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From: sxnahm@ubvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Worship of corpses by Christians
Message-ID: <544@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Sep-86 13:19:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubvax.544
Posted: Tue Sep 16 13:19:28 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 01:49:42 EDT
References: <1093@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: sxnahm@ubvax.UUCP (Stephen Nahm)
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
Lines: 28
Summary: A case story

In article <1093@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) writes:
>It occurs to me that some people probably wrote off my recent allusion to
>corpse worship by Christians as yet more unintelligible and false Maronic
>hyperbole.  In fact, what I'm referring to is well-documented historical
>fact, and its persistence to the modern day can be easily verified by anyone
>familiar with European (and especially Italian) Catholicism.

I was raised Catholic, and taught that the "relics" of the saints were a
sacred tie to God.  Each Catholic altar was supposed to have an altar stone
that contained a relic.  This usually was a miniscule fragment of the remains
of some saint or holy object.

This never seemed too morbid to me; other cultures treat the physical
remains of ancestors with similar ceremony.  And after all, they were tiny
fragments encased in stone in the altar; this was reasonably respectful,
though I suppose the poor saint's fragments might be scattered amongst many
churches.

When I was in Europe in 1978, I visited a Catholic church in Germany
(Munich, I think).  I was astounded to see what has to be the most gruesome
relic on display there.  Encased in a 4x3x2 foot glass box was the full
skeleton of some martyr.  The skeleton was dressed in a robe, with a crown
and sceptor.  The eyes were encrusted with jewels.  I couldn't believe what
I was seeing.  When I now look at the photo I took of it, I still can't
believe it.
-- 
Steve Nahm                  UUCP route:       {amd|cae780}!ubvax!sxnahm
sxnahm@ubvax.UUCP           Internet address: amd!ubvax!sxnahm@decwrl.DEC.COM