Movie director David Rolfe offered to give the British Museum one million dollars if it can make a new Shroud of Turin. Rolfe posited that if the shroud is the handiwork of “a medieval conman” as the Museum suggests, then their experts should be able to accomplish a similar feat in 2022. Read more
Posts Tagged ‘relics’
Femur belonging to Jesus’ brother is too young
Monday, February 15th, 2021For more than 1,500 years Catholics have made pilgrimage to Rome’s Santi Apostoli Church to venerate two apostles, St. Philip and St. James the Younger – who is said to have been Jesus’ brother. Bones believed to belong to the martyred saints are enshrined at the basilica, and each encasing bears the name of the Read more
Pope to asked to intervene after Lord Sugar mocks relics
Monday, August 5th, 2019Pope Francis must speak out against British businessman and politician Lord Sugar after he indulged in “sacrilegious mockery of religious relics” to make a cheap political point aimed at Jeremy Corbyn. Read more
St Peter’s remains found
Thursday, September 14th, 2017Bones said to be St Peter’s have been found near the altar in a church in Rome. St Peter, who was the first Pope, died about 2,000 years ago. The relics were found under the floor in clay pots in the 1,000-year-old Church of Santa Maria in Cappella in the district of Trastevere. Read more
Russians flock to see relics
Thursday, June 8th, 2017Over 300,000 Russians have been standing in huge lines for up to 10 hours to visit a gilded ark thought to carry bone fragment relics of St Nicholas. “The thing is, people don’t have much to hope for … they have nothing else to rely on, other than to go and pray,” says Xenia Loutchenko, Read more
Relics whose stories have gripped the world
Friday, November 27th, 2015
The University of Oxford is to become a world leading centre into the study of religious relics following the launch of a new department. This ground-breaking centre, based in Keble College’s Advanced Studies Centre, is to be composed of computer and medical scientists as well as historians, classicists and theologians. Such an interdisciplinary approach builds Read more
Relics and artifacts can help us ‘find Jesus’
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015
Why are we so fascinated with any historical artifact — relics, as some call them — associated with Jesus? Even the most suspect claim of a “lost” gospel or an “explosive” archaeological find that purports to shed light on the man from Galilee can generate a media frenzy, and gives believers — or skeptics — Read more
Fulton Sheen beatification process on indefinite hold
Tuesday, September 9th, 2014
The cause for beatification of American evangelist Archbishop Fulton Sheen has been suspended indefinitely because of a spat between two US dioceses. In a September 3 communiqué, the Diocese of Peoria, where Archbishop Sheen was born, announced that the cause was suspended “for the foreseeable future” and would be assigned to a Vatican archive. This Read more
Saints, pigs and the Bishop of PNG
Tuesday, June 10th, 2014
Stepping over a pig about to be slaughtered while accompanying the relic of a potential saint may seem a somewhat unusual piece of Church business. But for Bishop of Papua New Guinea’s Kimbe province Capuchin Bill Fey such events are not especially unusual. “On that instance, I was part of a procession carrying a relic of Read more
Vatican unveils bone fragments purportedly belonging to St. Peter
Tuesday, November 26th, 2013
The Vatican on Sunday unveiled a handful of bone fragments purportedly belonging to St. Peter. Pope Francis prayed before the bones, which were revealed in a bronze case near the alter at a mass celebrating the end of the Year of Faith in St. Peter’s Square, the Associated Press reports. The remains were discovered in Read more