The veneration of relics is tragically alive and well.
This September, a relic of the heart of Saint Pio (Padre Pio) will be exposed for veneration in San Giovanni Rotondo (southern Italy), where Saint Pio (1887–1968) lived most of his life and is buried.
Thousands of Roman Catholic pilgrims are expected to pray before the relic, asking Saint Pio for a blessing for their lives. Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) blessed the relic in 2019; this is the first time it will be exposed again after that event, and there are expectations of big crowds travelling to pay tribute to it. The cult of Saint Pio and his relics is deeply felt in the Roman Catholic world to the point that there is a ‘Padre Pio Relic Tour’.
The ‘core’ of Roman Catholicism
Saint Pio and his relics are not a fringe and bizarre aspect. They are embedded in mainstream Roman Catholic theology and devotional practices. They belong to the ‘core’ of living out the Roman Catholic way: praying to the dead; asking for the intercession of saints; attaching to physical objects as mediators of grace; and centring life around folk devotional practices.
For a casual observer (especially if he comes from a non-majority Roman Catholic region or if she thinks that Roman Catholicism is a somewhat odd but still gospel-centred denomination), it may sound strange to think that the veneration of relics is still around. On the contrary, it is one of the evergreens of Roman Catholic life. Roman Catholicism blends sophisticated philosophical traditions, complex theological strands and highly aesthetical sensitivities with folk practices and pagan-rooted belief systems. Relics stand at the intersection of the mix. You can pick and choose the kind of Roman Catholicism you like the most, but you cannot deny that Roman Catholicism demands that you accept it wholesale, relics included.
Relics as a gospel issue
Because of their centrality in the Roman Catholic account of the gospel, the veneration of relics was one of the hotly-debated issues at the time of the Reformation. John Calvin wrote a Treatise on Relics (1543) to confront not only the abuses of the practice, but the alleged theological foundation of it.
For Calvin, the relic is not a theologically neutral and inert artefact. It is the fruit of disobedience of the heart that refuses to worship God and God alone and opens the doors to pagan religiosity. There is an inextricable intertwining of superstition, relics and idolatry. The theological problem with relics is not in the true or alleged veracity of the relic, but in the certain offence to God’s honour and the culpable violation of the worship given to the Lord.
How to get out of such a perverse spiral? For Calvin, the cure is simple and radical. It is to ‘abolish among us Christians this pagan superstition of sanctifying relics’. The practice should be completely eradicated to restore worship according to God’s will, i.e. in spirit and truth. For Calvin, the religion of relics represents the theological-spiritual tragedy of the religiosity of his time that needed to be reformed according to the gospel.
Since Calvin’s time, has anything changed in the Roman Catholic Church? The news that Saint Pio’s piece of heart will soon be exposed as a relic, and that a Pope like Benedict XVI – who was often acclaimed as ‘orthodox’ – blessed it, shows that the Roman Catholic veneration of relics is as strong today as it was five centuries ago. The roots of this practice lie in the fact that Roman Catholicism is not ultimately committed to the Biblical gospel but to a theological mix that has absorbed various beliefs and practices that contradict basic Biblical truths. ‘Back to the God (soli Deo gloria), back to the Bible (sola Scriptura), back to the gospel (solus Christus)’: Calvin’s warning is as relevant and urgent (and sadly unheard) as it was in his time.
