The Bible as most Christians know it wasn’t formally settled into one agreed-upon list of books until the Council of Rome in AD 382, later confirmed at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling took Michelangelo about four years to paint, most of it done on his back atop a custom-built scaffold of his own design.

The Vatican Apostolic Library was formally founded in 1475, but it holds manuscripts far older, some going back over a thousand years before that.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux never left her convent and died at just 24, yet she’s one of only four women ever named a Doctor of the Church.

St. Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to die in place of a stranger at Auschwitz. That man lived to attend Kolbe’s canonization decades later.

Padre Pio reportedly bore the wounds of the stigmata for fifty years, the longest documented case in the Church’s history.

The word “Mass” comes from the Latin dismissal at the end of the liturgy, “Ite, missa est,” roughly, “Go, it is sent.”

Priests wear different colored vestments, green, purple, red, white, sometimes rose, to mark the liturgical season, a system that developed gradually over centuries rather than all at once.

Canon law actually specifies what the Eucharist must be made of: unleavened wheat bread and pure grape wine. Nothing else qualifies for the sacrament.

Vatican City is the smallest sovereign country in the world, just over 100 acres, smaller than most golf courses.

It has its own postal system and radio station, and for decades ran its own train station too.

The Swiss Guard has protected the pope since 1506, making it one of the oldest military units still in continuous existence anywhere in the world.

The Rosary’s 150 Hail Marys echo the 150 Psalms. It developed over centuries partly as a way for those who couldn’t read Scripture themselves to still pray through it.

Holy water fonts at the entrance of a church are there for a reason beyond ritual, they’re meant to recall your own Baptism every time you walk in.

The fish symbol, the ichthys, was used by early Christians in Rome as a quiet way to identify each other during periods of persecution.