Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Our own Francis X. Rocca breaks down the pope’s announcement last weekend that researchers had identified the bones of St. Paul beneath a Roman basilica. (First, here’s my question: how do they know they’re Paul’s relics and not, say, some other 1st-century itinerant preacher?) Either way, the insightful-as-ever Frank boils it all down for the […]

Our own Francis X. Rocca breaks down the pope’s announcement last weekend that researchers had identified the bones of St. Paul beneath a Roman basilica. (First, here’s my question: how do they know they’re Paul’s relics and not, say, some other 1st-century itinerant preacher?)

Either way, the insightful-as-ever Frank boils it all down for the Wall Street Journal:

“It is our own morbid mindset, not that of our ancestors, that blinds us to this tradition’s life-affirming nature. A desire to be near a loved one’s body, whether living or dead, springs from the same affection for the corporeal that we see, for example, in the intense sensuality of Renaissance and Baroque religious art, or the “smells and bells” of Catholic liturgy.


“This tendency is true to the essence of Christianity, which teaches that God dignified the physical world by becoming a man of flesh and blood. It follows that such flesh and blood are still precious, and worthy of reverence, even once separated from the soul.”

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