An Irishman's Diary

By this weekend more than 100,000 people will have filed past the relics of St Therese of Lisieux - some of them past my gaping jaw. Among the crowds I recognised members of the Presbyterian congregation, Anglicans, avowed atheists, and a great number, I presume, of Roman Catholics of all ages. They came to see a casket containing not the bones of St Therese, but some of the bones of St Therese: Why?

Christians began venerating relics of the saints sometime shortly after the death of Jesus. In the Acts of St Polycarp, composed about 156 AD, it was noted: "we buried in a becoming place his [St Polycarp's] remains, which are more precious to us than the costliest diamonds, and which we esteem more highly than gold."

Expanding church

After an initial hesitation - the eastern churches seemed to have most of the relics - the rapidly expanding Roman church embraced the practice of burying a relic of a saint in a new church, sometimes below the altar, where a hole would be left for small pieces of cloth to be lowered on string to touch the coffin, or reliquary. This cloth was then withdrawn, cut up and divided among the faithful who wore it close to their bodies, often on a string around the neck. This became known as a scapula.

Relics in the form of bones could be cut into many fragments. Jaw bones were especially important at they contained teeth which could be separated. Small bits of bone, locks of hair, ashes, or a cloth that had been dipped in the saint's blood were treasured reminders of the power of faith.

The reliquary - or receptacle containing the relics of saints and other sacred objects - was often designed in a shape that reflected the nature of its contents, such as a hand, foot or head. The gold likeness of St Foy in Conques, southern France, probably made around 900 AD, is a statue of a 12-year-old girl who was martyred during the persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius in AD 303. It is made of sheet gold over a wooden core. Gems, jewels and other ornaments were attached to her over the years by faithful pilgrims who believed that an actual relic of St Foy was kept inside.

There was also a tradition within the church of insulting sacred relics, or the image of saints. In certain circumstances a statue would be put outside until favours were delivered. Then the statue was brought back into the home again. It was once popular to do this to ensure the weather was good.

Three classes

Devotees recognise basically three classes of relic. First there are the bodies of saintly persons or any of their integral parts, such as limbs, ashes or bones. Second-class relics comprise objects that came into physical contact with the saints and are therefore sanctified (including clothing, instruments with which a martyr was tortured, chains with which they were bound).

Third-class relics include bits of cloth that have touched a first- or second-class relic.

Many miracles and healings have been claimed by those who have touched relics, reliquaries, or even a piece of a saint's clothing.

None of this is as strange as it might seem to those of who might call ourselves secular liberals. Witness the scramble for anything that might have touched the late Princess Diana, or the crowds outside Graceland who gape at a toaster that once was in everyday proximity to Elvis Presley.

How do we respond to those who travel to the Holy Land to see the same vista enjoyed by Christ? To those who yearn for some modern-day manifestation of their faith? To those who keep an image of Diana to remind them of a time when they believed that a member of the British Royal family cared about the number of people dying in hospitals? Or those who file past some of the bones of St Therese of Lisieux?

Why should I, and others like me, be aghast that people would want to do this? Why has the Irish Times Letters page again carried the impassioned arguments from members of different, though mainly Christian, religions? Once again our thinnest virtue seems to be tolerance - in both camps.

Sheer numbers

Surely religious equality does not mean we all have to be the same. Difference is neither wrong nor right, it is just different. While the sheer numbers of people visiting the bones of St Therese may evoke memories of a times when the majority religion in this State expressed little tolerance of the minority, that is just a connotation. Those who go to see some of the bones of St Therese are not compelling anybody else to do so. Let those who derive comfort from the relics do so. The truth is that in "post-Catholic" Ireland, more traffic upset is caused by rush hour on the Stillorgan Road.