Vatican City, Dec 12, 2025 / 11:42 am
On the centenary of the founding of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, Pope Leo XIV published a new apostolic letter in which he praised Christian archaeology as a work capable of “giving a voice to the silence of history” and of “bringing to light the anonymous holiness of many faithful who have contributed to building up the Church.”
“In today’s fast-paced world, there is a tendency to forget and to consume images and words without reflecting on their meaning. The Church, on the other hand, is called to educate people in memory, and Christian archaeology is one of its most noble tools for doing so — not in order to take refuge in the past, but consciously to live in the present and work towards an enduring future,” the pope stated in the document, published on Dec. 11.
This is the third magisterial publication of this kind by Leo XIV in his eight months as pontiff, following “Drawing New Maps of Hope,” a document focused on education, and In Unitate Fidei on the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, in which he explored the unity of Christians.
For Leo XIV, Christian archaeology allows the Church to “remember its origins” and “recount the history of salvation not only through words but also through images, forms, and spaces.” In a time that “often loses sight of its roots,” it is “a valuable instrument of evangelization.”
Thus, he emphasized that archaeology speaks to believers and nonbelievers, young people, scholars, and pilgrims, because it illuminates the meaning of the journey and evokes an “echo of eternity.”
‘Christianity is not an abstract concept’
Each archaeological discovery, he explained, demonstrates that “Christianity is not an abstract concept but rather a body that has lived, celebrated, and inhabited space and time.”
For the Holy Father, archaeology shows that faith “has already survived difficult times and resisted persecution, crises, and changes. Faith has been renewed and regenerated,” and has “flourished in new forms.” Hence, he described it as “a ministry of hope.”
The pope said the discipline allows people to intuit the “power of an existence that transcends time,” to read in burials the “expectation of the Resurrection” and in apses “the orientation toward Christ.”
The pope emphasized that archaeology also plays a decisive role in the theology of revelation, since God “has in time spoken through events and people.” Therefore, understanding revelation requires knowing its historical contexts: Archaeology “illuminates the texts,” he affirmed, and also “completes written sources.”
In the document, the pope distanced himself from any idealization of the past and called for understanding the true history of the Church — made up of “greatness and limitation, holiness and fragility, continuity and rupture” — which will allow for a more authentic theology.
‘Living memory,’ not ‘a cult of the past’
Leo XIV warned against a merely conservationist vision of archaeology. “True Christian archaeology is not a matter of sterile conservation but of living memory,” he emphasized after pointing out that Christian archaeology must foster a “reconciled memory” and promote spaces for dialogue.
Likewise, the pope recalled the value of academic communion and cooperation among archaeological institutions, describing this field as “a resource for everyone.”
In affirming the fundamental role of Christian archaeology, the pope underscored that “theological studies that disregard archaeology run the risk of becoming disembodied, abstract, or even ideological.”
According to the pontiff, archaeology not only provides historical data but also allows theology to remain rooted in the concrete reality of the people of God. Thus, he affirmed that a theology that “embraces archaeology ... listens to the body of the Church, assesses its wounds, reads its signs, and is touched by its history.”
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In his reflection, Leo XIV highlighted the human and pastoral dimension of archaeological work. He described it as an essentially “hands-on” profession in which researchers “are the first to handle buried material that conserves its vitality even after centuries.”
But the contribution of the Christian archaeologist, Leo XIV added, goes beyond material recovery: “They study not only the artifacts but also the hands that forged them, the minds that conceived them, and the hearts that loved them.”
God has truly entered history, and faith is not a philosophy
The pope recalled that from its origins, the Christian faith was transmitted through the memory of places and signs. “Christian communities safeguarded not only Jesus’ words but also the places, objects, and signs of his presence,” he stated.
Places such as the empty tomb, Peter’s house in Capernaum, and the Roman catacombs not only served as historical testimony but also “all testify that God has truly entered history and that faith is not a mere philosophy but a tangible path within the reality of the world,” the Holy Father wrote.
The pope affirmed that the Church needs to “search for a profound wisdom capable of preserving and passing on to future generations what is truly essential” and emphasized that archaeology has “an essential role in understanding Christianity and, consequently, its application within catechetical and theological formation.”
Citing Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution Veritatis Gaudium, Leo recalled that archaeology is part of the fundamental disciplines of theological formation, because “it does not merely tell us about artifacts but about people: their homes, tombs, churches, and prayers” and about “how faith shaped their spaces, cities, landscapes, and mentalities.”
The pope also emphasized that archaeology “is not just a specialized discipline reserved to a few experts” but rather a path accessible “to anyone who wishes to understand how faith is embodied in time, place, and culture.”
Archaeology as a ‘school of hope’
In his view, studying and narrating history helps to keep “the flame of collective conscience” alive. Otherwise, he warned, “all that remains is the personal memory of facts bound to our own interests or sensibilities, with no real connection to the human and ecclesial community in which we live.”
Leo XIV recalled that the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology was established by Pius XI’s motu proprio Primitivi Cemeteri (“Primitive Cemeteries”) of Dec. 11, 1925, with the task “of directing studies on the monuments of ancient Christianity with the utmost scientific rigor” in order to “reconstruct the lives of the early communities.”
The institute has participated in crucial excavations, such as that of the tomb of the apostle Peter beneath the Altar of the Confession in St. Peter’s Basilica, and in recent investigations at St. Paul Outside the Walls.
The pope asked: “How fruitful can the role of Christian archaeology still be for society and the Church in an age marked by artificial intelligence and by the exploration of the innumerable galaxies of the universe?”
He himself offered the answer: Contemporary methods “enable us to glean new information from findings once considered insignificant,” reminding us that “nothing is truly useless or lost.” Even the marginal, he affirmed, can “reveal profound meaning in the light of new questions and methods. In this respect, archaeology is also a school of hope.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
