SRR #51 | Roman Catholics and The Veneration of Relics

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Roman Catholicism and the Veneration of Relics

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. Welcome back everybody to Simple Riff around the radio. My name is Tim and, well, my name is Tim Shaughnessy and I'm here with the other Tim, Tim Coffman.

Today we are going to be talking about something to do with Roman Catholicism and I believe the topic is the Roman Catholics and relics. Is that right, Tim?

Yes, we're going to talk about venerating relics and the Roman Catholic arguments for the antiquity of the practice and we'll talk about when it actually originated.

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BTWN. Alright, we are back and so Tim, I've noticed that you've been pretty active on the blog. You are putting together. I just want to draw attention to this real quickly. You are putting together blog articles from our series on Mother Mary.

Yes, that's correct. When we prepare a podcast, we put together all of our show notes and when we're talking about something like the veneration of Mary under her different attributes and titles like the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption and the Ark of the Covenant, it's important to have all the historical data together.

But when you're listening to a podcast, it's easy to digest the information but very difficult to recall it and so we thought we'd put together all the data that went into those podcasts so people can look at the evidence for themselves.

I think that's very helpful because that way they can actually take your notes. So these articles have Tim Kaufman's notes not mine. Whenever I record with Tim Kaufman, he's the one who does all the research and all the work so we're very grateful to have him on the podcast but you're getting to look at his notes so I think it's awesome because you can listen to the podcast and follow along with him as he's going through his own notes and they are extensive, they're detailed and they're very thorough and it's a huge blessing.

So Tim, why don't we just jump into today's topic. I'm going to give the floor to you. You're the one who put together all these notes and I have the benefit of going through it with you but I've not added anything to what you've already put together so why don't we just get started.

Okay, well I'm glad to be here. Thanks again for.

Arranging for this.

I'm always happy to co-host with you. This is a slightly different topic than the ones we have covered regarding Mary but this has to do with the veneration of relics.

And.

As we noted when we were talking about the different attributes of Mary that there was no real sense that Mary was sinless until you get to the end of the 4th century. There's no real sense that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant until you get to the end of the 4th century.

There's no sense that Mary.

Mary's virginity, her physical virginity was.

Preserved in childbirth until you get to the end of the 4th century and we find that repeatedly in all these different doctrines and practices of Roman Catholicism that are alleged to be apostolic. When you do the research and even Roman Catholics acknowledge this when you do the research you find that there's not a lot of really solid evidence for their beliefs until you get to the latter part of the 4th century.

Typically what they do is they'll say if you will just spot us those first three centuries we'll take it from there and prove that these doctrines and teachings must be apostolic. The purpose for these podcasts when we talk about these things is to equip our listeners so that they don't have to take the Roman Catholic arguments lying down.

The fact is so many of the doctrines and practices and teachings of what we now understand to be Roman Catholicism originated not with the apostles but in the latter part of the 4th century. Relics and relic veneration.

Is one of those.

This one is a pretty interesting topic because Roman Catholics will say that the veneration of relics is one of the.

Few.

That they can trace all the way back to the scriptures which is an interesting confession on its face but when we evaluate the data what we'll find is that actual practice of venerating relics originates in the latter part of the 4th century just like all the other practices like when we did our series on the sacrifice of the mass the sacrifice of the mass originated in the latter part of the 4th century.

So I thought we'd start today. Let's just read a news article. It's pretty old but it's going to give you an idea of what we're talking about. This is from the Washington Post back in 1999.

And.

It's just a story.

It's just a human interest story about a church in Largo, Maryland.

That was exposing.

The relics of some martyrs who had died around 200 AD and this is the article.

It says.

The remains, the pebble-sized remains of these martyrs were venerated at two recent evening services at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Largo, Maryland.

As.

Parishioners stood and sang when the saints go marching in and the Knights of Columbus in full regalia shouted the relics, I'm sorry, saluted. The relics on satin pillows were escorted into the church.

Tonight we give glory to God. We are all called to be God's saints the Reverend Michael King said as Deacon Leon Bichette read the Gospel of Luke and urged the worshippers to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Small children sang, oh taste and see what the Lord has done and people lined up and kissed some of the relics. So that's an article from 1999 called The Parish's Relics Include.

African Saints.

A human interest story in the religious section of the Washington Post back in 1999. The reason I mention that is to Roman Catholics this is actually not an unusual occurrence but to Protestants it looks weird and it sounds weird so they take pieces of martyrs, their bones and carry them on satin pillows.

The Knights of Columbus salute the priest says we're giving glory to God.

And people.

Line up to kiss these bones.

And.

Roman Catholics will say the veneration of relics is something that can be dated to apostolic times and earlier and so the Protestants are weird for not venerating relics.

And so.

They'll make the case that this is something that's normal. It was taught at the earliest days of Christianity and Protestants have rebelled against apostolic teaching by not venerating relics. So let's talk about relics.

Let me.

Just ask you Tim, you were raised Roman Catholic, did you ever venerate relics or go to a reliquary and see all the different.

Saints.

Dead bones displayed?

No, I never saw any dead bones or anything like that but I didn't have time to read through all of your notes but I'm wondering if I was raised as a Roman Catholic up until about my teenage years and a lot of the stuff.

Now that I'm learning more about it and I'm looking back and thinking oh okay so that's what that was. But we had all those statues and I remember a statue of Mother Mary being given to a family member and I remember thinking this was bizarre because he he was very excited about the family receiving this statue of Mother Mary and I remember him kissing the statue and so I'm wondering if that falls into the same category as to what you're talking about but I never saw any dead bones or anything like that.

Well it's in a similar category because kissing objects is a sign of adoration and veneration is pretty standard in Roman Catholicism, kissing the cross or kissing a relic of the cross or kissing a relic.

Of a martyr.

It's pretty standard.

Stuff in Roman Catholicism.

I think that people.

Were kissing things long before the latter part of the 4th century but the real question is when did we start digging up.

Dead people and kissing them.

And that's what we're going to get to. But let's. I thought we should start with.

What a relic is.

And the basic Roman Catholic teaching on relics and the Roman Catholic practice of veneration and how it manifests so we're going to start with just a Latin term relicus just means remains or remaining.

And so when somebody dies and their body decomposes all that remains is just some bones and teeth and possibly some hair. And so those are the remains or the relics of that person. So according to the Catholic encyclopedia relic veneration is the veneration of some object notably part of the body or clothes remaining as a memorial of a departed saint.

And it's very important to start with that because one it's the official Roman Catholic definition but also because it's the remains of a departed saint. And what we're going to find as Roman Catholics try to justify modern relic veneration they're going to appeal to some scripture passages where the clothing of a living person was held in high esteem.

And they're going to say see that's.

Relic veneration but relic means remains. The official definition is the remaining is a memorial of a departed saint and so we're going to get to Paul's handkerchief and Peter's shadow and say hey those guys weren't departed yet so those don't qualify as remains but what we want to get to is the official Roman Catholic teaching on the veneration of relics and the condemnation of people who reject relic veneration and so for that you can always find some condemnations in the Council of Trent.

In the 25th session of the Council of Trent in the 16th century you find affirmations of relic veneration that is the pieces of bodies of martyrs and dead people and other dead people and also a condemnation of those who reject it and this is from the 25th session of the Council of Trent.

It says the holy bodies of holy martyrs and of others now living with Christ are to be venerated by the faithful through which many benefits are bestowed by God on men so that's the affirmation that you are to venerate the remains of dead people.

They who affirm that veneration and honor are not due to the relics of saints or that these and other sacred monuments are uselessly honored by the faithful and that the places dedicated to the memories of the saints are in vain visited with the view of obtaining their aid are holy to be condemned as the church has already long since condemned and now condemns again.

So basically they're basically saying hey if people who are holy died and you need to take their remains of their bodies they basically put parts of them in altars and so we're going to find as we read a little bit more that Roman Catholic altars tend to have the relic of a saint somewhere embedded in the altar.

They'll be exposed on the altar sometimes in what's called a reliquary. It's just a little box or container that contains or displays the little piece of bone ship or something that is allegedly from a saint and it'll be exposed on the altar or when I was young I visited a relic.

Room in.

Still River Massachusetts and it was a room about about 20 by 20 20 feet by 20 feet and it's just wall to wall, floor to ceiling.

Relics everywhere.

And they're just little cases with a relic of a certain saint or allegedly a saint. A little piece of their bone is in a tiny little case and it's just wall to wall, floor to ceiling and that's a lot of dead.

That's a lot of bones. Little pieces. I mean it could be anything. It could be a tooth, a fingernail an eyelash.

I don't know.

Anything that was related to a saint they would say this is a relic from that saint.

Let me ask you a quick question. It sounds to me like they break up the body and then ship it out to different parishes and ship it out to. Is that right? That's exactly what they do. You might get a toe and the guys down the street might get a finger and wow I didn't know that they did that I thought they would have tried to I know very little about this particular subject dealing with Roman Catholicism but I thought that they would have tried to keep the bodies intact but I guess not.

Well some of them they do and you'll find some.

Some churches.

The bodies of dead saints are actually displayed in state under the altar and I have visited churches that actually have a body of a dead person under the altar.

And of course it's been preserved.

They call them the incorruptibles. They say wow they're so holy their body didn't even corrupt in the grave.

And yet.

When you look at it really closely they're obviously not in very good shape.

Now that I'm just listening to you now that I'm thinking about it I do remember one time seeing a fabric or a cloth as a kid and I just remember being told that this was something that was that it was an article of clothing that belonged to somebody and I have no idea who it was but I do remember people making a big deal about it.

I don't remember if I saw anybody kissing it.

Well that's a good.

Segue into our next section.

Which is to talk about the different classes of relics because what you just described I think is probably a third class relic or a second class relic and a first class relic is actually a part of the saint's body and let me tell you that if a church were to receive the big toe of a saint it would be considered a huge honor.

Because normally a much.

Smaller part of a saint you'd get I mean just a tiny fragment of a bone chip really. It'd be unusual to get a hand for example or a thumb. You'd get some a much much smaller part but say a first class relic is a part of the saint's body and this is placed in an altar stone or placed in a relic display case.

A second class relic is what you were just describing is a piece of the saint's clothing or something used by the saint and then a third class object is an object which has been touched to a first class relic.

So.

They might actually have something.

Maybe.

It's difficult.

To categorize some of these like a chair that was used by a saint might be a third class relic or possibly a second class because it was used by the saint but it also was touched by the saint so it just depends and I've seen them categorized in different ways but there's three basic categories and I imagine that they probably have pretty blurry lines between some of these but a first class is for sure a piece of a body of a saint.

And what.

We do what Roman Catholics do is what was described in the news article that we read at the beginning of the podcast which is they'll get in a line, they'll go forward and pay some respect to this saint.

But it's a respect that's not the normal respect that's paid to the dead. For example we don't sneak into a mortuary at night and put bodies in funny positions and take pictures of them and send them out on Facebook.

That's illegal and you'd be wrong, you don't do that and so in some way we all show some respect to the dead and we are careful at their funerals. We don't say terrible things about them but that's not relic veneration.

That's just respecting.

The dead and it's not unusual to do that. It's not unusual to care for a dead body respectfully until it's placed in the grave. What we'll find as we go through this discussion on relics is that Roman Catholics will find cases in the scripture where a dead person's body was treated respectfully and they'll say see that's relic veneration but what's missing is anybody lining up to kiss the dead body.

So what we read at the beginning of the article was the people at the Roman Catholic Church were lining up to kiss the piece of bone that ostensibly came from this saint from the 2nd or 3rd century.

Allegedly a martyr.

So that leads us to the ways that relics are venerated, we've already discussed one which is kissing. Another way is to incense them and you were raised because your family was so interested in that Latin mass and the Tridentine mass, my guess is you probably attended church services where the priest would get out something called a thurible.

It's connected to a chain and it would have incense burning inside it and you'd swing it toward the altar and that would release some smoke and so you'd have this incense that's released at the altar.

But one of the ways that relics are venerated is by incensing them and this is I'm reading from the Roman Catholic General Instructions of the Roman Missal which basically is how to conduct a mass and it says that relics of the saints exposed for public veneration are incensed with two swings of the thurible.

Some things get three swings but that is they swing the chain toward it once and twice and it releases the smoke. But sometimes the altar I think gets three swings but the relics get two swings of the thurible so that's one way that relics are venerated in the Roman Catholic Church.

Another way is burning candles before them and you could go to various Roman Catholic web pages and I just found an example where a web page says it's a pious custom to keep lamps burning before altars and images of saints and before their relics so they light candles or they burn an oil lamp or something in order to venerate a relic.

Another way is to either bow or to make a profound bow, a bow is you just lean forward, a profound bow is when you make a bow all the way down to your waist.

But.

This is from the ceremonial for the use of the Catholic Churches in the United States of America, 6th edition. This was actually from 1890 but it's basically about high mass. And high mass is the highest most formal mass that a Roman Catholic priest conducts.

And it says. If the relic of the saint whose festival is celebrated is placed in the middle of the altar the celebrant, that is the priest, incenses it with two swings bowing to it before the altar, so he incenses it and then he bows down to it.

And then in another section on the high mass it says. If the priest passes before the high altar where there is a relic of a saint whose feast is celebrated or some other remarkable relic he makes a low bow, that is a profound bow, bowing very very.

Low.

And then finally we've talked about kissing but we'll also talk about kneeling and this is from another Catholic apologetic page, it just says when venerating a relic it is most appropriate to show honor and respect to the saint by performing a simple exterior gesture.

Some venerating a saint's relics can kiss or touch the glass case that houses the relic. Other acceptable gestures include signing oneself with the sign of the cross or kneeling in front of the relic in prayer.

Okay, so.

This is how this is how a relic is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church incense, candles bowing kneeling and kissing or making the sign of the cross or whatever. But you understand that these are the bowing and the kneeling is what we typically associate with adoration, incense and candles we just don't do anymore.

The.

Kissing.

I know that we're supposed to.

Greet one another with a holy kiss but I don't think the scriptures tell us to kiss a dead person although there is a story of a prophet in the Old Testament who brought a boy back to life.

By.

Putting his hands to his hands and his mouth to his mouth. But that's certainly an exceptional case and it's not. It doesn't prove that we should kiss relics but in any case the way Roman Catholics would would venerate a piece of a dead person is to incense it or burn candles in front of it or bow or kneel or kiss that relic.

Now.

It's important to understand that part of it because this is what they mean by veneration.

And.

What I want to read now is that this is from the Catholic Encyclopedia on Relics and this is the point where they say hey a lot of other stuff. It's hard for us to trace back that far but this one we can trace all the way back to the scriptures.

And there's two interesting points I want to make about the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on relics. First it says few points of faith can be more satisfactorily traced back to the earliest ages of Christianity than the veneration of relics from the Catholic standpoint.

There was no extravagance or abuse in this cult as it was recommended and indeed taken for granted by writers like Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory of Nysa, Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzen, and by all the other great doctors without.

Exception.

So what I want to first point out is how interesting it is that they say oh yes this can be traced all the way back to the earliest days of Christianity and here's all these people that endorse it. Well every person that they listed is from the latter part of the 4th century.

That's interesting. Now we'll get into some of the evidence that they provide. But there's another section in this entry on relics that I thought was very interesting is that they say it's not easy to figure out when this started.

But they give an example. And they say neither is it quite easy to determine the period at which the practice of venerating minute fragments of bone or cloth, small parcels of dust, etc. first became common.

We can only say that it was widespread early in the 4th century and that dated inscriptions upon blocks of stone which were probably altar slabs afford evidence upon the point which is quite conclusive.

So they're saying we can at least show that early in the 4th century this was widespread. But what's interesting is that the example they give as evidence that this was widespread in the early 4th century is from a slab of stone that's dated to 359.

AD.

That's the latter part of the 4th century. That's not early 4th century, that's the latter part of the 4th century. And what we'll find.

Is we proceed through.

The means of veneration that they don't even have evidence of the means of veneration much less just the veneration itself. And by means of veneration I mean the kissing and the kneeling and the bowing and the incense and we'll get to that in just a second.

But this is something that Roman Catholics think goes all the way back to the apostles and earlier.

And they.

Will rest on that and say this is just evidence that you need to be Roman Catholic and we're going to look at some people a little bit later in the podcast, look at the testimony of some people who converted to Roman Catholicism in part because they finally accepted that wow, relic veneration of the early church looks a lot like Roman Catholicism so I guess I'll just have to become Roman Catholic.

And this is, again, it's the purpose of our podcast on these to show that you don't have to take those arguments lying down. The best Roman Catholicism can do is the latter part of the 4th century and we're going to prove that today on relics.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, that was very good. Just one quick clarification when and this is just in case people are unfamiliar with Roman Catholicism when you say, when you're talking about the saints the Catholics have a different view of saints than the Protestants.

The Protestants believe that every believer is ultimately a saint but the Catholics would basically limit sainthood to somebody who is very special who lived an exemplary life and somehow through their life earned sainthood.

So we're not just talking about anybody who died in the faith. We're talking about people who maybe did something that was exemplary during their lifehood and yes.

That's correct, it's a different meaning of saint. You know, we address each other as saints.

Because the scriptures refer.

To living believers as saints like the saints of Ephesus for example. But in Roman Catholicism a saint is someone who has departed and then after examination is determined to have been exemplary and therefore gets elevated to the status of sainthood or is canonized as a saint.

And that's something that's done.

By the Pope.

So yes.

When we're talking about they're venerating the relic.

Of a saint, they're talking about someone that has been declared to be a saint by Roman Catholicism.

Ok, yeah yeah, let's go.

So what I want to do.

Is typically.

As I mentioned earlier, a Roman Catholic will try to prove the antiquity.

Of.

Relic veneration by showing that a long time ago people respected the bodies of the dead, and you're going to have to do a lot better than that if you're going to convince me that relic veneration goes back to the age of the apostles and earlier.

What's missing in the early evidence is people, the priests incensing, are there being any priests who are incensing relics burning candles before relics, kissing relics, bowing down to relics, and kneeling to relics, and I want to just read the historical evidence that shows that just those things alone are novelties.

Let's just first start with incense.

I was.

Reading the story of a journalist named Walid Shoubat.

And it's something.

People can look him up online, but he talked about how he converted to Roman Catholicism.

Because he did.

Some research and found that the earliest churches from the first century were using incense which is what Roman Catholics do today. But he must not have done enough research because even the Catholic encyclopedia admits they find no evidence of the use of incense until the 5th century.

This is the entry on incense, it says. When exactly incense was introduced into the religious services of the church is not easy to say. During the first four centuries there's no evidence for its use.

The liturgies of St. James and Mark, which in their present form are not older than the 5th century.

Refer to its use at the.

Sacred mysteries, so that's the Catholic encyclopedia saying we can't find any evidence of anybody using incense in the first four centuries of Christianity.

So.

We can rule out that the early church was incensing relics, they weren't venerating relics by incensing them. So let's go to burning candles, Lactantius. And we've talked about Lactantius before good guy who lived I think he lived before the council of Nicaea and I think died the year of the council of Nicaea.

And in his divine institutes, book 6 chapter 2, he ridicules the Romans who burn candles to their gods.

And says.

We have no need to do that, for our god does not need candles. He says, God has no need of their candles. Who has himself given so clear and bright a light. For the use of man is that man therefore to be thought in his senses who presents the light of candles and torches as an offering to him who is the author and giver of light.

So the light he requires from us is of another kind and that indeed not accompanied by smoke I mean the light of the mind. So in one stroke Lactantius rules out incense and candles and you don't find evidence of incense and candles being.

Used in Christian.

Worship until you get to the latter part of the 4th century and we have Jerome in his letter to Marcella in 385 AD talking about.

He had been.

Given a gift of wax candles and he says that reminds us that we should look for the bridegrooms coming with our lights burning. And then in 396 or later he was criticized, there was a man named Vigilantius who had criticized the use of wax candles to honor the martyrs and Jerome defended that.

So his defense of that was in 404 AD but the criticism of it was from 396 AD. So we have the, okay so we can rule out candles and incense right. Well let's. The first recorded instance of kissing a relic is from a letter, letter 46 from Jerome in 386 AD and he says everywhere we venerate the tombs of the martyrs, we apply their holy ashes to our eyes, we even touch them if we may with our lips.

Then we shall touch with our lips the word of the cross and rise in prayer. So here this is a letter from the latter part of the 4th century showing that they were venerating the relics of martyrs by kissing them and also venerating the word of the cross by kneeling before it and kissing it.

But again this is the.

First recorded instance so we have we have kissing relics we don't find until the latter part of the 4th century, incense we can't even find to the 5th, wax candles we don't find used in Christian worship or to honor martyrs until you get to the latter part of the 4th century.

And then the first recorded evidence we have for bowing to relics is Cyril of Alexandria and he lived from 376 to 444 AD. And this is the first case we have of a description of bowing down to the relics.