There is a lot riding on Pope Peter

[kleary]

Jesus was making a wordplay on Peter’s name. Peter(Petros in greek) means “a movable rock or stone” The word translated “rock” (petra in greek) means “an immovable rock formation or rock mass.” Peter wrote, “you are living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple. What’s more, you are His holy priests.” Also he wrote, “You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple.”
What this is all saying is that when Jesus said “upon this rock I will build my church.” the “rock” is the truth that He “is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And that all who believe in Him and confess Him as Lord are His holy priests and the living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple.

1. Jesus could not rename Simon to “Petros” because Jesus spoke Aramaic- Jesus renamed Simon to “Cephas” as confirmed by Paul (John 1:42).
2. The writer of Matthew’s Gospel did not translate Cephas to “Petra” in Greek because “Petra” is a feminine noun in Greek which would have been improper to use for a man’s name. The Gospel writer used the masculine word “Petros” instead. (You have to know a little about languages to understand this. A good example is the spanish word for “Window”- it is a feminine word.)

More information is here for you OP-
catholic.com/library/Peter_and_the_Papacy.asp
catholic.com/library/church_papacy.asp

Ken

 

[MrStain]

This is the first time I’ve heard this. Of course, many deny that Peter was ever in Rome.

Here is a very interesting article from stpetersbasilica.org:

One of the surprises of the excavations carried out between 1940 and 1949 under the Confession of the Vatican Basilica was the discovery - beneath the papal altar - of the site of Peter’s original tomb empty and in disarray.

The Apostle’s remains were strangely missing.

After his martyrdom in Nero’s Circus (autumn of 64), Peter was buried a short distance away, beyond the road (Via Cornelia?) which bordered the Circus, in a place where tombs already existed. That place corresponds to the area which archaeologists today call Area P. In the course of the centuries, various monuments were placed over the modest grave of the Apostle: the so-called “Trophy of Gaius” (about the middle of the 2nd century), the monument of Constantine (after 313), the altar of Gregory the Great (590-604), the altar of Calixtus II (1119-1124), and the altar of Clement VIII (1592-1605), which is the present altar. All these monuments were built (or so it seemed at first) over an empty tomb.

SNIP
At this point, it would seem appropriate to sum up, for the sake of clarity, the chief elements which have permitted the present writer to proceed to the identification of the bones in the loculus of Wall G as those of the Apostle:

1. The Constantinian monument was considered, in Constantine’s day, to be the tomb of the martyr.

1. Inside the monument-sepulchre there exists a loculus, and one only: the loculus of Wall G.

1. This loculus was carved out of Wall G and lined with marble at the time of Constantine

1. The loculus was never broken into from the age of Constantine until the time of the excavations (about 1941).

1. From this loculus come the bones which were removed at the beginning of the excavations, kept without interruption in a nearby spot in the Vatican Grottoes and recovered from this spot in 1953.

1. These bones, therefore, are the ones which were verified at the time of Constantine as the bones of Peter and place in the loculus of Wall G, inside the monument-sepulchre.

1. The cloth of purple interwoven with gold-thread in which the bones were wrapped at that time confirms the highest dignity then attributed to the remains. The royal purple harmonizes perfectly in fact with the royal porphyry which decorates the outside of the monument.

1. The anthropological examination of the bones - belonging to a single individual - showed that they conform perfectly to what, by tradition, we can imagine was Peter’s physical appearance at the time of his martyrdom. Apart from the obvious fact that they belong to a male, the bones indicate a sturdy build and an age somewhere between 60 and 70.

1. The earth encrusted on the bones indicates that the bones themselves originally lay in an earth-grave, and we know that Peter’s first burial was in the earth.

1. The characteristics of the earth, shown by the scientific examination, match those of the place where the original tomb was dug (marly sand), while in other parts of the Vatican area the earth is different (blue clay or yellow sand).

1. The place of the earth-burial under the Trophy was found empty. This is in harmony with the presence of the bones, transferred about two metres higher up, in the loculus in the monument of Constantine.

From this concise exposition it can be seen that the above elements constitute the links of a chain, joined to one another, and that chain leads to a conclusion: the bones of Peter have been identified.

Rest of Article