FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Relics are items that are connected to a saint; they are categorized into three classes:

♱ A first-class relic is from the physical remains of a saint. This could be a piece of bone, a vial of blood, a lock of hair, a skull, or even a whole, incorrupt body.

♱ A second-class relic is any-sized piece of an item that the saint frequently used, like a rosary or tunic.

♱ A third-class relic is any item that touches a first or second-class relic.

It is believed that graces from God flow through these objects to devout souls who venerate them.

Yes. The sacred use of physical objects related to a holy person dates back to the Old Testament. In this episode from 2 Kings, we witness the use of relics: “And so Elisha died and was buried. At that time of year, bands of Moabites used to raid the land. Once some people were burying a man, when suddenly they saw such a raiding band. So they cast the man into the grave of Elisha, and everyone went off. But when the man came in contact with the bones of Elisha, he came back to life and got to his feet” (2 Kings 13:20-21).

In the New Testament, we again see how God uses material objects to bring about healing. For example, in the Gospel of Mark, a woman is healed because she touches Jesus’ cloak: “She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.’ Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction” (Mark 5.27-29). There are other examples in the lives of the apostles which demonstrate how God works miracles through items connected to His saints.

The early Church practiced the veneration of relics. A letter written after the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp in 156 AD explains how the faithful venerated his bones and took special care of them.

Like Catholicism itself, the authentication of relics is a marriage of faith and reason.

According to the Vatican, “Relics in the Church have always received particular veneration and attention because the body of the Blesseds and of the Saints, destined for the resurrection, has been on earth the living temple of the Holy Spirit and the instrument of their holiness, recognized by the Apostolic See through beatification and canonization. The relics of the Blesseds and of the Saints may not be displayed for the veneration of the faithful without a proper certificate of the ecclesiastical authority who guarantees their authenticity.”

Due to abuses of relics over time, as well as the veneration of unauthenticated relics throughout history, the Vatican issued new guidance about the public display of relics in cathedrals in 2017. According to those instructions, “The relics of the Blesseds and of the Saints may not be displayed for the veneration of the faithful without a proper certificate of the ecclesiastical authority who guarantees their authenticity.”

Traditionally, relics are authenticated by a cardinal, bishop, prelate or other officially delegated person prior to public veneration, often under the expert guidance and research of notable archaeologists.

Although disputes about the authenticity of relics have been somewhat common throughout the ages, the Church has maintained a long tradition of pursuing truth by commissioning scientific inquiries and hiring archeologists to perform excavations and examine relics.

It is understandably difficult to authenticate the most ancient of relics with perfect certainty, and the process often requires a long and imperfect inquiry. However, the Church has a long tradition of venerating the bones of the saints and in most cases, the bones have been with the Church since the saint’s death.

In rare cases where history has made it impossible to authenticate a relic with perfect certainty, the Church will not go beyond stating that the relic is believed to have belonged to a specific saint.

In the case of St. Peter’s bones, which were originally re-discovered in the early 16th century and later excavated during the 1940s and ‘50s, the authentication process was lengthy and volatile, almost resembling the plot-line of a mystery novel.

In the late 1960s, Margherita Guarducci, the first female archaeologist to lead Vatican excavations, discovered mysterious bones in a storage room in the Vatican. Placed there by a late priest during earlier excavations of St. Peter’s Tomb, Guarducci suspected that the bones belonged to none other than St. Peter himself.

After a tedious inquiry that involved performing tests on the bones for characteristics like gender and age of death, and searching the tomb for clues like the inscription Petr eni (which Guarducci believed was an abbreviated Greek form of “Peter is here”), she eventually informed Pope Paul VI of the likelihood that the bones were St. Peter’s.

On June 26, 1968, after a review of the Guarducci’s research, Pope Paul VI announced, “We have reason to believe that the few but sacrosanct mortal remains of the Prince of the Apostles [Peter] have been traced.”

No. It is vital to remember that the actual object does not impart healing. A piece of cloth can’t heal someone from addiction. However, God has often chosen to employ a relic of a saint as an instrument of His healing, just like he used his cloak to heal the woman with the hemorrhage. The relic is a vehicle for God’s almighty and tenderhearted compassion.

As Catholics, we believe the saints are alive, love us, and want to help us know God. The saints are perfect and in heaven. Since the saints are before the throne of God, they can intercede for us to God, and make our requests more perfectly than we can ourselves. Any healing, any answered prayers or miracles, are God's work only. The saints are vessels as are we, but they have been perfected and are in heaven.

Intercession is a prayer of petition which leads us to pray as Jesus did. He is the one intercessor with the Father on behalf of all people, especially sinners. He is “able for all time to save those who draw nearer to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them”. The Holy Spirit “himself intercedes for us and intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (CCC 2634).

God does not expect us to meet life's trials on our own. God wants us to depend on his grace through the intercessions of the Heavenly Saints. Just as Moses interceded for the Israelites in the desert with the Bronze Serpent, so do the Saints intercede for us before God (Num 21:7-9). In intercession, the one who prays looks “not only to their own interests, but also the interests of others”, even to the point of praying for those who would do harm (CCC 235), just as Christ himself prayed to the Father to forgive those that were crucifying him (Luke 23:34).

While saints are venerated by Catholics, they are not to be worshiped. St. Jerome tells us, "We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore him whose martyrs they are" (Ad Riparium, i, P.L., XXII, 907). While a strong connection may be felt in the presence of a relic, the Catholic Church does not claim relics to possess any mystic powers. The power is God's alone. Thus, all forms of veneration should be conducted with great dignity and be motivated by faith.”

In the end, relics of saints allow us to draw close to these holy men and women of the past. God uses these material objects to impart special graces to faithful souls. They are never to be worshiped, but are meant to lead us to worship of the one God.

The practice of adopting patron saints originated when the first public churches were built in the Roman Empire. Many sites of the churches were built over the graves of those martyred for their faith, so the churches were named in their honor. This tradition later expanded to other countries as Christianity expanded and immigrants built churches to honor saints from their native land.

By the Middle Ages, the practice of adopting patron saints had spread beyond churches to other interests of life. Saints were chosen as patrons of things associated with them, such as where they lived or traveled, occupations they held or patronized during their lives, illnesses or health impairments they had, or perils they may have encountered. Martyred saints were chosen as patron saints of diseases similar to their method of martyrdom.

All Christians are called to be saints. Saints are persons in heaven (officially canonized or not), who lived heroically virtuous lives, offered their life for others, or were martyred for the faith, and who are worthy of imitation. To become a recognized saint in the eyes of the Church, one must be canonized.

The process of becoming a Saint does not usually begin until five years after his or her death, which allows time for the person's virtuous and saintly reputation to grow. The petitioner (who for example can be the diocese/eparchy, bishop, religious order or association of the faithful) asks the bishop to open the investigation.

Information on the candidate’s life and virtues as well as public and private writings are collected and reviewed by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Once the approved process has begun, the individual is called a “Servant of God.” During this time, it is examined whether any special favor or miracle has been granted through this candidate saint's intercession.

If the candidate was a martyr, the Congregation determines whether he died for the faith and truly offered his life in a sacrifice of love for Christ and the Church. In other cases, the congregation examines to see if the candidate was motivated by a profound charity towards his neighbor and practiced the virtues in an exemplary manner and with heroism. Once a candidate is declared to have lived life with heroic virtue, he may be declared Venerable.

The next step is beatification. For a martyr, no miracle is required for this stage. When the pope approves the documentation declaring that the person was a martyred for the faith, the title Blessed is granted to the martyr at that time. Otherwise, the candidate must be credited with a miracle. In verifying the miracle, the Church looks at whether God truly performed a miracle and whether the miracle was in response to the intercession of the candidate saint. Once beatified, the candidate saint may be venerated, but usually only in the diocese, region, or religious community in which the Blessed lived.

After beatification, another miracle is needed for canonization and the formal declaration of sainthood. When a second miracle is approved, then the person will be canonized thus becoming publicly recognized as a Saint of the Catholic Church.

No precise count exists of those who have been proclaimed saints since the first centuries. However, in 1988, to mark its 4th centenary, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints published the first "Index ac Status Causarum." This book and its subsequent supplements, written entirely in Latin, are considered the definitive index of all causes that have been presented to the Congregation since its institution.

The Catholic Church in the United States has been blessed with numerous Saints, Blesseds and Venerables, all of whom in their own unique way witness to Christ's love through their martyrdom or virtuous lives within our American culture. Currently, there are eleven American Saints, four American Blesseds, and fourteen American Venerables.

During the first several centuries of Christianity, there was no formal process for becoming a saint. Often martyrs and those recognized as holy were declared saints by the church at the time of their death.

Beginning in the sixth century and continuing into the twelfth century, the intervention of the local bishop was required before someone could be canonized. One of its functions was to assist the Pope with reviewing causes.

In the year 1234, Pope Gregory IX established the canonization process where procedures were created to investigate the life of a saint. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V entrusted the Congregation of Rites (later named the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints) to oversee the entire process.

Except for a few canonical developments, the process of canonization remained the same until 1917 when a universal Code of Canon Law was created.

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