confessions

Beneath the high altar is the confessio, with a kneeling statue of Pope Pius IX, and the Bethlehem Crypt, built to resemble the cave of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

At the foot of the baldacchino and papal altar is the sunken Confessio, a 17th-century chapel named in honor of the confession of St. Peter that led to his martyrdom here.