Call for laws to protect holy relics

The sale of relics on eBay has been contested by the International Crusade for Holy Relics (ICHR) for ten years but since a boycott and cyber-petition against the online auction site got underway on Good Friday, the campaign has turned political. Three US Senators, and a US Supreme Court judge have lent their support to ICHR.

"If you look at eBay, somehow they monitor pornographic material and gun paraphernalia on the site so why not do it for human remains of Christian saints?" said Tom Serafin, founder of ICHR.

Mr Serafin received telephone calls and emails of support from unnamed Catholic US Senators and senior US judges following the launch of the Good Friday boycott as well as emails from around the world. He says the next stage is political "We need to introduce some kind of legislation to stop the sale of relics which is a ghastly offence, but it's difficult because eBay is like a big monster consuming everything."

The sale of holy relics is against Catholic Canon Law and the ICHR has been lobbying to stop it for years, but it seems harnessing the untold power of Internet campaigns against the cyber-auctioneer's hammer has gained the attention and support of senior legislators in the US and given new vigour to the decade long crusade.  Joanna Sugden.                                                                                             

Comments

[Alan Marsh]

How do they know which ones are genuine and which ones are simply pious wishful thinking?

Most of these items are old, and the chances of stopping any trade in them are remote. But the Church could itself help to prevent future sales by requiring the remains of saints to be left firmly in their graves, and not treated as a commodity for devotional use.

Even so, one should remember that many popular reliquaries simply contain fragments of material - cloth or wood for example - which had once been owned or merely touched by the saint.

[Andrew Brown]

"Mr Serafin received telephone calls and emails of support from unknown Catholic US Senators and senior US judges" -- who? This is just recycling a dodgy press release if you don't add any facts to it at all.

[Joanna Sugden]

Mr Brown,
They were not "unknown" they were "unnamed" Senators.
It was not a press release, I spoke directly to Mr Serafin to ask how his email campaign had gone, he was unwilling to give names but he did tell me that he had been contacted by Senators and a Supreme Court Judge.
I am sorry you feel cheated of more facts.

[Peter Farrington]

As an Orthodox I admit to having purchased relics on Ebay in the past. I have to say that I have no trouble with the trade if they are going to be venerated properly, rather than either destroyed or treated as mere trinkets. The authenticity is generally always beyond absolute proof, but obvious modern fakes are quite easy to spot. They are, in any case as far as I am concerned, icons pointing to a reality rather than needing to be absolutely that reality.

Peter

[Christopher]

Dear Joanna

It is odd isn't it how the reverence of first class relics (bits of the saint's body, as against second-class - something that belonged to her or him and third-class, something that touched her) in christianity, on the one hand, and the Buddha relics (e.g. the tooth kept and reverenced at the temple in Kandy) in buddhism, on the other hand, both come out of ancient traditions that actually consider the dead body polluting, judaism and hinduism respectively? (Please correct me if I am wrong on that Irene). Doesn't mainstream islam also disavow relics though some branches do have saint's tombs? I understand an Ahmadiyya mosque in Kashmir claims to have the bones of Jesus. The mosque in Woking belongs to the same Ahmadiyya branch, as far as I know.

Though Jesus didn't give any instructions about his burial, the tradition shows that the Buddha gave clear instructions on how the laity (not monks) were to perform his funeral and how the ashes were to be distributed.

[Andrew Brown]

Miss Sugden, I'm not saying these things just to be beastly. You're new in the business. You haven't noticed the important thing about these "un-named" senators and judges: they're unknown to us, the readers. No doubt Mr Serafin is a friend of yours, or an ally. You feel sympathy for his cause. That doesn't matter. When he says "the lurkers are on my side" or "Some remarkably publicity-shy US Senator has contacted me about their secret support for a popular cause", a journalist says "who?", because a journalist is a proxy for their poor ignorant readers. Sooner or later, this is something everyone in the business learns.

[Stephen Clark]

This is all a bit twee really, isn't it?
Personally I am more concerned about the museum displays of aboriginal remains (here in Australia and elsewhere) than about the unauthenticated superstition surrounding the finger nails of St Clare.
(I mention this because I once had such a thing given to me by a devout old lady.....God help us!)

But we have assumed in a rather imperialistic way that remnants of dead aboriginal folk could be displayed in a way that would be scandalous if it were by late Aunty Mildred (who happened to die this week)
The blessed Lord reminds us to let the dead bury the dead. Seems like good advice.

[Alan Marsh]

Could it be that Andrew Brown would like to use the story himself....?

[Chris Gillibrand]

Across Europe, relics are available for sale in many antique dealers of the main towns south of Berlin. One is almost forced to the conclusion that antique dealers were the principal beneficiaries of the post-conciliar era. Quite often one even sees reliquaries with their relics disposed of sold as decorative objects.

Their cause has no been helped by the contempt that has shown for them in many parishes which is itself associated with the regrettable decline in private devotions since the Council in favour of more communitarian activities (some more spiritual than other). I even heard of one case in England where first class relics were sent to the crematorium. They certainly disappeared never to be seen again.

I myself picked up a relic of the Holy Cross in the back of a Catholic Church in Brussels, for which a donation to be fixed by me was asked but not compulsory. Before anyone gets excited, it was almost certainly just a splinter of wood touched the relics kept at the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross in Jerusalem) in Rome. This goes some way, by the way, towards answering the allegation about the excessive number of Crosses, kept as relics, which Our Lord was crucified on.

[Christopher]

Well your splinter may explain some of the proliferation. But in pre-Protestant Europe Chaucer's Pardoner boasts of the proliferation of relics for sale so the abuse was probably pretty widespread if it was being joked about on the pilgrimage to Canterbury.

[Chris Gillibrand]

"But, Sirs, one word forgot I in my tale;

I have relics and pardon in my mail,
As fair as any man in Engleland,
Which were me given by the Pope's hand.

If any of you will of devotion
Offer, and have mine absolution, come forth anon, and kneele here adown
And meekely receive my pardoun."

Which is precisely why the Papacy took to certifying relics and clamping down on wandering clerics, most especially of the episcopal variety.

My splinter is uncertificated but the wax seal is of Roman origin and not a later copy.