sguarna@uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU (09/16/86)
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sguarna@uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU (09/16/86)
Just an inquiry....when and where does the practice of "corpse worship" occur in the Catholic tradition? sue
cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich) (09/17/86)
[] In article <1082@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes: >... As it is, the over-emphasis on the resurrection helped >create a climate in which moral requirements were totally swamped by >theocratic fervor, and in which issues of belief were resolved at the point >of a sword. This is not clear to me. Mr. Maroney is alleging a connection between the doctrine of the Resurrection and (a) the tendency called theocracy and also (b) the tendency to resolve disputes with violence. I think it more likely that (a) comes from the time of Constantine (roughly A.D. 300-325) before which there was little wealth or power associated with the Church. As for (b), is it not adequately accounted for by human quarrelsomeness? This does not miraculously vanish at the moment of Baptism. Saint Paul's theology of the Resurrection is important to him for several reasons. One of these is his insistence that Christ makes a difference to us. His moral teachings, wise as they are, would be equally wise if they had been said by someone else (as many of them were). St. Paul thinks that, humans being as we are, we would not be able to follow Christ's teachings if He were just another moralist. It is only because God, in Christ, took on human nature, including our mortality, that we have a chance to take on some of the qualities of Christ. Dying and rising are St. Paul's image of what we must do if we are to become Christ-like. >... The obsession with this story of a slaying also launched the >very objectionable and disgusting practice of corpse-worship, which persists >among the original Christian sect (the Catholics) to this day, and which >largely defined the religion for centuries. What does this mean? Perhaps Mr. Maroney is referring to the veneration of relics. Since there are Catholics all over the world, many of whom would find American ways as strange as we would find theirs, I cannot be utterly certain that no Catholic today "worships" a relic. For my part, I have never seen a relic, and don't feel that I have missed a whole lot. ... I remember from an old catechism something to the effect that the altar in a Catholic church is supposed to have a fragment of bone from the body of a saint enclosed in it. If this practice is still followed (which I don't know), you could say that the altar is a reliquary. How objectionable and disgusting it is, you are invited to find out for yourself by going to a Catholic church and looking at the altar. At what time, and in what sense, was the veneration of relics the thing which defined the Christian Church, or the Catholic part of it? I can't think of any. Of course, I may be all wrong about what Mr. Maroney is inveighing against. In the ancient world there was a general tendency to glorify "spirit" and despise the "body" or "matter". This was taken for granted, and not argued about much. Christian thinking was infected with it; St. Augustine never got over a lingering uneasiness about the fact that he had a body. But the liturgy is sometimes wiser than the theologians; the creeds all contain "the resurrection of the body" even if this does shock the more fastidiously high-minded among the Pagans. Likewise, Christians insisted on the emptiness of Christ's tomb after Easter. (The Risen Jesus was not a hologram.) Many of their hearers would have been much happier if a "spiritual" resurrection had been preached to them. If Mr. Maroney is a Gnostic, he may share in the ancient assumption that bodies, as such, are somehow not nice. Long may the Church continue to affirm the contrary! Regards, Chris -- Full-Name: Christopher J. Henrich UUCP: ...!hjuxa!petsd!cjh US Mail: MS 313; Concurrent Computer Corporation; 106 Apple St; Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 Phone: (201) 758-7288 Concurrent Computer Corporation is a Perkin-Elmer company. "A waist is a terrible thing to mind."
pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M Koloc) (09/20/86)
In article <27800002@uicsrd> sguarna@uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU writes: > >Just an inquiry....when and where does the practice of "corpse worship" >occur in the Catholic tradition? >sue The tradition is the ONLY GOD is worshiped but Saints are "honored", something like we honor the unknown soldier. The Catholics used to practice their religion in the sewers of Rome because of persecution and would bury their dead there as well. Then the churches were built over the top of this "underground catacombs" and they continued to bury bodies in the "basement of the church". Some of these early Saints really had some terrific power so they when they died people still thought that "touching" their dead bodies might still have healing power for them. Of course, some were healed (maybe from the mold) and so the next thing that happened is that everybody wanted to touch a piece of that particular set of bones. So to keep them from being lost and "rubbed out" of existence they were embedded in stone, and stored in the safest place which was the holy sanctuary of the altar. Soon Churches with a particular Saint's name had to have a piece of that Saint in its alter stone and then to make sure that there wasn't a slip up, they included the relics from a number of other Saints just to make sure they had some body's bones whose soul had made the transformation to "harp player".