On the portal Immediately.it A relic of the dress is located at 160 euros Holy Teresina of the Child Jesus He wore when he died, in 1897. To ensure the “bearing that was in contact with the body of the Saint”, so the announcement explains, we must pay 3 thousand but, it is specified, there is a lot of “certification” to guarantee authenticity. The relic is located in Bojano (Campobasso). It is also possible to pay in three “comfortable” installments.
From Cuneo, to the figure of 250 euros, You can buy an “ancient multiple reliquary within silver container with the relic of San Magno in the center (the name is not said, editor’s note) surrounded by those of San Giustino, San Pacifico, San Filoteo, San Clemente ». Conditions? “Excellent,” ensures the announcement. The Santini is much more cheap. For a “lot of 37 religious santini”, 28 euros are spent in total.
Also on the site EBay You don’t joke. Here, indeed, the announcements are even more numerous even if the objects are more or less always the same: relics of the bones, fragments of clothes, cushions where the saint or saint would have died, strands of hair, boys and silver relics.
A fragment of the bones of Santa Teresa d’Avila costs 99 euros. A user who has a “emptying it -like” account sells an “ancient relic of the plug with a waxing seal 19th century”. Which spine is not known because in the photo showing the relics various saints are mentioned. Another thorn, probably from the crown of Jesus, is put on sale for 99 euros.
For 160 euros you can buy the relic of San Nicola di Bari or Sant’Agostino or San Filippo Neri or Santa Monica (the mother of Agostino) or San Giovanni Battista Scalabrinieach, specifies the announcement, with the “declaration of authenticity” that it is not known by whom it is issued.
The relic of the sheet on which he would have pushed San Giuseppe Cafasso quota 10 euros.
For 15 relics of the column of the flagellation of Jesus plus some fragments of the bones of the apostles (it is not said which one) must be paid out 800 eurospayable, specifies the announcement, in “Three installments of 266.67 euros to zero interest”.
The relic of a “rare” (written in capital printed, editor’s note) relic of the “funes of San Francesco d’Assisi” costs 120 euros. Many, with prices ranging from 50 to 200 euros, the relics of the clothing of San Pio da Pietrelcina while, always by the same saint, for one “Reliquia i^ ii^ class”, Whatever this means, with the “declaration of authenticity” included, the price rises to 4,900 euros. What exactly these relics of the friar with the stigmata are, it is not clear why in the photo that accompanies the announcement you can see coins, a crown of the rosary and a couple of black and white photos.
1,700 euros, however, is the price of an “important relic (sic) of Sant’Atanasio of the 4th century”. Slightly cheaper (1,500 euros) the “Ancient bottle of San Nicola with the manna”. For 1,200 euros you can buy a reliquary with 20 relics, including that of “Velo of the Virgin Mary, of Sant’Anna, San Carlo, etc”. Written just like that. The list could continue for a long time.
A real business, which has also existed for centuries, which has returned to make news after a relic of the hair of the hair has been auctioned on the web in recent days Blessed Carlo Acutis, died at 15 in 2006 for a fulminating leukemia, which will be canonized on April 27 on the occasion of the teenage jubilee.
The question has become a religious and judicial case. It is not known whether the relic is authentic or, much more likely, false. In the first case, putting it on sale would be a sacrilegious act; In the second, it is configured like a scam, as well as an offense to religious sentiment.
On eBay, however, a seller, American, puts some relics of Acutis: A fragment of the dress (73 euros), the strand of hair (135 euros), a piece of paper (it does not specify what) what) “owned and used by the saint” (73 euros) While a retailer from Germany offers, at the price of 101 euros, a relic of the hair and one of the blood with lots of photos of Acutis and the indication “Trendo online auction”. It means that the relic in question is the subject of great interest and many users compete it to grab it. Just as it happened with the case denounced by the bishop of Assisi, Monsignor Domenico Sorrentino, “competent” on Acutis since the young man’s body is kept in the sanctuary of the changing city of the Umbrian city.
The bishop’s exposure was sent to the Perugia prosecutor led by Raffaele Cantone who immediately started the investigations. The case reported by Sorrentino concerned a relic of Acutis’ hair for which an online auction started with the price that would exceed 2 thousand euros. Relics, says the anonymous seller covered by nickname, which would have been authenticated by postulation. The auction would have closed and the relic won by an unknown person.
“We asked for the kidnapping,” explained Monsignor Sorrentino to the media, “we don’t know if the relics are true or false but if everything was also invented, if there was deception, we would be in presence, as well as a scam, also of an injury to religious sentiment ». Sorrentino stressed that on the internet, as we have been able to verify by sifting several ads, “there is a market of relics that concerns various saints, such as our Francesco, complete with a prescription. A thing impossible to accept ». The prelate explained that “canon law does not admit this trade. The relics are in fact given through the bishops for free. At most they make offers to the sanctuary from which they come. It is a practice that dates back to the first centuries of our history ». Of the auction that is concerning Acutis, the bishop spoke of “great offense to religious sentiment. What the money can bring to, I fear that there is Satan’s hand ».
Traffic and relic trade is ancient question in the history of Christianity.
Giovanni Boccaccio He writes, in an ironic way, in a short story of the Decameron presenting the character of Friar onion which at a certain point declares to the naive faithful who will show them a very important relic, that is A feather of the wings of the Archangel Gabriele, falling at the time of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary: “I will show you a very holy and beautiful relic (…) one of the pens of thegnol Gabriello, who in the Chamber of the Virgin Mary remained when he came to announce it in Nazarete.”
In 1695 Ludovico Antonio Muratori He is ordained a priest and also becomes prefect of the Ambrosiana Library of Milan. He writes numerous works including the Dissertations over Italian antiquities (1753), soon translated from Latin into Italian. The fiftieth of these Dissertations It is dedicated to the “veneration of Christians towards the saints after the declination of the Roman Imperio”. The Modenese historian and priest dwells on the cult of the saints who “repugnant with that high cult and honor that we owe to our supreme God God”. Muratori, then, comments the Malcostume, practiced during the Middle Ages, but certainly not ended then, in the eighteenth century, of traffic of the relics of the saints since, he wrote, there are Many cities and monasteries that “was missing what, in them times, believed the most precious ornament of places and woke up everything in envy in those who were without it”. That is, the body or some relics belonged to a saint.
If the simple request for a relic has no effect, and this was the practice, given that having a saint’s body was equivalent to having a real treasure, then “the costume was made”, Muratori writes, “To get them with fraud, theft, money and so far violence and with other arts”. And the thing that the intellectual is amazed is that “everything seemed to those people well done and approved by God, provided they arose their intent”.
Muratori calls it one “Sortolata cupidigia” which over the centuries became however “A pious frenzy”. Many centuries have passed and nothing has changed. Indeed, the web made this business even easier (and chaotic) on the border with blasphemy.
