Actually, the Church does have a memory of this site – the burial cave was found on the grounds of the Dominus Flevit monastery, which is claimed to be the location where Jesus wept over Jerusalem. This is the sort of place that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus might well select for their burial cave – and, if Simon Peter died in Jerusalem, the sort of place he might well be buried.
Which would explain why the ossuaries of Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Simon bar-Jona were, in fact, found therein.
Considering the eagerness of other ancient sites to be accepted as the burial place of this or that apostle, can you explain why no city but Rome has ever put itself forward to claim Peter?
After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 (more than a million killed, sold into slavery, etc?), the place was an absolute mess. How many persons go MIA, how many documents are lost, how many properties are forgotten -- in the middle of a combination genocide/ransacking/slave-raid? The centrality of authority enjoyed by the Jerusalem Church in the days of James’ administration and the Jerusalem Council was no doubt tremendously damaged as a result of the Romans’ laying waste to the entire territory.
But nature abhors a vacuum, and into this gap stepped the nascent Church at Rome – a candidate for central recognition given its placement at the capital of the Empire. It was known, after all, that Paul had come to his martyrdom at Rome; and considering that the great Vaticanus pagan cemetery likely contained quite a few “Peters” (being a common title given to the high prophets and magicians of the pagan mystery religions), it’s hardly surprising that a tradition would develop (a century-and-a-half or two later) as to “Peter’s” burial at Rome. That, however, does not vouch for the authenticity of the tradition.
This presupposes several grevious errors of logic.
1) Jesus foresaw the utter destruction of Jerusalem (actually, His own divine punishment of Jerusalem). It is unlikely, and an implicit denial of His omniscence and soveriegn Providence, that He would have indicated to His Church to set up shop in a location that was about to be leveled by a Roman siege.
2) Conversely, it ignores the very reason He caused Himself to become incarnate into the Roman Empire at the very beginning of its existence, and not say, the Persian and Alexandrian Empires - the opportunity for the Church to spread across a large portion of the world in a peaceful environment.
3) It ignores the well documented historical practice of the Church conforming its adminsitrative districts to the imperial divisions, which also explains the primary missionary targets of the Apostles and their immediate successors being the administrative capitals of various Roman provinces - Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, Rome, Carthage, etc. The idea being obviously that a well formed plan of conquering the the provincial capitals and then radiating the faith outwards from them into the countryside, as raids are made from a secure fortress. With a large base population in a major city, it is only to be expected that the Christians would travel out to the countryside and spread the faith by their travels. It also gave Christians an easy method of making themselves invisible, since Christian traffic to and from the major cities would be unnoticed, while sudden massive focus upon obscure outposts would bring immediate suspicions.
4) It ignores the basic progression seen in the Gospels - the journey of Christ from Galilee to Jerusalem to die; and in Acts - the journey of the faith from Jerusalem to Rome to be spread everywhere.
But nature abhors a vacuum, and into this gap stepped the nascent Church at Rome – a candidate for central recognition given its placement at the capital of the Empire. It was known, after all, that Paul had come to his martyrdom at Rome; and considering that the great Vaticanus pagan cemetery likely contained quite a few “Peters” (being a common title given to the high prophets and magicians of the pagan mystery religions), it’s hardly surprising that a tradition would develop (a century-and-a-half or two later) as to “Peter’s” burial at Rome. That, however, does not vouch for the authenticity of the tradition.
Actually, it was known both Sts. Peter and Paul had died there, as the Epistle of St. Clement makes clear. Are you going to address this?
Also, please present your evidence about "Peter's" in Rome.