Christian relics

[Rick Otto]

Miracles are not necessarily de fide for Catholics. Further, with respect to the Holy House of Loreto...the various papal pronouncements back in the day have nothing to do with faith or morals or even with historical facts which can in any way be called dogmatic.

I find the shrine a curiousity, nothing more.

The only thing that papal pronouncements on relics have to do with papal pronouncements on faith & morals is that they exhibit the same character & consistency.

 

[Albion]

Besides, if the abuse of a thing meant it had to be rejected, the Bible would have been ditched a very long time ago.

Interestingly, Catholic apologists often use that very argument to defame Protestantism, i.e. if there are many viewpoints, all must be wrong.

Nothing can alter the fact that the Saints are the vessels of the Holy Spirit - that, is why their relics are holy and venerable & precious

But that is a non-sequitur. If the saints are holy, it does not follow that their bathwater, etc. is holy merely because it came into contact with a saint's body.

It is reprehensible in the extreme to accuse any assembly of Christians of the appalling hypocrisy which is implied here, when there is no basis for it; relics are honourable because the Saints whose bodies they come from or are, were holy in this life, & glorified God, & were approved by Him. This is nothing to do with money.

But no one can deny that this is the history of relic-production: many fakes and many hucksters. That there are relics which are genuine and are not abused doesn't change this historical reality. "Reprehensible in the extreme" to mention this? Hardly. It's just history.

## That is true, & entirely innocent; the Pope wished to preserve the holy bodies from being lost as a result of the decay of the catacombs - so he had them transferred to a place where they would be safer. What is wrong with that ?

What is wrong is not that which you said, but what the Catholic Encyclopedia described:

"The holy bodies of holy martyrs [...] are to be venerated by the faithful, for through these bodies many benefits are bestowed by God on men...."

Incidentally, to the complaint that the Catholic Encylopedia is a hundred years old, the edition being cited is not. The Encyclopedia is authorized by the Church and verified as to its agreement with Catholic teaching, right on up to the most recent edition.