Please do not take my post as a bash on the Catholic Church for I know they have to contributed much to the mobilization of society. But I do wish to know how that has anything to do with the use of dead human flesh and bone as a relic of faith? I was confirmed Catholic and have full faith in a higher power. I just don't see how a 150-year-old deacaying HUMAN HEART can be the source of worship or venerance? Do we today hold the heart of the late Mother Theresa or the late Pope John Paul II in a shrine that these are held in. Every health department on Earth would condemn it. It just seems like an outdated religious ceremony, as many ceremonies are in that religion many of which have a shady background.
The first Christians prayed and had their masses in the catacombs, not only for security but more importantly to be with and pray along with the deceased, "Those asleep in Christ".
It's not decaying...it's incorrupt, which is miraculous. And the word is veneration not venerance. Go read some history to see how the first Christians treated the bodies of the saints and martyrs of their time. Relics of a saint are still inlaid in every traditional Catholic permanent altar.
It just seems like an outdated religious ceremony, as many ceremonies are in that religion many of which have a shady background.
Nothing noble and just can ever be "outdated". The Church is timeless and is not at the whim of ever changing opinions of modern man. There are many practices that the Catholic Church retains because of their immense value despite the failure of modern man to appreciate them.