The Irish standard., 1905-09-02
ANCIENT RELICS,
How They Are Preserved by the
Church.

The care taken to insure the proper
Identification of the remains of Paul
Jones led the Rev. DR.. William J.
White, pastor of the Church of the
Visitation in Brooklyn, to speak the
other day on the attitude of the Ro.
man Catholic church toward relics,
says the New York Sun. After dis
cussing means of proving the authen.
ticity of relics, he went on to say:
1.-The question of the authenticity of
relics has always been open to wide
discussion. In 1915 the Fourth Late.
ran Council forbade relics to be sold
or to be exposed outside their cases or
shrines and prohibited the pubic ven
GRAFTON of new relics till their authen-
ITCHY had been approved by the Pope.
"The Council of Trent renewed
these prohibitions and further re-
quired Bishops to decide on the au-
thenticity of new relics after careful
consultation with theologians or the
Bishops of their respective provinces.
In 1881 the Cardinal Vicar of Rome
warned Bishops against spurious
relics. The custom of honoring the
remains of martyrs is very ancient
in 107 the bones of St. Ignatius of
Antioch were gathered in linen cloth
as a precious treasure When Poly
carp's body was burned, in 167, the
Christians exhumed the bones they
could find as more precious than
costly stones and more valuable than
gold.' In the fifth, sixth and seventh
centuries the tombs of the martyrs in
the Catacombs outside Rome became
PAGES of pilgrimage and were enlarged
into chapels whose walls are still COW
cred with pious invocations of the
visitors.
About this time movement to
bring the remains of the martyrs from
the Catacombs into the city began,
caused by the desire of the Popes to
protect the subterranean cemeteries
from desecration at the hands of bar
barian invaders, and also because they
wished to consecrate new churches
that were then being built. In the
Church of St. Prassede alone 1900
bodies were inferred. So keen was the
search for relics and bodies of saints
that abuses began to creep in at the
beginning of the eighth century. The
sale of relics became common, but was
condemned by the Popes. The Dea-
con Deusdona, who had charge of the
cemetery of SITS. Peter and Marcelli-
nus, seems to have been the chief Of
fender. He sold bodies from this Gem
etery beyond the Alps, in what is now
southern Germany.
1.-The many paintings in Europe of
the Savior and the Virgin Mary sup
posed to be painted by ST. Luke or by
the angels are of Byzantine origin;
tney were brought from the East dur
ing the iconoclastic heresies. The
Holy Face which is preserved in St,
ISIcl duu SApOoSu lOI OA
Holy Thursday of each year belongs
to this class.
1.-The Crusaders brought many relics
from Palestine and Cepstantinople,
the authenticity of SON.: of which is
doubtful.
"The annals of the Venetian repub-
lie frequently make mention of saints
bodies brought from the East by
traders. The remains of st. Mark
the evangelist, found their way to Ven
ice in this way. They were taken in
$40 by Venetian merchants from a
church in Alexandria, Egypt, which
the Arabs were about to destroy. St.
Theodore, the early patron saint of
Venice, was deposed and the place of
honor given to the evangelist whose
name, effigy and winged lion occur
everywhere in that city.
"The city of Benevento was be.
sieged during the Middle Ages be.
cause it would not give up the body OF