Speaking of relics, a joke from Martin Luther:
“A German, making his confession to a priest at Rome, promised, on oath, to keep secret whatsoever the priest should impart unto him, until he reached home; whereupon the priest gave him a leg of the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem, very neatly bound up in silk, and said: This is the holy relic on which the Lord Christ corporally did sit, with his sacred legs touching this ass’s leg. Then was the German wondrous glad, and carried the said holy relic with him into Germany. When he got to the borders, he bragged of his holy relic in the presence of four others, his comrades, when, lo! it turned out that each of them had likewise received from the same priest a leg, after promising the same secrecy. Thereupon, all exclaimed, with great wonder: Lord! had that ass five legs?”
That’s interesting...I’d suspect than hardly any Catholic believes in these fake relics, just like the majority do not believe in the Eucharist...Likely they stand in the bowing/kissing line to show how pius they appear and, so the other unbelievers in the line won’t mock them for not being Catholic enough...