A new film has been released that guides viewers on a journey to the Apostle Peter’s tomb and through his life and his humanity.

The narrative begins back in time to the Constantinian Basilica and, further still, to the Roman necropolis so remarkably preserved beneath Saint Peter’s Basilica, the seat of Catholicism. This kind of graveyard we can warm up to!

Let’s stop there, at the necropolis.

For here we are taken from the first excavations commissioned by Pope Pius XII during the Second World War to the definitive confirmation, under Pope Paul VI—now hear these words well—that Peter’s remains had been definitively—not figuratively nor suppositionally—found there.

This is exquisitely critical because as Jesus states in Matthew 16:17-19, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

The discovery—an actual confirmation by archaeologists—establishes the Catholic Church, not schismatic ones, nor later Protestant ones, and not simply informal charismatic gatherings of early disciples, as The Church, the Rock indicated by Our Savior. Peter’s ossified bones are beneath the basilica! (“Ossified” in this sense is when bone turns stonelike, or like “rock, if you will).

The film retraces an archaeological story rich in spirituality, scientific rigor, and discovery. Let’s be plain: No other Christian denomination can claim this.

The “necropolis,” as the Vatican puts it, reveals itself as “a place that leads us to rediscover a ‘world of the living,’ allowing glimpses into their daily lives and religious sentiments through archaeological, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence unearthed from the ground in a nearly unchanged form after more than 1,600 years.

“In this site, which remained inaccessible and untouched for sixteen centuries beneath the floor of the Constantinian basilica and the massive Renaissance structures, we also rediscover the roots of the Roman Church, which sprang from this land watered by the blood of the Holy Protomartyrs,” says a promotion for it. “Here, Saint Peter was crucified and buried, and here the Pope still resides today, continuing his mission as shepherd of the universal Church. This is where we return to the dawn of Christianity in the West: it is upon the humble tomb of the Galilean Fisherman that the majestic basilica rises, serving both as a treasure chest that preserves it and as a home that gathers all believers.”

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