Centuries ago, people actually believed that the bones of some
dead religious figure could somehow work miracles. The corpses and body parts were paraded
during the Black Death and other calamities in hopes of evoking some kind of
divine protection.
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| The rescued blood of John Paul II |
Amazingly, such relics still abound in the Roman Catholic faith
where a drop of the blood of Pope John Paul II carries special
significance. The “precious” reminder of
the popular leader was stolen recently and then quickly recovered from some reeds
and grass near the railway station in the seaside town of Marina di Cerveteri,
Italy. The container had been tossed there by
the thieves who planned to come back and retrieve it.
The whole episode exposed the macabre side of the Catholic world,
a portion increasingly being exploited on the internet and e-bay, where relics
are being bought and sold on a regular basis.
Most are forgeries, but that’s has never deterred the gullible faithful.
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| Cyril |
The whole idea of relics having some special power comes from a
Biblical account of ill people being cured by visiting the grave of the famed
prophet Elisha. It was encapsulated into Catholic thinking by
such leaders as Cyril, of Jerusalem, who wrote in the fourth century that “a
certain power dwelt in the body of the saint, even when the soul had departed
from it; just as it was the instrument of the soul during life, so the power
passed permanently into it.”
Writing some 900 years later, Thomas Aquinas said relics should be
venerated because “since we venerate the saints, we must also show reverence
for their relics.”
Although Protestants rejected relics, the Roman Catholic Church
countered with the belief that “God grants many benefits to mankind through the
sacred bodies of the martyrs.” Relics are actually graded: first class, which
refers to such as a part of a holy person’s body, (such as bone, skin, blood and hair); second
class, which includes items closely associated with the saint (such as his or
her clothing, other personal effects); and third class, which refers to objects
he or she has touched or held.
Catholics continue to venerate relics because they supposedly
perform miracles and serve as a reminder of the sainted person’s life. They also link the living to the death, at
least in the mind of the faithful.
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| A relic of St. Roch, which supposedly heals plague victims |
A more recent apologist said on line that the efficacy of relics
proved that humans have a special aura so far undetected by medical science. If true, then do the bones work on nonbelievers,
like Buddhists and Hindus? If so, why
are pharmacies stocked with various medicines a piece of cherished bone would provide a cure? If false, then bones are nothing more than
placebos with all the success of a sugar pill.
The mere idea that relics have power guarantees abuses. During the sack of Constantinople, for
example, crusading knights uncovered enough heads of John the Baptist to create
an army along with milk from the Virgin Mary that sustained Jesus, the feather
of an angel and the like. Even today,
towns in Europe compete for sacred relics as if possession of a "holy" item
somehow would induce a deity to do anything.
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| Seton |
The whole concept is both disturbing and nauseating.
I was introduced to the relic business when attending
a conference. Two colleagues and I stumbled into the shrine of Elizabeth Seton in Emmitsburg,
Maryland. Seton, the first American
saint, died in 1821 after founding American Sisters of Charity, the initial
American sisterhood.
In the gift shop, we found snippets of Seton’s finger bones for
sale. We left immediately. Even the Roman Catholic man with us was appalled.
Coming face to face with enduring superstition can be shocking.
Yet, it remains an integral part of faith. Every Catholic Church contains the bone of a
saint. It is usually placed in the
altar, a reminder of the origins of the church when dead bodies where kept on
the altar and, amazing as its sounds, actually “fed” during services.
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| Manseau |
Author Peter Manseau examined the role of relics in his 2011 book Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the
World's Holy Dead
"Relics have been there, more or
less, since the beginning," he wrote in the introduction. "Though
they have become embarrassing reminders of the dark ages of faith to many
progressive believers, the fact is that no religion, no matter how forward
thinking its members consider themselves today, has been untouched by some sort
of relic veneration in its past."
Unfortunately, not one of the bones,
drops of blood or miraculously preserved robes of Jesus have any value anyway.
As one skeptic noted back in the 1500s to pilgrims on their way to
the Shrine of Thomas Becket, the martyred archbishop of Canterbury, “if a bone
was so powerful, why not his dung?”
Actually, it’s all superstitious crap; some of it, like the vial
of Pope John Paul's blood, is simply worth more on the open market.
Long-time
religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious
history. He also speaks at various
religious organizations throughout Florida.
You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net. He is the author of the famed Unauthorized
Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel
Writers Get Their Information; Noel:
The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative
Religion. His books are available on Amazon.com,
Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.
He can also be followed on Twitter.
You
can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at
http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1
