia explains that a cathedra is the chair on which a bishop sits. When the pope - the bishop of Rome - issues an official teaching, he's speaking ex cathedra, or from his chair. This isn't the fourth century cathedra, though - at least, most of it isn't.
CECILIA: We can see detail under the cathedra which is the bas-relief below. This is the only remaining original element of the cathedra - carved into the stone, four animals - an adder, a lion, a dragon and a cockatrice.
DEROSE: A cockatrice is a dragon with the head of a rooster. It's a reference to a verse from Psalm 91. You will tread on the lion and the adder. The young lion and the serpent, you will trample underfoot. The idea is that the head of the church stamps out evil and sin.
The guides here are members of the religious order Missionaries of Divine Revelation. Sister Rebecca (ph) mostly gives tours in Italian and has been welcoming people to St. John Lateran for 20 years.
REBECCA: So for me, for our community, the mission is a great privilege to do tours and explain people the beauty of our faith.
DEROSE: Clad in her full dark-green habit, she highlights two favorite spots. The first is a giant marble altar in the middle of the church that tradition holds contains wood from the table the disciple Peter, the first pope, used here in Rome to celebrate the Lord's Supper. A guard opens little sliding doors - inside, behind a marble grill, what looks like some very old wood. For the second highlight, Sister Rebecca raises her eyes and gestures to a golden image high above the main altar in the church's transept.
REBECCA: In the transetto above, there is the relic of the Last Supper brought here from Jerusalem.
DEROSE: Sister Rebecca describes all of St. John Lateran as a grand reliquary created by Borromini. Picking up the story is Sister Benedetta (ph).
BENEDETTA: Behind a golden picture of the Last Supper, there is the relic of the table where it is believed that Jesus has celebrated the Last Supper. And this piece of wood was brought here to Rome by Constantine's mother, St. Helena, who brought a lot of relics from the Holy Land here to Rome.
DEROSE: Sister Benedetta has been describing the art and architectural and religious wonders of St. John Lateran in English and Spanish and Italian for 14 years to the thousands of people who walk through the doors each day.
BENEDETTA: One of the most beautiful things that a person can tell us is, we enter this church as tourists, and we leave as pilgrims.
DEROSE: Changed by the beauty, by the story, by the journey.
Jason DeRose, NPR News, Rome.
(SOUNDBITE OF JEREMIAH FRAITES'S "CHAMPAGNE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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