Go figure.
Posted on 09/06/2013 7:15:37 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
A relic hunter dubbed 'Indiana Bones' has lifted the lid on a macabre collection of 400-year-old jewel-encrusted skeletons unearthed in churches across Europe.
Art historian Paul Koudounaris hunted down and photographed dozens of gruesome skeletons in some of the world's most secretive religious establishments.
Incredibly, some of the skeletons, said to be the remains of early Christian martyrs, were even found hidden away in lock-ups and containers.
They are now the subject of a new book, which sheds light on the forgotten ornamented relics for the first time.
Thousands of skeletons were dug up from Roman catacombs in the 16th century and installed in towns around Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the orders of the Vatican.
They were sent to Catholic churches and religious houses to replace the relics destroyed in the wake of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.
Mistaken for the remains of early Christian martyrs, the morbid relics, known as the Catacomb Saints, became shrines reminding of the spiritual treasures of the afterlife.
They were also symbols of the Catholic Church's newly found strength in previously Protestant areas.
Each one was painstakingly decorated in thousands of pounds worth of gold, silver and gems by devoted followers before being displayed in church niches.
Some took up to five years to decorate.
They were renamed as saints, although none of them qualified for the title under the strict rules of the Catholic church which require saints to have been canonised.
But by the 19th century they had become morbid reminders of an embarrassing past and many were stripped of their honours and discarded.
Mr Koudounaris' new book, Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs, is the first time the skeletons have appeared in print.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Is it only “religious bigotry” when it’s criticism of the Roman Catholic Church? Are all the non-Catholic Christians here supposed to just bear it when Catholics go at them and should they not be entitled to defend their beliefs - even when it disproves something Roman Catholicism holds? The rules of the Religion Forum are fair - and that means if you want to join in an open thread, you better be prepared to bear it.
To each his own, right? Have I called you silly because you think they’re spectacular? If you know about history, you know that MANY royals had replicas made of all their jewels and tiaras. Most people couldn’t tell the fake from the genuine. Have these spectacular pieces bedecking the corpses been objectively appraised by a gemologist or is everyone just supposed to swoon over what appears to be priceless?
Those are my thoughts, too.
That's sure what they look like.
In regard to the decorated skeletons and the pictures that dan posted, I've been searching for the right word to describe it all and have finally hit on it.
Macabre.
If I had dreams nightmares about stuff that looked like that, I'd be afraid to go back to sleep. Come to think of it, I NEVER dreamed of any thing as gruesome as that.
For all the RC's go on about how the saints in heaven are alive, "communion of the saints" and all, and how God is a God of the living, they sure have a very unhealthy, unnatural obsession with death and the dead.
It is satanic to the core and anyone who cannot sense the evil inherent in that has got way bigger problems than being offended about the opinion of non-Catholics.
Catholicism, church of the Perpetually Offended.
Smvoice, I share your sentiments.....
Corollary to Godwin’s Law:
The first to compare the other side to islam forfeits the debate.
I’m an equal opportunity critic.
ANY religious group which practiced that kind of desecration of human remains would receive the same comments.
... and appears to me that you’re overly impressed with shiny objects. Is dusting a real chore at Chez Marmelstein, lol?
Oh, sure. Catholics several hundred years ago dress the bones of the dead in gold and jewels and set them up around churches and it’s called “pious”, “beautiful”, and “a work of art.” But oh no, when I dig up a bunch of skeletons from the local grave yard, dress them in business suits and fancy dresses, and set them up around my parlor for tea it’s called “criminally deranged”, “disgustingly delusional”, and “the sign of a severely sick and twisted mind.”
Go figure.
Norman Bates must have been catholic..
I don’t dust. To quote the great Quentin Crisp: “after 4 years, it doesn’t get any worse.”
Not according to your posts, Mom. Strictly Catholic-baiting!
Sorry, when one of you strange people posts that the Sistine Chapel must be destroyed, I’ll compare you guys to the Taliban and it won’t be an overstatement.
Dusty cobwebs do add a certain patina.
Go figure.
I just wonder if the tables were turned, and "protestants" gathered skeletons, decorated them with jewels and posted them around the podium in their church, just what WOULD the RCCs think about the whole tradition then?...
Seriesly --- I do think ur beeber is stuck on "stune"....
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