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ike it has so many times in its long, tortured history, the Shroud of Turin is again, this Easter 2011, resurrected. I don’t use resurrected lightly. If authentic, the ancient linen cloth with mysterious images of a crucified and tortured corpse on its fibers is tangible proof to many Christians of Jesus’ rise from the dead. And while authenticity is certainly still in debate, the burden of proof now — at least on the Shroud’s inexplicableness — has shifted to the doubters. The 14-foot-long shroud can be traced to at least 1354, when it appeared in a church in Lirey,...

Whenever the subject of bogus relics comes up, you can count on someone saying, "There are enough pieces of the True Cross to rebuild Noah’s Ark!" Whoever delivers that punch line probably does not know that he or she is echoing the 16th-century Dutch humanist Erasmus.... Clearly, this is a punch line with a pedigree, but is it accurate?....in the last half of the 19th century, a French independent scholar named Charles Rohault de Fleury assigned himself the task of tracking down and measuring every surviving relic of the True Cross. ...Once he had estimated the weight of the cross,...

The remains thought to belong to the martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria. Courtesy of National Geographic Rome, Italy, Apr 19, 2011 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- Two skeletons attributed to two married martyrs from the third century could be authentic, say researchers taking part in a new National Geographic Society documentary.“All of the evidence we have gathered points toward the relics having belonged to Chrysanthus and Daria,” said investigation leader Ezio Fulcheri of the University of Genoa. “This has been a very rare opportunity to be able to study bones and other relics that relate directly back to a legend that...

Journalist Simcha Jacobovici believes that the nails discovered in a Jerusalem cave are revolutionary in their implications regarding the birth of Christianity. The Peace Forest is a small grove of pines sandwiched between the Abu Tor neighborhood and main promenade in Jerusalem. Anyone walking along the road that snakes through the grove can see a green pipe rising from the ground and reaching a height of several meters. This pipe, if journalist Simcha Jacobovici is to be believed, this is the physical tip of an archaeological detective story in the style of the Da Vinci Code. And this pipe is...

Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, a hidden gem in Rome full of holy relics. Nave looking east to the altar. Mosaics on the vault. Chapel of St. Helen on the lower level. Latin inscription. Written prayers on a stone in the Chapel of St. Helen. Chapel of the Holy Relics. Titulus Crucis brick set into a wall of the Chapel of Holy Relics. Important relics displayed in Santa Croce, including the Titulus Crucis. Reliquaries and relics on the top shelf. Full-size replica of the Shroud of Turin. Location map and aerial view of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. For a larger...

A vial containing blood drawn from Pope John Paul II shortly before he died will be installed as a relic in a Polish church soon after his beatification later this year, an official said Monday. Piotr Sionko, the spokesman for the John Paul II Center, said the vial will be encased in crystal and built into the altar of a church in the southern city of Krakow that is opening in May. The exact date of the opening is not yet known, but it should be shortly after John Paul's beatification at the Vatican on May 1........... "It was the...

On Nov. 15, at Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage, Dominican Father Vincent Kelber holds a reliquary containing bone fragments or first-class relics of nine recognized saints. — Anchor photo By PATRICIA COLL FREEMANCatholicAnchor.orgOn a little make-shift altar on a sewing table in Kathy Adler’s house in Palmer, Alaska, there are minute, ornately glass-encased fragments of bone from two saints who are known the world over. Such relics of saints who once walked the earth are physical reminders that holiness is achievable – even for ordinary people who are flesh and bone, too.REVERING RELICSA relic is an object such as a...

The "Fr. Werenfried" boat carrying the relics of numerous saints. Credit: ACN Volgograd, Russia, Sep 14, 2010 / 12:59 am (CNA).- A “chapel boat” containing relics of eight saints has begun a cruise along the Volga River. The relics are a gift from the Catholic Church to the Russian Orthodox Church and could have a deeply symbolic impact, one expert says.The relics are from Sts. John the Baptist, Anne, Bartholomew the Apostle, martyrs Stephen and Lawrence, George, John Chrysostom and Cyril. All the saints lived before the Great Schism split the eastern and western Churches.Aid to the Church in...

A splinter of wood that Catholics consider to be a relic of the cross on which Jesus was crucified and that had been stolen from the Cathedral of the Holy Cross earlier this summer, has turned up in rural Vermont, the Archdiocese of Boston and the Vermont State Police confirmed today. The relic, one of the Archdiocese of Boston's oldest and most treasured possessions, was stolen sometime between 10 a.m. on June 30 and 8 a.m. on July 1 from the base of a crucifix that hung in the cathedral's Blessed Sacrament Chapel. It is still not clear who stole...

Intruders attempted to steal relics of the Italian National Hero Padre Pio (1887-1968) in the dead of night. Rome (kath.net/KAP) Intruders attempted to steal relics of the Italian National Hero Padre Pio (1887-1968) in the dead of night. The thieves broke into the chapel crypt of the south Italian city of Saint Giovanni Rotundo, according to the Roman daily 'La Republica' (Monday-Edition) which was reported to the local police. There the perpetrators broke through the bulletproof glass, behind which the reliquary of the Capuccin Monk is located.

A nail from the time of Christ's crucifixion which was hidden by the same knights who featured in The Da Vinci Code has been found in a dig. The four-inch Roman relic, stored in an ornate box, was uncovered by archaeologists working at a fort thought to have been a former Knights Templar stronghold. It was buried with three skeletons and three swords, including one with the religious order's cross on its blade, on the tiny island of Ilheu de Pontinha, off Madeira. The iron nail is of the type used in thousands of crucifixions - but it is special....

"I understand the attraction of Rome: the sheer mass of the organization (if you'll pardon the pun); the overwhelming aesthetics; the desirability of belonging to such an august and ancient institution which knows what it is, where it comes from, and where it is going; and the cornucopia of brilliant intellects that have debated, refined, and articulated its confession over the centuries...all that I find superior to what evangelical Protestantism has to offer, particularly in its crassest megachurch and emergent varieties..." "...But, having said all this, I find it hard to connect the mind - the Catholic mind - to...

When I was in college, I journeyed to Cologne, Germany and visited the city's glorious cathedral. I was a Protestant at the time, but I remember being amazed that people had been building this cathedral for so many centuries. It is one of the greatest Gothic churches of all time.

HOUSTON — There was a time when churches organized regular devotions to the saints, a practice fostered by priceless relics of holy men and women that were often on display. Today, a Houston priest, Father Carlos Martins, seeks to re-establish the veneration of relics as a pathway to spiritual renewal for modern Catholics, many of whom are ignorant of both the lives of the saints and the tumultuous Church history that made them towering religious figures in their day.The assistant director of Houston’s Catholic Charismatic Center — one of the city’s largest churches and a primary sponsor of spiritual renewal...

The Worship of Relics 1438. Why do Catholics worship relics of Saints? They do not worship relics as they worship God, by adoration. If you mean worship in the sense of honor or veneration, then Catholics certainly venerate the relics of Saints. The law, "Honor thy father and thy mother" extends to their persons, body and soul; to their reputations, and to all connected with them. We reverence their remains even after death. And if we are not to venerate the remains and relics of the Saints who have been so entirely consecrated to God, are we to desecrate them?...

I ran across this real cool video series on YouTube showing the return of the relics of the two great Saints, John Chrysostom and Gregory the Theologian back to Constantinople. There is also some good historical info in them as well, although it is admittedly in favor of the Orthodox position. I put all four parts in order so you don't have to go searching for each part. Each video is like 7 minutes so it is not too long. For some reason the videos are cut off on it. But you can hit the full screen button to view...

Beijing swiftly moved to punish auction house Christie's with tightened customs rules Thursday after its protests failed to stop the sale of two imperial bronze sculptures taken from China nearly 150 years ago. The move signals China's resolve in its campaign to rescue pieces of its cultural heritage now scattered around the world - but the impact of the new rules on the auction house, if any, was not clear. The disputed 18th century fountainheads - heads of a rat and a rabbit - were sold to an unidentified telephone bidder or bidders Wednesday for 28 million euros ($36 million)...

A seal impression belonging to a minister of the Biblical King Zedekiah which dates back 2,600 years has been uncovered completely intact during an archeological dig in Jerusalem's ancient City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said on Thursday. The seal impression, or bulla, with the name Gedalyahu ben Pashur, who served as minister to King Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) according to the Book of Jeremiah, was found just meters away from a separate seal impression of another of Zedekia's ministers, Yehukual ben Shelemyahu, which was uncovered three years ago, said Prof. Eilat Mazar who is leading the dig at the...

The broadcast networks have grown older than ever -- if they were a person, they wouldn't even be a part of TV's target demo anymore. According to a study released by Magna Global's Steve Sternberg, the five broadcast nets' average live median age (in other words, not including delayed DVR viewing) was 50 last season. That's the oldest ever since Sternberg started analyzing median age more than a decade ago -- and the first time the nets' median age was outside of the vaunted 18-49 demo. Fueling the graying of the networks: the rapid aging of ABC, NBC and Fox....

  Superstitious Catholics? Q. Why do Catholics use “good luck charms” like medals and relics of the saints in order to perfom miracles? Why is that not superstitious? A. It does sound superstitious at first. And perhaps there have been Catholics who used these things in a purely superstitious way. But we would not know for sure unless we questioned them.Of course, the Catholic Church teaches that only God can perform a miracle. However, everyone will agree that He can perform these miracles any way He wants to. So He can act directly or indirectly. We know that He usually likes...