Feb

22

Relic Fascination; Art Explaining Faith

February 22, 2007 |

St. Pio of Pietrelcina Still Draws a Crowd

By Elizabeth Lev

Even some of the most devout visitors to St. Peter’s Basilica get thrown for a loop when they see the bodies of Popes Innocent XI, Pius X or even John XXIII exposed for veneration.

Modern Christians, particularly from the United States, often view relics as a superstitious custom, which has been superseded by a more rational, hygienic age. While they may smile indulgently at the ornate reliquaries fashioned as intricately as a Faberge egg with tiny velvet-lined compartments for each precious remnant, they wouldn’t expect that many would still hold such objects dear.

But the saints are the ones who tend to get the last laugh. During the last week of January, a relic of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, known as Padre Pio, was brought to Rome for the first time. It came to a moderately sized parish church, Our Lady of Guadalupe, on the Via Aurelia. Some 5,000 people flocked to the site, coming from Rome and environs.

Francesco Forgione, the future Padre Pio, was born in southern Italy 120 years ago this year. He joined the Capuchin order while still a teenager, and was ordained at the age of 23. In 1916, the priest was sent to San Giovanni Rotondo in the Puglia region where he remained until his death in 1968. He was canonized in 2002.

This extraordinary holy man was famed for his tireless devotion to his ministry. His days were divided among Mass and prayer and tending to needs of the faithful, particularly the sacrament of reconciliation.

In 1918, Padre Pio received the stigmata, the same wounds Christ suffered on the cross. His hands, feet and side bled until he died, exactly 50 years later.

Padre Pio attracted a huge following in Italy, which grew even more after his death. Whether in taxi cabs, pizza parlors or doctor’s offices — the holy cards of this beloved saint are omnipresent in the country.

The arrival of Padre Pio’s relic, a bandage stained with the blood from the wound in the saint’s side, was expected to be a modest affair, a Mass and a little procession. Instead, thousands turned out to participate.

Relics fascinate Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Although many see the veneration of relics as a macabre superstition, they are still curious to see the head of St. Catherine, or a thorn that pierced Christ’s brow.

It is an ancient practice of the Church. The resting places of the martyrs were considered sacred from the beginning of Christianity, and indeed, after St. Polycarp was burned at the stake in the second century, his remains were gathered up as “more valuable than precious stones.”

St. Augustine witnessed miracles in the presence of the bodies of the martyrs, but the Church fathers were clear on the role of relics. St. Jerome writes that “we do not worship, we do not adore” them, “but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore him whose martyrs they are” (”Letter to Riparius I,” P.L.XXII, 907).

The objects or the bodies of the martyrs have never been perceived as having powers in and of themselves. They have never been offered as magic talismans. The Church fathers explained that as God honored the saints in life with special grace, so God honors their remains by using them as conduits of grace.

In the first centuries, Rome venerated the saints but never dismembered the bodies, leaving them peacefully in their tombs. It was considered a practice of the East to separate the remains as relics.

In Rome, however, objects could be fragmented so as to spread them throughout Christian centers — the true cross, according to St. Cyril of Jerusalem, was already distributed all over the empire by 350. But as of the eighth century, Roman Christians were also breaking up the saintly remains.

Relic abuse was rife even in the time of St. Augustine, who described vendors dressed as monks offering arrays of relics for sale. The inventiveness of relic-mongers was extraordinary — a bottle of the darkness from the ninth plague of Egypt comes to mind as a particularly extravagant example.

But the Church has never been naive or foolish on the subject of relics. The Council of Trent in the 16th century dealt extensively with the question of relics — confirming the veneration of the memory of the saints and condemning the sale of these objects. Nor does the Church oblige its members to believe in the authenticity of undocumented relics.

That the present Catechism does not have a heading for relics probably makes the veneration of relics seem like an alien activity to American Catholics.

In reality the practice of keeping an object associated with a person dear to us is part of our human nature. Bronzed baby shoes, a gift from a famous person or a flower from a first date, all tangibly preserve memories that are important to us.

As Christians, relics are a link to our brothers and sisters in Christ who lived exemplary lives and are now watching over us from heaven. These memories, instead of marking a transient earthly event, remind us of their eternal glory in the presence of God.

My favorite relic is in the Church of the Holy Cross. There, among the wood and the headboard of the true cross, a thorn and the cross of Dismas, the good thief, sits a little relic on its own. It is the finger of St. Thomas, who knew Christ and followed him and still doubted.

But Christ accepted St. Thomas with all his questions and bared his wounds for Thomas to inspect, saying, “Because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).


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