Pope Francis prays on the Tomb of St. Peter the Apostle
You know where the tomb of St. Peter is located ?
Where is the apostle so loved by Jesus and considered the first pope of the Catholic Church buried?
His mortal remains are found in the so-called Vatican necropolis, in turn located under the Vatican caves at a depth of about ten meters.
It is a very ancient and suggestive place.
In fact, it is here that there are many sepulchres both pagans and Christians of the Roman era.
Any historical doubt about the arrival in Rome of the fisherman from Galilee, of his preaching and of his martyrdom, vanished over the course of the 40s thanks to the archaeological excavations undertaken with the permission of the then Pope Pius XII.
This great man of faith, in fact, cultured and sensitive, understood that the time had come to give a definitive answer to the age-old doubts and mysteries that surrounded the place of Peter's burial.
And so it was.
At the end of the research, completed in 1949, the tomb of San Pietro was found and identified without any possibility of error.
If you click on this link (which I highly recommend) http://www.centrostudifederici.org, you can read a detailed and precise article on that event.
It is written by Margherita Guarducci, famous Italian archaeologist and epigraphist who participated in the excavations.
An exciting page in our recent history, which has definitively closed a controversy millennial ( Photo from :vaticannews.va).
The short video that you find below (from www.youtube.com), in less than 4 minutes allows a virtual visit inside the Vatican Grottoes, one of the most evocative places in the world: