A Stitch in Haste

I thought religious relic worship couldn't get any sillier than the news that the Russian Orthodox Church had found the lost hand of John the Baptist.

I was wrong:

In 1983, as the residents of Calcata, a small town 30 miles north of Rome, prepared for their annual procession honoring a holy relic, a shocking announcement from the parish priest put a damper on festivities. "This year, the holy relic will not be exposed to the devotion of the faithful. It has vanished. Sacrilegious thieves have taken it from my home."

Not since the Middle Ages, when lopped-off body parts of divine do-gooders were bought, sold, and traded, has relic theft been big news. But the mysterious disappearance of Calcata's beloved curio is different.

This wasn't just the residuum of any holy human — nor was it just any body part. It was the foreskin of Jesus Christ, the snipped-off tip of the savior's penis, the only piece of his body he supposedly left on earth.
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Facing increasing criticism after the "rediscovery" of a holy foreskin in France, the Vatican decreed [in 1900] that anyone who wrote about or spoke the name of the holy foreskin would face excommunication. And 54 years later, when a monk wanted to include Calcata in a pilgrimage tour guide, Vatican officials didn't just reject the proposal (after much debate). They upped the punishment: Now, anyone uttering its name would face the harshest form of excommunication — "infamous and to be avoided" — even as they concluded that Calcata's holy foreskin was more legit than other claimants'.

Catholics can't even celebrate the Feast of the Holy Circumcision* anymore — it was removed from the church calendar after Vatican II.

Bummer. Nothing says "party" like a good briss.

It's quite simple really: If you don't want to be mocked, then don't believe mockworthy things.

If organized religion truly wanted to help improve the human condition, then a great starting point would be to slough off the centuries worth of accumulated dogmatic crap with which they have burdened themselves and their parishioners, and instead help guide them into the new millennium. "Relics are nonsense..." would be as good a first step as any.

(Via Fark.)

(*Actually most Catholics probably do celebrate the Day of the Holy Circumcision — they just call it "New Year's Day" instead. See Luke 2:21.)

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Meanwhile, Pope Benedict has issued a not-so-subtle reminder that "true" Christians are expected to shun "secular(-progressive?) trends" during the holiday season:

He wished the several thousand pilgrims and tourists gathered in a Vatican auditorium decorated with Christmas trees a "Happy Christmas" in seven languages and told them that "false prophets continue to offer cheap salvation which ends up in deep delusions."
...
Although he warned against being distracted by what he called the "trappings of Christmas," Benedict offered thanks for the 110-foot Christmas tree set up in St. Peter's Square, and the one in his private apartment in the Vatican, both gifts from the mountains of Calabria in southern Italy.

Of course, one way to avoid "the trappings of Christmas" is by not going berserk when a store prefers "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas." "False prophets continue to offer cheap salvation which ends up in deep delusions" indeed.