Actor Chris Pratt joins Pope Leo in new documentary about St. Peter's long-lost remains
A Vatican-collaborative documentary narrated by actor Chris Pratt explores the discovery of St. Peter’s remains beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. The film premiered at the Rome Film Festival ahead of the basilica’s 400th anniversary and is expected to reach wider audiences in early 2027. Pratt describes St. Peter as an imperfect, human figure whose strength came through faith and grace; he said making the film was personally meaningful. The documentary recounts excavations begun in 1939 and the later interpretation of an inscription read as “Peter is here,” alongside the discovery of human remains believed to be his.
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A Vatican-collaboration documentary narrated by actor Chris Pratt retraces the discovery of remains identified by the Catholic Church as those of St. Peter. The film combines the archaeological history beneath St. Peter’s Basilica with reflections on Peter’s human weakness and his role as an early Christian leader.
Pétros Ení: Discovering the Origins premiered at the Rome Film Festival on Oct. 16, ahead of the 400th anniversary of the basilica’s consecration. Produced by AF Films with the Vatican Dicastery for Communications and the Fabric of St. Peter, the roughly one-hour film was released in Spain on Oct. 9 and is expected to become more widely available in early 2027.
Pratt, who was raised Catholic, narrates the film and describes Peter as “an imperfect man” whose strength came through faith and grace. He said making the documentary was a deeply personal experience, although he has often kept his distance from religious institutions.
Director Paula Ortiz said she hoped the film would convey how St. Peter’s Basilica “defines and crystallizes our civilization.” The production says it did not use artificial intelligence; the article describes its visual style as theatrical but says its ornate narration can slow the film’s pace.
The documentary follows Pratt from the basilica into its rarely visited underground areas, where the remains of an ancient Roman burial ground were uncovered. Pope Pius XII ordered excavations in 1939, and workers entered the site in 1941 for the first time in more than 1,600 years.
Initial discoveries suggested the burial place of Peter, but his remains were not immediately found. The article says it took epigrapher Margherita Guarducci about a decade to interpret an inscription reading “Petrus Eni,” or “Peter is here”; workers later found a wooden box containing bones believed to belong to a man in his 60s, with the remains missing their feet.
According to Catholic tradition, Peter was crucified upside down during the persecution of Christians under Emperor Nero. The article recounts that his remains were believed to have been buried with others, then recovered, wrapped in valuable cloth and secretly venerated; in 1968, Pope Paul VI announced that the relics of Peter had been found.
The film concludes with Pope Leo XIV descending toward Peter’s burial place. He connects the site to the basilica’s location, saying the ground is “soaked with the blood of the apostle,” and describes the succession of Peter’s successors as a “fragile chain.”
Historical evidence, tradition, and the veneration of apostolic relics in Catholic theology
Catholic theology treats apostolic relics as material reminders of the Apostles and of the Church’s historical continuity, not as objects possessing divine power in themselves. Their veneration is directed through the relic to the saint honored in it; it is not the worship owed to God alone. Historical testimony and archaeology can support claims about early Christian burial places and devotion, but they do not always settle whether particular remains now shown are certainly those of a given Apostle.
Relics matter because Christian faith concerns the body as well as the soul. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints explains that the bodies of saints were “the living temple of the Holy Spirit and the instrument of their holiness,” and are destined for resurrection. Relics are honored, then, not as magical objects but because they belonged to people whose lives were made holy by God.
Catholic theology distinguishes this veneration from latria, the worship owed to God. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the honor given to relics as relative veneration: it passes beyond the physical object to the saint whom it recalls. That source also explains the traditional reasoning that the body is honored because of its relationship to the saint’s life and its future hope of resurrection. This distinction is essential: a relic is not an independent source of grace, nor does Catholic devotion require believing that every reported cure or extraordinary event is genuine.
The biblical pattern cited in the same article includes healings associated with objects connected to holy people, such as cloths associated with Paul and Peter’s shadow, and the story of a dead man revived after touching Elisha’s bones. These examples are offered as signs that God may act through material things; they do not mean that matter has divine power apart from God.
The evidence for early veneration of Peter and Paul in Rome includes more than later devotional tradition. In a 1968 address, Paul VI cites Eusebius’s account that the names of Peter and Paul were still read on their Roman tombs, and the testimony of Gaius, a Christian writer active around the time of Pope Zephyrinus (199–217). Gaius said he could show the “trophies” of the Apostles at the Vatican and on the Ostian Way. Paul VI interprets “trophies” in this context as their tombs and says these places were venerated by the second century.
That testimony is historically significant because it places the Roman memory of the Apostles’ burial places relatively early. The Catholic Encyclopedia likewise reports that Gaius’s testimony is evidence for the existence of the tombs by the beginning of the second century and describes them as pilgrimage sites during periods of persecution. Paul VI uses these local and material memories to encourage love and fidelity toward the Apostles, while presenting them as traces of their presence and mission—not as substitutes for their teaching.
The historical record also includes uncertainty. The Catholic Encyclopedia explicitly says the history of Peter’s and Paul’s remains is difficult: early authorities may appear to conflict, and the tradition associated with the catacombs of St Sebastian raises questions about whether, and when, the bodies were moved. Its proposed explanation is a historical theory, not a claim that every detail is beyond dispute. The available material therefore supports an early Roman tradition of veneration at apostolic tombs more clearly than it proves the complete chain of custody of every surviving fragment.
Catholic tradition is not merely a collection of later stories, and historical criticism is not an enemy of faith. The International Theological Commission says that Scripture is both a historical record and an inspired document, and that it is received and interpreted within the Church’s living Tradition. At the same time, it expressly rejects an approach that would make historical investigation impossible: theological interpretation does not eliminate the demands of historical method.
Applied to relics, this means distinguishing several questions that can otherwise be conflated:
Evidence for one does not automatically settle the others. An early tomb tradition may be historically important even if the identity of particular bones remains uncertain. Conversely, uncertainty over a specific relic does not by itself disprove the wider tradition of apostolic presence or the Church’s teaching about the Apostles.
The same care is needed when relics are invoked as evidence for apostolic succession. Material remembrance and the transmission of apostolic ministry are related aspects of the Church’s memory, but they are not the same kind of evidence. The Commission presents succession within the wider life of a Church that confesses the apostolic faith; the history of a tomb or relic cannot, by itself, establish every theological claim about ecclesial authority.
The Church’s veneration of relics does not require credulity about every claim made in their name. Its current instruction says that relics of the blessed and saints may not be publicly displayed for veneration without a certificate from ecclesiastical authority guaranteeing their authenticity. It also calls for preservation that protects their sacred character and warns against superstition and illicit trade. This discipline reflects a theological point: reverence for holy things is not served by fraud, careless handling, or treating relics as charms.
The distinction between public cult and private historical interest also matters. The 2017 instruction says that the remains of a Servant of God or Venerable whose cause is still in progress may not receive public cult before beatification or canonization. That rule does not erase the historical importance of such remains; it regulates how the Church’s public veneration is expressed.
The supplied sources also show how relics shape worship. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic catechism describes the practice of placing relics in an altar and notes that the Seventh Ecumenical Council confirmed the tradition of venerating relics along with icons. This illustrates a broader Christian understanding of worship as embodied and communal, though the specific liturgical practice described belongs to an Eastern Catholic context.
Catholic devotion to apostolic relics, then, rests on two convictions held together: the Apostles are honored as witnesses whose faith and martyrdom belong to the Church’s foundation, and the material remains connected with them can serve as signs of that living memory. Historical evidence helps clarify what can responsibly be said about particular places and objects; it may leave some identifications unresolved. Theological veneration does not demand certainty where the historical evidence is incomplete, and historical caution does not make the Church’s reverence for the Apostles’ bodily remains meaningless.