Seven is indeed our lucky number. Milwaukee is the seventh, and last, community to host the acclaimed St. Peter and the Vatican exhibit, a collection of more than 300 items on loan from the celebrated Vatican Museum, some dating back more than 1600 years. The Milwaukee Public Museum will host this exciting exhibit, opening Feb. 4 through May 7, and has done splendidly in preparing for it, promoting it, and arranging it attractively.

For us, this project has a spiritual, religious significance

But people of all faiths, or none at all, will discover here an enlightening treatment of the oldest continual authority in civilization, the papacy. The Successor of St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome, the pope, has been a towering presence and normative influence in world history, especially since the fourth century. Historians have observed that the popes provided the cohesion needed in the Western world after the Roman Empire fell.

Thus, the popes became leaders in the promotion of peace, in projects of diplomacy, justice, and charity, in the discovery of new continents, in the world political scene, especially in what is now Italy (the former Papal States), and in fostering arts, education, and literature.

Sometimes, sadly, the pope’s spiritual identity as Vicar of Christ on earth, and successor of St. Peter, became clouded over by corruption and immorality. It’s all part of the terribly interesting and messy history of the papacy.

We’ve got a box seat on that history during the next few months. Throughout the centuries, the pope has encouraged and sponsored grand projects of art. One thinks, of course, of the Sistine Chapel, or the Pieta. Today, the Vatican sees itself as a custodian of these works of art, holding them as a service to humanity. Critics of the Vatican — always numerous — complain that the church should sell all of this and give it to the poor. Of course, how do you put a price on the Pieta?

The church encouraged art to praise God and to inspire people, not to collect pieces. She holds these works in stewardship for humanity, displaying them as a classroom of beauty, truth, wisdom, and virtue, rather than hiding them or selling them off to private collections.

We have the opportunity to view some of them at our own museum. You will find it colorful, enlightening, intri-guing, uplifting. Peter, the first pope, was a man of faith, love, and passion, a saint. He was also a man of impetuosity, temper, stubbornness, pride, and cowardice, a sinner. Among his 266 successors have been both, saints and sinners.

Come see some evidence of both.