Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Holy Foreskin

I am currently reading Christopher Tyerman's Gods' War, an account of the crusades and find myself wondering whatever happened to these holy relics:
As a cardinal in Rome after 1079, Urban (Pope of the first crusade) had been surrounded by relics of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, especially the collection housed at the Lateran, then the pope's habitual Roman residence. These included Christ's umbilical chord, foreskin and some of His blood, pieces of the cross, numerous objects associated with His ministry and Passion (such as a loaf and thirteen beans from the Last Supper), relics of Holy Land saints and numerous physical specimens, such as rocks from Bethlehem, the Mount of Olives, the river Jordan, Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre itself.
I wonder if they are still housed somewhere at the Vatican.

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