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Jennifer's Alternative Religions Blog

By Jennifer Emick, About.com Guide to Alternative Religions since 2002

St Anthony's tooth, coming soon to Ebay

Wednesday November 29, 2006
The important sounding "Crusade for Holy Relics" is a Catholic activist group with a mission- to pressure Ebay ands its sellers to keep 'first class relics,' the bits of flesh and bone, teeth and fingernails believed to be the relics of Catholic saints out of the marketplace. (Second and third-class relics include clothing or possessions of saints, or objects touched by first class relics.) The group spends hours combing auction listings looking for listings selling the prized body bits, which are usually collected hopeful believers for the miraculous power the objects are believed to possess.

In the end, it seems like a strange avocation, given that it is highly unlikely that the relics are genuine in the first place- there are enough parts for sale to put each saint back together seven times over, and that it was the Church itself that started the dirty business of pawning saints so many centuries ago.

Comments

December 4, 2006 at 6:30 pm
(1) Pat says:

So whatever happened to Jesus’ foreskin. Did it also rise on the third day, or might it soon be available on ebay? Hmmm…maybe if I fried the b’jeebers out of an old sausage rind…..

December 5, 2006 at 2:12 pm
(2) altreligion says:

Let me know how that works out, will you? ;-)

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