This sort of thing bugs me. I find it macabre and more than a little ghoulish.
The Vatican announced a couple days ago that it would be putting the bones of St. Peter on display for the first time in history.
Big deal. I’d ask if the bones could actually be verified with respect to the identity, but I don’t care.
What does this sort of thing prove? How is it faith-enhancing? Does anyone doubt Peter existed? It’s ironic that the apostle who, when people bowed to him, said “Arise, I myself am also a man” (Acts 10:26) is now being put on display as a fetish. Something tells me Peter would tell people to go do something really faith-based instead. Honestly, it reminds me of the bizarre behavior of people who gathered to watch Simeon the Stylite sit on his fifty-foot pole for forty years to worship the worms that dropped from his body. What a work for God.
Mike, I understand you’re being frank about your personal reaction. I would suggest to you, however, that this cannot be fairly addressed without at least attempting to come to grips with how veneration of the relics of the Saints is understood in Roman Catholicism. Displaying the relics of the Saints in a Catholic church, or even in private homes, is ubiquitous in Roman Catholicism. In fact, in our home, we have a relic of Saint Monica on display. The essential purposes of this is to remind the faithful of the reality of the communion of the Saints, so as to see them as models in the Christian life and to ask for their intercession. Of course, you can register your disagreement, but please just acknowledge that for over a billion Catholics, there is nothing odd or unusual about this.
Necromancers in the Vatican Sir? I’ll work on a conspiracy theory immediately.