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To: Alex Murphy
The Catholic belief of “incorruptibility” holds that if a body does not decay after death, the person is holy.

An idiot wrote this.

There is no "Catholic belief" of incorruptibility. It's a miracle that is sometimes observed in the bodies of people of great sanctity. (The Orthodox have observed the same miracle in some cases, BTW.)

Many very great saints were not incorrupt after death. St. Therese of Liseux even laughed at the idea when someone suggested to her during her life that her body might be incorrupt after death (it wasn't).

So incorruption is hardly a sine qua non of sanctity. If achieved by means that can be explained either by nature or chemistry, it's not a sign of sanctity, either.

At some point, idiocy like this in the press passes beyond the stage of sweetly innocent ignorance into an organized, deliberate effort to paint Catholics as dangerous freaks. It begins to remind one of some of the anti-Semitic nonsense that circulated around Europe around the turn of the last century.

31 posted on 03/23/2014 9:18:13 PM PDT by Campion ("Social justice" begins in the womb)
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To: Campion

What about the part about taking body parts, and even wearing them?

That seems pretty freaky to Americans.


35 posted on 03/23/2014 9:26:42 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Libertarianism offers the transitory concepts and dialogue to move from conservatism, to liberalism)
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To: Campion; Alex Murphy
At some point, idiocy like this in the press passes beyond the stage of sweetly innocent ignorance into an organized, deliberate effort to paint Catholics as dangerous freaks.

No doubt the pressers are dolts when it comes to religious matters and faith. Was the article inaccurate when it stated the following:

St. Teresa, who died in 1582, is an example of how obsessed earlier Catholics were with relics of the flesh. After her death, a priest cut off her left hand, from which he took a finger, wearing it around his neck for the rest of his life. Followers later removed her heart, right arm, right foot and a piece of jaw to display as relics in various sites.

Is the above historically accurate or nonsense?

111 posted on 03/26/2014 9:25:32 AM PDT by redleghunter (But let your word 'yes be 'yes,' and your 'no be 'no.' Anything more than this is from the evil one.)
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