The “True Cross is coming to Tucson!”:http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/56896.php
bq. The [“Relics of the Passion”] exhibit is part of a six-state tour that will take place during Lent. The eight relics include what are believed to be remains from Jesus’ crown of thorns, a piece of exterior wrapping from the Shroud of Turin that some say was Jesus’ burial sheet, and a sliver from the cross used to crucify him. A replica of one of the nails used to hang Christ on the cross also will be part of the display. Though it’s not an actual nail used in the crucifixion, organizers say it’s made from shavings of some nails that were.
bq. “Certainly, if people saw the movie, now it’s time to venerate the relics,” said tour organizer Richard Jeffrey, past state deputy for the Arizona Knights of Columbus …
I wonder how much they’ll be charging people to see them. If it’s cheap enough, I’ll have to go along. The tour is being organized by the “Apostolate For Holy Relics”:http://www.apostolateforholyrelics.com/home.php, an organization based not in the Vatican City, but out of a “Post Office Box in Los Angeles”:http://www.apostolateforholyrelics.com/contact.php. You can save yourself a trip and “see photos of the relics”:http://www.apostolateforholyrelics.com/ahr-projects/passion-tour/relic.php on the AFHP’s website, though mostly you just see the reliquaries of the relics.
{ 30 comments }
Chris Marcil 01.15.05 at 8:15 am
My great-uncle was a parish priest in Fort Edward, New York, which is looked down on as country by the people in nearby Glens Falls. When he died, we found that he had two(!) slivers of the True Cross among his effects.
Despite this, his church was once hit by lightning and burned to the ground.
Jim Harrison 01.15.05 at 8:20 am
I myself contain several atoms that resided for several years in St. Paul’s moustache.
g 01.15.05 at 10:59 am
“After the election, everyone is saying God is back”. So says some chap from the Arizona Knights of Columbus who’s quoted in the article. I know it’s hardly news that some people think that way, but it still scares me.
Keith 01.15.05 at 3:26 pm
I thought carbon dating of the shroud of Turrin put its creation in the 14th century? One theory I’ve heard, is that it was made by Leonardo, using a technique that was a precurser to the camera obscura used by early photographers in the 19th century. That Leonardo was way ahead of his time. But far later than Jesus’s.
Tom Doyle 01.15.05 at 3:59 pm
Come on! Get a life!
Yeah, Catholics do this stuff, its part of our exotic appeal. You got a problem with that? It doesn’t pick your pocket or break your leg does it? You think relics are outre? Check out transubstantiation.
*{(;8^o)>+:::::
Jason Kuznicki 01.15.05 at 4:44 pm
Erasmus, as I recall, pointed out a number of inconvenient facts that were troubling the relics business even in his own day: Not only were there enough slivers of the True Cross lying around to reconstitute an entire forest, but Christ had apparently had numerous crowns of thorns …and at least two foreskins. (Somewhere in his writings, Umberto Eco made a reference to this as well. I believe it was in The Name of the Rose.)
DonBoy 01.15.05 at 5:14 pm
When he died, we found that he had two(!) slivers of the True Cross among his effects.
Despite this, his church was once hit by lightning and burned to the ground.
If the True Cross has magical protective powers, how can it possibly be in slivers?
perianwyr 01.15.05 at 5:53 pm
“After the election, everyone is saying God is backâ€.
Perhaps it’s an expression of how out of touch I am with modern folk theology, but I fail to see how God could go anywhere.
abb1 01.15.05 at 6:05 pm
Is the holy toast a part of this exhibition by chance?
Ville 01.15.05 at 8:03 pm
I’ve got a head of John the Baptist for two splinters from the True Cross. Okay, I’ve read Baudolino.
Remember, it’s the thought that counts. Relic manufacturing is a business with strong tradition. You could build a big boat from all the wood people claim to be from the cross.
THB 01.15.05 at 8:21 pm
I remember seeing–perhaps it was in Milan–a case containing the head of John the Baptist as a child.
Matt Brubeck 01.15.05 at 8:25 pm
“You could build a big boat from all the wood people claim to be from the cross.”
It’s the miracle of the loaves and the fishes and the relics.
dsquared 01.15.05 at 9:18 pm
“Shavings” of nails?
cloquet 01.15.05 at 9:45 pm
“I myself contain several atoms that resided for several years in St. Paul’s moustache.”
I myself contain several atoms that resided for several years in Jesus Christ’s toenail. Top that!
cloquet 01.15.05 at 10:26 pm
Off topic, but how’s your Crooked Timber Birdsearch and Studsearch projects doing?
cleek 01.15.05 at 10:36 pm
Fort Edward, New York, which is looked down on as country by the people in nearby Glens Falls
hell, Fort Edward is looked down upon by Hudson Falls.
those not familiar with the area might imagine the taller of two siamese twins feeling superior to the shorter.
— Hudson Falls, class of ’88.
Julie Martin 01.15.05 at 10:38 pm
In Nigel Dennis’ Cards of Identity, proctor Channing and a new co-warden of the Badger discuss the unavailability of real badgers for ceremonies.
“Is there no immediate badger whatever?”
“There is a token badger,…stuffed…of course.”
“I suppose they let us take it on ceremonial occasions.”
“Not the actual, token badger, except on the death of the Lord Royal. Normally, you get a clip of artificial fur set in an osier staff. This is an emblem of the token. Thus you retain your technical right to the token badger, and, thereby, to all the living badgers in the country. On the other hand, your osier staff is the symbol of your having waived this prerogative. There is much philology involved, I’m afraid.”
“In short, what is not symbolic is emblematic.”
“Except where it is token,” agreed Channing. “Then, it is stuffed.”
nick 01.16.05 at 1:47 am
the unavailability of real badgers for ceremonies.
That would be based upon the All Souls Mallard, which is no longer a live (or freshly-killed, or stuffed) duck.
Greg 01.16.05 at 2:00 am
I ate my holy toast.
(On the other hand, regarding relics of the cross, some French geezer did a study of known fragments supposedly from the cross in the nineteenth century and reckoned that they wouldn’t have made a third of a cross. So astoundingly improbable, yes. Impossible? No.)
Jon H 01.16.05 at 4:01 am
“That would be based upon the All Souls Mallard, which is no longer a live (or freshly-killed, or stuffed) duck.”
Ah. That explains Terry Pratchett’s “Soul Cake Duck”.
bad Jim 01.16.05 at 9:25 am
Let’s suppose that homeopathic principles govern the potency as well as the provenance of relics, such that the rarest are inevitably those most widely distributed (and commensurately diluted) and that their power varies inversely with their concentration and directly with their dispersion.
Sounds like they’re more like ideas than money.
Mill 01.16.05 at 10:10 am
I am curious — is stonegatherer there just a spambot whose junk sentence happens to be relevant to the post? Or is he a real Catholic who uses links to gay porn as his .sig file?
bad Jim 01.16.05 at 10:18 am
In other words, once upon a time, these relics borne back from distant lands were news that God loved us and in his infinite beneficence bequeathed us these treasured souvenirs.
(I won’t mention the trilobite fossil I bought the day I flew out of Sao Paulo.)
Julie Martin 01.16.05 at 6:32 pm
Nick: Thanks for brightening the day of an ugly American. I assume that someone already has nabbed as a book title “Premonitions of a Duck.”
des von bladet 01.17.05 at 1:42 pm
Subtitle: One of its Forebodings is both the Same
Jeff Rubinoff 01.17.05 at 2:15 pm
Who’s got the indulgence concession for the tour?
Barbara Stewart 01.19.05 at 8:06 pm
Does anybody know the Tibetan Buddhist tale of the dog’s tooth? (Tibetan Buddhists, incidentally, are just as into relics as Cathoics, though generally with less marketing flair.)
A pious Tibetan woman begged her son to bring back a holy item when he went trading in India. But the son forget. When he was almost home, he remembered, removed the tooth from a nearby dead dog, wrapped it in brocades and presented it to his mother, saying it was a tooth of the Buddha that he had acquired at great cost.
The mother placed it reverently in a high spot and prayed before it everyday, with great faith and devotion. Eventually, the tooth began to emanate rainbow-colored light and the mother, herself, when she died, achieved realization.
Bob B 01.20.05 at 10:23 am
Good to read about the enterprising response of the Catholic church to all that stuff about the protestant ethic. Business is business and there is good business in religious relics.
“The discovery that ancient artefacts sacred to Jewish history are forgeries has sent shockwaves through the museum world. But was the gang behind the scam only interested in cash, or did they have other motives?” – at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1394205,00.html
Bob B 01.20.05 at 10:26 am
Good to read about the enterprising response of the Catholic church to all that stuff about the protestant ethic. Business is business and there is good business in religious relics.
“The discovery that ancient artefacts sacred to Jewish history are forgeries has sent shockwaves through the museum world. But was the gang behind the scam only interested in cash, or did they have other motives?” – at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1394205,00.html
Bob B 01.20.05 at 10:30 am
Good to read about the enterprising response of the Catholic church to all that stuff about the protestant ethic. Business is business and there is good business in religious relics.
“The discovery that ancient artefacts sacred to Jewish history are forgeries has sent shockwaves through the museum world. But was the gang behind the scam only interested in cash, or did they have other motives?” – at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1394205,00.html
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