As a child, I wore a felt scapula which purportedly held a piece of bone of a saint. Sorry to say, I don't remember which saint. I was not arguing anything in my previous post. I have no reason not to believe that St. Francis' bones can be found in the Basilica in Assisi, and no reason to doubt St. Peter's bones are beneath St. Peter's.

Veneration of relics exists in other world faiths, esp Buddhism (e.g. bones and teeth of the Buddha and his followers). In the Old Testament, you find miracles worked through Elijah's mantle (2 Kings 2:14) and bones of Elisha (2 Kings 13:21), and in the New Testament, handkerchefs in touch with St Paul's body had healing power (Acts 19:12). The earliest record of veneration of relics in the Christian era is, as someone said, the account of St Polycarp's martyrdon (around AD 156), where it is described how the saint's body was collected and honoured at the spot where he died.
Theologically, St Jerome said that saints' relics are honoured for the sake of him whose martyrs and confessors they were. St Augustine taught that we honour the relics because their bodies served the saints as vessels of the Holy Spirit, and by venerating them we draw closer to Christ. St Thomas Aquinas said the relics, once the temple of the Holy Spirit destined for glorious resurrection, and endowed by God with the power of miracles, should be venerated by all the faithful.
Today relics are carefully controlled under Canon Law, and no relics may be venerated without a written authentification by the church, and sale of genuine relics and fabrication of spurious ones are strictly forbidden.
I would say that devout catholics still venerate genuine relics of the saints, esp of those whom they feel closest and whose lives they seek to imitate, as channels of God's grace, and sometimes for their power to work miracles, esp of healing for themselves and their loved ones. In catholic countries where the churches house a rich collection relics, you can distinguish those that still attract popular devotion and those that are almost forgotten.

I'm Catholic and have an interest in relics and incorrupt bodies. You can read my travel note entitled "Chills and Thrills in the Eternal City" on Slowtrav.com. which discusses relics and saints' bodies. Catholics don't worship saints, their bodies or parts thereof. Catholics see saints as holy people that can intercede with God on their behalf. Certain saints are patrons of various causes. So, for example, if you lost something, you could pray to Saint Anthony of Padua, patron of lost objects, to help you locate it. The relics are a means to help meditation and prayer as you petition that saint.

As to "modern" relics, there are two that I can think of offhand. Recently, the incorrupt body of Pope John XXIII who died in the early 1960s, was put on display in St. Peter's Basilica. People pray before the body all day. Also, Padre Pio was canonized a couple of years ago and if you go to San Giovanni Rotondo in Puglia, you can see relics of his including the blood-stained cloths that covered his stigmata.

Relics were still collected at least until the begining of the 20th century, since several were taken from the body of Ste Bernadette (of Lourdes) when it was exhumed.

Well - I'm a Catholic - or at least was raised one - and have many friends who are as well. But I don;t think any of us would count as devout (as in revering Saint bits etc.) We believe in many things that God represents and much that the church can do - helping the poor etc - but certainly don;t follow a lot of beliefs out of the window. And I think any survey of Catholics in the US would should most are in this camp.

I'm sure there are people who actually believe these things - but believe most people are now not so literal as the uneducated masses in the middle ages - when such things were more popular.

(Except for the grilled cheese sandwiches in the form of the Virgin Mary or whatever. But that simply proves that the gullible will ever be with us.)

I don't want to be misrepresenting myself....I'm not a Catholic, but am very interested in Catholicism. How could a Europhile not be? My trips to Europe are nothing but an attempt to fit as many churches, shrines, and abbeys into the little time I have.

Anyway, the uncorrupted body of St. Therese was recently brought to a suburban church near my home in the USA. People flocked from all over to see her. Including friends of mine, who swore the whole room smelled of flowers.

I own a book called "The Incorruptibles" about the bodies of saints that won't decay. One of the reasons they did not embalm John Paul II is that they anticipate using his lack of future decay as evidence in the case for his sainthood. Or so I read.

Oh - and if you're looking for the official word you would have to ask the Pope.

The relics can also help a person achieve sainthood. If someone didn't manage to get two miracles during his or her lifetime, any cures or other miracles attributable to their relic can count.

I don't really believe in intervention and miracles myself, but I think the church obviously does, so to me the relics are still very important.

re uncorrupted, etc: relics and incorruptibles are very interesting. I would hazard a guess that most US Catholics don't venerate relics; I think that it is largely a personal decision.

BUT I know that St. Therese of the Infant Jesus was not incorrupt; she foretold herself that she wouldn't be. It is her arm bones that were on tour in the US. Also, Pope John XXIII was almost certainly embalmed; all popes are, as they are on display for several days. Pope Pius XII was very badly embalmed by his quack doctor and began to rot and smell before he was buried;John XXIII made sure that this would not happen to him.
The so-called incorruptibles are often mummifiedby their extreme emaciation at death and the conditions of their burial; this happens with ordinary people, too. There was an episode on Unexplained Mysteries which went into this. There was another episode about ordinary Christians receiving the stigmata; one devout Baptist young woman consulted MDs at the Univ. San Francisco Med Center to rid herself of the phenomenon, which she was able to do. Another lady was a pentacostal preacher who turned it to her advantage.

I'm a practicing Catholic, and I don't really pay much attention to relics, especially those from the middle ages. I've heard too many stories about putative saints' fingers that were in actuality pigs' knuckles. I think the whole concept is a bit eerie and sometimes it's downright ridiculous.

A case in point is the "piece of the tablecloth from the Last Supper" which is housed in a reliquary in the Schatzkammer in Vienna. I was caught off-guard when I saw the sign indicating what it was, and I'm afraid I let out a very skeptical guffaw--thereby offending a believer standing next to me. It seemed obvious to me that poor Jews in Israel 2000 years ago were unlikely to have tablecloths on their tables, and that this exhibit was most likely a relic of the pig's knuckle variety.

However, several of the posts on this thread give good explanations of the significance of relics.

Catholic actually means "universal" and "all-inclusive" and therefore the "universal Christian church".

When one speaks of those of the Roman Catholic persuasion, they should not be referred to as catholic, but rather as "Roman Catholic".

They cannot be catholic since the early founders of Roman Catholicism tried to abscond with the Christian faith by taking the catholic word and incorporating it into their name thus making themselves the exclusive church (therefore not catholic).

I am not trying to be negative nor mean with this statement. In fact, when DW and I visit Italy this summer (Lord willing), we have planned our travel around two different Roman Catholic celebrations. I will tell about them shorly.

VS

The eternal difference between "Catholic" and "catholic."

"Catholic" with a little "c" (unfortunately spelt in this sentence with a big "C" due to sentence grammar) means an encompassing of broad ideas.

"Catholic" spelt with a capital "C" means the Holy Catholic Church. Missypie is correct in her title using "Catholics" with a capital "C" to refer to the Roman Catholic church.

DW and I decided our visit to Lake Como should coincide with “St. John’s Day.” There is a celebration on Isola Comacina on the Saturday following June 24th (St. John’s Day). This year, Saturday is on the 24th, and so we hope to observe a big local celebration (we’ll see).

There are old ruins of churches on the island that were supposed to be places where “The Chalice” visited on its way through, therefore giving them fame.

Our hope is that we will see costumed locals paying homage to that past event. Other things that we may see include: 1) Local maidens collecting herbs (St. John’s wart) to hang upon Roman Catholic icons in order to bless the herb with healing powers and/or to sail the said herbs down a stream to see who will receive the greatest blessings (which one goes the farthest); 2) A bonfire that according to legend will signify by how far the light goes forth, how great the crop growth will be; 3) Possibly, individuals leaping across the dying flames for good luck (to dispose of demons?) and hopefully not; 4) Individuals tossing their little ones across, in order to bless and protect them (passing them through the flame).

There will be a boat procession with banners and regalia to the island, followed by a mass in a ruined church, and then the bonfire, followed by fireworks.

Cool huh?

VS

and inditravel, it is not the point vernacular that matters.

My god...they had the incorrupted arm on tour in the USA ?
Like a rolling stone ... :)

It is important to see relics in context - historical context, yes, but just as importantly - human context.

We all maintain relics of people we love. I have a couple of pieces of clothing that my oldest son, now 23, wore when he was small. I could never throw them away! I wear a ring of my deceased mother's. I spoke to a woman in my church, recently widowed, who hasn't yet given away her husband's clothes because she is comforted by going into the closet and just taking in his scent, that still remains on them.

We even honor relics of people we don't know. Go to Ebay and search for "autographed". What does it mean to have a piece of paper signed by someone famous? I have no idea, but some people live by it.

We all have relics of one sort or another - physical objects that remind us of another person.

Some of us even keep the ashes of those we love around.

There is much more to the practice of the Christian reverence of relics, of course. Fundamental to it is this: Christians believe that God relates to us as we are: body and soul. We encounter God through the physical, through the stuff of everyday life, through the actions of other people.

Saints are people who gave themselves totally to God - they allowed themselves, as St. Paul says, to be people in whom "it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me" and thus were able to do great things in service to God and to his people. Saints, remember, are revered for holiness, and in Christianity, an important aspect of holiness is living as Jesus did: centered on others.

Through their hands, they healed the sick and comforted the mourning.

Through their feet, they walked with the poor and traveled to distant lands, spreading the Good News.

Through their lips and tongues they taught children and adults as well.

Through their eyes, they saw the poor, were moved by them, and inspired others to join them in ministry.

So...we honor them. We honor them, not just in spirit, but in the bodies that enfleshed their faith - the hands that touched, the ears that heard the cries of the poor, the arms that embraced the lepers as St. Francis did.

Sure, it gets out of hand. Everything can, and everything does. People get magical about relics, they do crazy things to be near them or obtain them - as crazy as paying thousands of dollars for a photograph or a baseball or a bat signed by a famous athelete.

But when you think about it...who's *really* crazy?

Anything can be taken to extremes. Reverencing of relics is one of those things. But I'm thinking that most of the people I know who are a little more into relics than I am...well, most of them are doing a lot more good in the world than I am, too.

When DW and I visit the Ligurian coast, for part of the time we are there, there will be a festival and celebration signifying when Madonna di Montallegro (a statue) flew to a place above Rapallo almost 400 years ago. There will be three days of celebration and three nights of fireworks. This is a celebration that the local Roman Catholic communities participate in.

We wanted to experience local culture in Italy. Exciting, hm?

VS

I actually logged on tonight in order to see if there was anything new that would help us on our up-coming trip. My response on this thread relates to our other researches and is something personal and probably doesn't belong here at all. It is difficult, as we are learning things that we didn't know before, about the places and people we will be visiting and while they are quite significant to me they no doubt have much less significance to others.

VS :-"

I was raised Catholic but am not now, but I know the Catholic church certainly does currently still venerate relics, puts them on display and frequently puts on shows where they travel around the United States. These are supported by the Catholic Church, so they do support this practice and promote it and believe in it. There have been numerous traveling displays of relics for veneration within just the last few years in the United States, including various saints and relics of the cross, etc. For example, relics of St Therese of Lisieux were in a traveling display as recently as 1999-2000, and I remember the national Cathedral where I live (Wash DC) being very involved in that. I never did understand this (which I suppose is one reason why I am not Catholic any more), as most religions, including Catholicism, say that the physical body is not important, only the soul.

Catholics still believe holy relics have the power to work miracles. Last weekend we had the gloves of St. Giani in our church. Everyone was encouraged to touch them, place them on their forehead, etc. and pray as they do so. They recounted several miracles that had taken place after praying with the gloves.

Hi missypie,

You asked good questions there. I’m Catholic. I myself wonder when we bring our children to churches in Europe and they see the relics if they understand the significance of these religious things to their faith. There are so many churches devoted to saints and Mary (like St. Peter’s, St. Denis, Notre Dame, Santa Mary Maggiore), that sometimes I remind them that we worship (with emphasis) God and we honor, venerate and revere the saints.

Thus, when we kneel in front of these relics or the hand of St. Francis Xavier in the Church of the Gesu, for instance (This gives a new perspective to the teenspeak “Talk to the hand!”), I hope my kids are not worshipping the relics themselves but rather, are recalling the lives of the saints and are edified by their examples. In the same way we don’t worship the bible, yet we kneel with a bible in our hands, or we have pictures of family members in the wallet but we don’t idolize them, we use the relics as an aid to prayer, to remind ourselves of God and his special friends, the saints. Also, when the children view the bodies of the saints, like St. Catherine Laboure in her chapel beside Le Bon Marche, they discover up-close that saints are real and not just legends or myths. There is this powerful, visual impact that makes them realize – without having to explain in a thousand words - that saints were born ordinary too, only they strove for extraordinary lives AND they themselves can choose to be like that with God’s grace of course.

In this sense, the displaying of relics, though they must have started long before the crusades (remember St. Helena, mother of Constantine, who took the Scala Santa back to Rome), still serves a purpose for modern Catholics.

But when one of my children asks if the relics have special powers or if they’ll get an answered prayer after wiping the feet of a statue (did you see how one foot of St. Peter is rubbed down at the Basilica?), I reply that THE saints or Mary intercede for us, through Christ. (Just like when I say to a friend in trouble that she's in my prayer, I'm "interceding" but no way am I as holy...) If a miracle does occur, it is simply God’s will being fulfilled, not because the relic became a magic wand.

Hope this helps.