The eight-minute 3D film, using art from the basilica and from the Vatican Museums, will be projected onto the facade every 15 minutes from 9 pm to 11 pm on 2 to 16 October. The narration will be in Italian with subtitles in English.

"What are the features of the church? What is its true face? That of the pope? The scandals? Its missionaries? Its doctrine and catechism? Its social commitment?" asked Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of the basilica.

While all those are part of the church, the cardinal told reporters on 20 September "sometimes you need to dust off the mirror" and provide a clearer, more basic image of the church to both believers and visitors, which is why the basilica wants to present to the public the life and faith of St Peter.

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The relics were found under the floor in clay pots in the 1,000-year-old Church of Santa Maria in Cappella in the district of Trastevere. Read more

This quiz is one of the things the search came up with. Read more

With the words, "And I tell you, Peter, that on this rock I will build my church," Jesus appoints Peter as head of his new church and charges him with the responsibility to build it from the ground (Matt. 16).

Throughout the centuries, biblical scholars and theologians have taken these words to imply that Jesus gave unique authority to Peter.

But Catholics understand Jesus' words differently: The new Christian church would be physically built on Peter's remains.

There's not much mention of Peter's eventual fate in the New Testament, but John's gospel says Jesus told Peter that, when he became old, Peter would "stretch out his hands."

John's gospel interprets this as an allusion to Peter's death, by which he "glorified God" (21:18), implying Peter was crucified and died a martyr. An apocryphal text, the Acts of Peter, even claims Peter was crucified upside down.

In 2013 Pope Francis publicly displayed what the church believes to be the genuine bones of St. Peter, discovered during excavations below St. Peter's Basilica in the 1940-50s.

While most scholars agree that archaeologists did uncover Peter's tomb, the story of the bones is quite perplexing. In addition to a complex archaeological site, secrecy and miscommunication at the time of the excavations have complicated the findings.

Over the centuries, the belief that St. Peter was buried under the Vatican supported early papal authority and established Vatican City as the physical center of Catholicism. And this belief is not just legend or tradition, but based in a large part on historical sources.

The Roman historian Tacitus writes in The Annals that the emperor Nero blamed Christians for setting Rome on fire as a pretext for savagely persecuting them. Furthermore, the church historian Eusebius specifies in Church History that Peter was crucified under Nero.

Other ancient writers corroborate—Peter was probably crucified under Emperor Nero, most likely between 64 and 67. This probably took place in Nero's circus, or horse track, located on what we now know as Vatican Hill. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by Matt Tedeschi, a faculty member in the religious studies department at St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago, in U.S.Catholic.
• Image: Ufficio Scavi

Pope Francis prayed before the bones, which were revealed in a bronze case near the alter at a mass celebrating the end of the Year of Faith in St. Peter's Square, the Associated Press reports.

The remains were discovered in a monument unearthed during an excavation of St. Peter's Basilica after the death Pope Pius XI in 1939.

The relics have long been a source of debate, with some archeologists and theologians vehemently denying their legitimacy.

No pope has definitively declared that the fragments belong to the Apostle Peter, but Pope Paul VI in 1968 said fragments found in the necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica were "identified in a way that we can consider convincing." Some archaeologists dispute the finding.

The relics were discovered during excavations begun under St. Peter's Basilica in the years after the 1939 death of Pope Pius XI, according to the 2012 book by veteran Vatican correspondent Bruno Bartoloni, "The Ears of the Vatican."

Sources

AP/The Guardian
The Washington Post
Time
Image: Getty Images/The Washington Post

It is the first time in history, the bones, believed to be those of first Bishop of Rome's bones will leave the Vatican Grotto and be on display for public veneration.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president for the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, made the announcement in an editorial published in the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, however exact details are not yet clear.

The bones were discovered during excavations of the necropolis under St Peter's Basilica in the 1940s near a monument erected in the fourth century to honour St. Peter.

No pope has ever declared the bones to be authentic.

Scientific tests were conducted on the bones in the 1950s and '60s, and Pope Paul VI said in 1968 that the "relics" of St. Peter had been "identified in a way which we can hold to be convincing."

The Year of Faith concludes on November 24, Feast of Christ the King.

Sources

• Rome Reports
• CNS
• Image: Flickr

Now there is a vibrant Catholic culture, with liturgies celebrated both facing the people and facing the altar, Eucharistic adoration, a host of parish organisations, a music ministry, 75 altar boys and a Corpus Christi procession through the neighbourhood that attracts 1000 people.

How the change occurred is told in a new documentary.

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