Novus Ordo Clerics and the Veneration of St. Agatha’s Relic: A Catholic X-Ray

Prologue: Catholic Tradition Examined Through a Fourfold Lens: 

Recent public veneration of the relic of St. Agatha, led by a novus ordo “archbishop” during a series of “Pontifical rites” presided by a supposed “papal legate”, has provoked reservations from his coreligionists, among whom are certain novus ordo clerics. 

One would have thought that giving the supposed ecclesiastical personages directly involved in the procession, ceremonial honours, and crowning of the Saint’s skull, due rubrical and ceremonial exactitude would be presumed. There should, therefore, have been no cause for alarm, or for the reservations now being expressed.

Be that as it may, their concerns deserve to be examined seriously. 

Catholics should not become so defensive of traditional practices that they refuse to distinguish authentic devotion from superstition, or legitimate liturgical development from theatrical excess.

But there is another danger: examining Catholic tradition with theological assumptions inherited from Protestantism, rationalism, Modernism, or contemporary pastoralism, and then calling the result “Catholic discernment.”

That is where the Catholic X-ray becomes necessary.

• Protestant biblicism asks:  “Where does Scripture explicitly command this?”
• Rationalism: “Can unaided human reason accept or demonstrate this?”
• Modernist subjectivism asks: “Does this produce the right religious experience?”
• Contemporary modernist pastoralism asks:  “Will people find this meaningful, accessible, or acceptable?”

The question is not simply:

“Does this look strange to me?”

Nor

“Does this make sense according to modern expectations?”

Nor:

“Would a Protestant understand it?”

Nor even:

“Can I find an explicit biblical verse describing this exact ceremony?”

The properly Catholic questions are:

What does the Church teach concerning relics? What is the theological meaning of their veneration? Does this particular ceremony contradict that theology? And by what authority is the Church’s liturgical and devotional life to be judged?

Those questions produce a considerably different examination.

I. What the Novus Ordo Clerics Get Right

There is much in their criticism that is genuinely Catholic in the details.

•  Relics are not God

A skull is a skull.

The bones of a saint are not divinities. They are not gods, minor gods, territorial spirits, magical objects, or independent sources of supernatural power.

The Catholic who venerates a relic does not adore the bone.

Adoration belongs to God alone.

The honour given to a relic terminates ultimately in the person of the saint and, through the saint, in God whose grace sanctified him.

That distinction is fundamental.

• Superstition is not Catholic devotion

If someone treats a relic as though it were a magical talisman: 

“Touch this and you will certainly be healed.”

“Carry this and no evil can happen to you.”

“This object itself possesses supernatural power.”

then something has gone wrong.

God may certainly work miracles through relics. Scripture itself records extraordinary things associated with the material remains of God’s servants.

But the power is God’s, not the object’s.

• Catholics should examine their practices

The Church does not require Catholics to defend every popular custom merely because somebody somewhere has practiced it for generations.

There are authentic traditions.

There are pious customs.

There are local customs.

There are abuses.

There are superstitions.

There are questionable innovations.

And there are practices that may be perfectly legitimate but capable of being misunderstood or badly performed.

Catholicism does not require intellectual blindness.

 Christ must remain the centre

This is also correct.

The saint is not the terminus of Catholic religion.

The saint is a creature redeemed by Christ.

The martyr died for Christ.

The relic belongs to one who lived and died in Christ.

The Church honours the saint precisely because God’s grace triumphed in that saint.

Consequently, authentic devotion to St. Agatha must ultimately lead to Christ, the source of her sanctity and the object of her faith.

So far, there is no problem.

II. But Here the Catholic X-Ray Begins

The difficulty begins when legitimate cautions are turned into principles for judging Catholic tradition.

The clerics’ arguments contain several assumptions that require correction.

•  “Is this explicitly in Scripture?”

This is not, by itself, the Catholic criterion.

Suppose the question is:

“Where does Scripture say that a relic must be processed?”

The answer may simply be:

It does not.

But that does not settle the matter.

The Catholic Church does not teach:

“Everything the Church does liturgically must have an explicit biblical command.”

That is not the Catholic rule.

The Church possesses authority to regulate her liturgy and public worship. She may institute ceremonies that express doctrines and truths contained in Revelation without those ceremonies appearing verbatim in Scripture.

Otherwise one would have to demand explicit biblical prescriptions for innumerable traditional Catholic practices.

The real question is therefore not:

“Does the Bible prescribe this exact ceremony?”

but:

“Is this ceremony consonant with Catholic doctrine, legitimate ecclesiastical authority, and the proper theological meaning of relic-veneration?”

That is a Catholic question which was never asked. 

III. Scripture Does Give Us a Theology of Sacred Relics

It is therefore unnecessary, and dangerous; to pretend that Scripture has nothing relevant to say about sacred relics.

Scripture does not provide a liturgical rubric for the public exposition, procession, or crowning of the relic of a saint. That is a separate question belonging to the Church’s liturgical and disciplinary authority. But Scripture does establish something more fundamental: God can and does use material things associated with His servants as instruments and signs of His grace.

Consider Elisha:

“And when the dead man had touched the bones of Elisee, he came to life, and stood upon his feet.” (4 Kings 13:21)

The prophet’s bones are not presented as meaningless biological remains. God chose to work through them. The bones were not divine, nor did they possess autonomous supernatural power; the miracle came from God. Nevertheless, God chose a material relic of His prophet as the instrument through which He manifested His power.

The same principle appears even more strikingly in the Acts of the Apostles:

“So that even there were brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the wicked spirits went out.” (Acts 19:12)

Here, material objects that had touched St. Paul’s body became associated with miraculous healings. Again, the objects were not gods, nor did they possess independent magical power. God was the author of the miracle; the material object was His chosen instrument.

Other biblical examples reinforce the principle:

• Elisha’s bones restored a dead man to life (4 Kings 13:20–21).
• Elijah’s mantle was used by Elisha when God divided the Jordan (4 Kings 2:8, 14).
• Joseph’s bones were carefully preserved and carried out of Egypt (Genesis 50:25; Exodus 13:19).
• The bones of a prophet were treated with such reverence that Josiah commanded that they not be disturbed (4 Kings 23:18).
• The Ark of the Covenant was accompanied by sacred representations of the cherubim, commanded by God Himself (Exodus 25:18).
• The Temple contained numerous sacred images and representations (3 Kings 6:23–35).
• The bronze serpent was commanded by God and became an instrument through which He healed the Israelites (Numbers 21:8–9).
• When that same object was later treated superstitiously and given an idolatrous significance, Hezekiah destroyed it (4 Kings 18:4).

That last example is particularly important. It demonstrates that the Catholic distinction is not artificial:

The legitimate use of a sacred object is one thing; treating the object as a deity is another.

The New Testament continues the same pattern:

• People sought healing through Peter’s shadow (Acts 5:15).
• Objects that had touched Paul’s body were associated with miraculous healing (Acts 19:11–12).
• The woman suffering from hemorrhage was healed after touching Christ’s garment (Matthew 9:20–22).

These passages establish the possibility and theological intelligibility of sacred material objects associated with God’s servants.

They do not, by themselves, establish every particular Catholic liturgical practice concerning relics. Scripture does not say, for example, “the skull of a martyr shall be carried in procession and crowned.” To make such a claim would go beyond the evidence.

But neither does Scripture permit us to argue:

“God never uses physical objects associated with His holy servants; therefore relics are inherently superstitious or idolatrous.”

That proposition is contradicted by the biblical evidence.

The proper theological distinction is therefore this:

Scripture establishes the underlying principle.
Catholic Tradition preserves and develops that principle.
Ecclesiastical authority regulates its legitimate liturgical expression.

The precise ceremony surrounding St. Agatha’s relic is consequently a separate disciplinary and liturgical question. 

One may debate whether a particular gesture, title, procession, or ceremonial form is appropriate, prudent, or traditionally warranted without confusing that debate with the entirely different accusation that veneration of relics is intrinsically idolatrous.

The biblical evidence does not support that accusation.

The relic is not God.
 The saint is not God.
 The miracle, when one occurs, comes from God.

But God, in His providence, may choose to manifest His power through material things associated with His servants.

Thus, the Catholic theology of relics is not an arbitrary medieval invention. Its fully developed liturgical forms belong to the Church’s Tradition and ecclesiastical discipline, but its underlying theological principle has unmistakable biblical roots.

The bones of Elisha point to the prophet.
The prophet points to God.
The relic of the martyr points to the martyr’s victory in Christ.
And the martyr ultimately points us back to Christ, to whom belongs all adoration and glory.

IV. The Protestant Analogy Is Not a Catholic Standard

One of the novus ordo clerics asks us to imagine Protestants processing with the skull of a Protestant religious figure, or Africans processing with the skeleton of an ancestor.

The comparison is rhetorically effective.

But it proves very little.

It is understandable why modernist novus ordo theology can, but Catholic theology cannot be determined by asking:

“Would I be comfortable if another religion did something analogous?”

Two outwardly similar ceremonies can have radically different theological meanings.

A Catholic procession with a martyr’s relic is not automatically equivalent to an ancestral ritual involving the supposed spiritual power of the dead.

The Catholic doctrine of the Communion of Saints, the resurrection of the body, the veneration of saints, the intercession of the glorified saints, and the distinction between dulia and latria provide the theological framework.

Similarity of external appearance does not establish identity of religious meaning.

A Protestant carrying a Bible, a Muslim carrying a Qur’an, and a Catholic carrying a Gospel book may all appear to be carrying a book.

The ceremonies are not therefore theologically identical.

Likewise, a Catholic relic and an ancestral cult object cannot be equated merely because both involve human remains.

V. “Do We Need a Bone to Honour a Saint?”

So asks one of the novus ordo clerics. This question sounds reasonable but contains a hidden premise.

Catholic veneration does not claim:

“You cannot honour St. Agatha unless you possess her skull.”

Of course not.

A Catholic can honour St. Agatha without ever seeing a relic.

But this does not establish that relic-veneration is unnecessary in the theological sense.

We do not ask:

“Is this absolutely necessary for salvation?”

and then conclude:

“Therefore it has no legitimate religious purpose.”

A rosary is not necessary for salvation.

A statue is not necessary for salvation.

A pilgrimage is not necessary for salvation.

A feast-day procession is not necessary for salvation.

A blessing is not necessary for salvation.

Yet the Church can legitimately employ these things as means of expressing, strengthening, and directing Catholic devotion.

Not necessary for salvation does not mean meaningless, useless, or illegitimate. 

VI. The Modernist Premise Hidden Beneath the Question

Here we encounter something deeper.

The recurring question:

“Does this help people encounter Christ?”

sounds unquestionably Catholic.

But it becomes dangerous when “encounter Christ” is made the supreme criterion by which inherited Catholic worship is judged.

This is characteristic of much modernist religious formation.

The question shifts from:

“Is this objectively true, Catholic, and rightly ordered?”

to:

“Does this work for people?”

From doctrine to experience.

From objective worship to subjective religious impact.

From the Church’s received tradition to pastoral effectiveness.

From:

“What does the Church teach this ceremony means?”

to:

“What does this ceremony make me feel?”

That is a significant theological shift.

The Modernist is constantly inclined to ask whether a Catholic practice is relevant, meaningful, useful, experiential, accessible, or Christ-centred according to contemporary psychological and pastoral categories.

But Catholic worship is not validated by a psychological test.

The liturgy is first and foremost the worship of God.

Its truth does not depend upon whether every modern observer finds it emotionally intelligible.

VII. The “Christ-Centred” Test Can Become a Trap

Of course Catholic devotion must be Christ-centred.

But one must be careful with the phrase.

If “Christ-centred” means:

“Does this devotion ultimately terminate in Christ?”

excellent.

But if it means:

“If I personally cannot immediately see Christ in this ceremony, the ceremony is suspect,”

-that is quite another principle.

The Catholic Church does not abolish devotion to Mary because some people might become distracted by Marian devotion.

She does not abolish the veneration of saints because some people might misunderstand dulia.

She does not abolish relics because superstition is possible.

The solution to abuse is not necessarily abolition.

It is correct doctrine, correct worship, correct catechesis, and correction of abuse.

VIII. What About the Crowning of the Relic?

Here we should be especially precise.

There is a difference between saying:

“Scripture commands the crowning of relics.”

and saying:

“The Church may ceremonially honour a relic in a manner expressing the glory of the saint whose body it is.”

The first statement would be difficult to sustain.

The second is not inherently problematic.

The Church has always used ceremonial signs to express theological realities.

Crowns signify glory and victory.

And the martyrs are precisely those who conquered through Christ.

The Apocalypse repeatedly presents the saints in terms of victory, glory, and heavenly honour. The martyr’s crown is therefore not an alien theological image.

The Church traditionally speaks of the martyr’s crown of victory.

Consequently, if a relic is ceremonially crowned, the ceremony must be interpreted correctly:

the crown belongs symbolically to the victorious martyr, whose victory is the fruit of Christ’s grace.

It does not mean that a bone has become a deity.

It does not mean that the relic possesses sovereignty.

It does not mean that Catholics worship the skull.

The burden is not to prove that Scripture commanded the crowning of St. Agatha’s skull. The burden is to establish that the ceremony is not contrary to Catholic doctrine and is legitimately performed under ecclesiastical authority.

And, giving the supposed ecclesiastical personages involved in the case at stake, one would expect that all was legitimately performed. 

IX. And What About Bowing Before the Relic?

This also requires distinction.

Catholic ceremonial gestures are not always determined by the intrinsic dignity of the physical object.

A Catholic may genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament because the Eucharist is Christ truly, really, and substantially present.

That is an act of adoration.

The veneration given to a relic is fundamentally different.

If a bow or other gesture is used before a relic, its theological meaning must remain veneration, not adoration.

This distinction must be maintained both doctrinally and pastorally.

If the ceremonial presentation makes it appear that the skull itself is being adored, then the ceremony has become pastorally dangerous, even though the underlying theology of relic-veneration remains Catholic.

The Church must not merely intend the correct theology privately; she must also avoid ceremonies that seriously communicate the wrong theology publicly.

X. The Real Catholic Question: What Is the Ceremony Saying?

This is where the two novus ordo clerics’ instinct for examination can be turned into something genuinely Catholic.

Ask:

What does the ceremony teach?

Does it teach:

“This is a magical object”?

No.

Does it teach:

“This skull is a supernatural power in itself”?

No.

Does it teach:

“We adore this bone”?

Absolutely not.

Does it teach:

“This is the bodily remains of a woman sanctified by Christ, who conquered through His grace and now reigns with Him in glory”?

That is entirely compatible with Catholic theology.

Does it teach:

“The God who sanctified St. Agatha deserves glory because His grace produced such heroic sanctity in her”?

Again, Catholic.

The theological interpretation matters enormously.

XI. The Greatest Danger Is Not the Relic

There is an irony here.

The danger of relic-veneration is real if it becomes superstition.

But there is another danger:

Catholicism can be stripped of its sacramental and incarnational character in the name of avoiding superstition.

The Catholic religion is not an abstract religion of ideas.

The Word became flesh.

Christ used material things.

He touched the sick.

He used clay.

He used water.

He used bread and wine.

The Apostles used material objects associated with themselves.

The bodies of the saints await resurrection.

The Church reverences their remains.

Why?

Because Christianity does not teach contempt for matter.

It teaches that matter can be sanctified by God.  

Yes. Catholicism affirms that created matter is capable of being used by God and being ordered to His worship and sanctification.

That is one of the profound differences between Catholic sacramental Christianity and a merely interiorized religion which modernists are inclined to favoring for ecumenical motives amongst others. 

XII. The Modernist Formation: From “Is It Catholic?” to “Does It Work?”

The deeper problem exposed by these reflections is therefore not necessarily personal bad faith.

It is formation.

A priest formed in the modernist ecumenical pastoral paradigm instinctively approach a traditional Catholic practice through categories such as:

• personal experience;
• pastoral usefulness;
• cultural sensitivity;
• psychological comfort;
• evangelistic accessibility;
• contemporary taste;
• “encounter” language;
• fear of appearing strange;
• and the question of whether outsiders will understand.

These considerations are not all illegitimate.

But they are secondary.

The traditional Catholic order is different:

Is it true?
 Is it Catholic?
 Is it legitimate?
 What does the Church teach it means?
 Is it rightly ordered to God?
 Is it free from superstition and abuse?

Only then do we ask how best to present it pastorally.

When pastoral considerations become the tribunal before which Catholic tradition must stand trial, the hierarchy of principles has been reversed.

XIII. A Catholic X-Ray of the Two Posts

What is correct

• Relics are not objects of adoration.
• Superstition must be rejected.
• God alone is the source of miraculous power.
• Relic-veneration must be properly ordered to God.
• Catholics should not invent biblical arguments.
• Catholics should distinguish authentic devotion from abuse.
• The martyrs should be imitated, not merely admired.
• Christ is the ultimate source of the saints’ sanctity.

What is incomplete

• Scripture is treated too narrowly as though explicit biblical prescription were required for a particular Catholic ceremony.
• The authority of the Church to regulate liturgical ceremonies is insufficiently considered.
• Biblical evidence concerning sacred objects and relics is underemphasized.
• The objective theological meaning of Catholic ceremonial is subordinated to subjective impressions.
• The distinction between “not necessary for salvation” and “not legitimately useful for devotion” is overlooked.

What is potentially misleading

• Comparing Catholic relic-veneration too readily with Protestant or ancestral practices.
• Treating strangeness to modern observers as evidence that a practice requires theological suspicion.
• Making “Does this help me encounter Christ?” the principal criterion for judging Catholic devotion.
• Suggesting that a dramatic ceremony is inherently suspect because it is dramatic.
• Implying that venerating the relic and imitating the martyr are competing alternatives.

What would be false

It would be false to say:

“Catholics worship relics.”

It would be false to say:

“The Catholic Church teaches that relics possess magical power.”

It would be false to say:

“Because Scripture does not explicitly command relic coronation, the ceremony is therefore un-Catholic.”

It would also be false to say:

“Because something is traditional, it must automatically be legitimate.”

The Catholic position avoids both extremes.

XIV. The Irony of the Scene

There is a striking irony in the spectacle: a modernist Novus Ordo prelate presiding over the public veneration of a Catholic martyr who shed her blood for the very Faith whose foundations modernism seeks to undermine.

St. Agatha did not die for an ambiguous “Christian experience,” religious pluralism, ecumenism, or a religion continually adapted to the spirit of the age. She died because she belonged to Christ and His one, true Faith, and she preferred martyrdom to apostasy.

The irony becomes sharper still when some of the prelate’s own co-religionists are scandalized by the relic’s public veneration. The martyr is welcomed; the modern world is accommodated; yet the ancient Catholic manner of honouring the martyr suddenly appears embarrassing, excessive, or “unbiblical.”

The martyr, it seems, is easier to venerate once her testimony has been separated from what she actually died for.

St. Agatha needs no modernization. Her relic does not need to be made acceptable to modern sensibilities. The question posed by her martyrdom is much more uncomfortable:

Are we prepared to profess, preserve, and suffer for the Faith for which she died?

That is the true Catholic X-ray.

Summing Up: The Verdict

A traditional Catholic need not be embarrassed by the skull of St. Agatha.

Nor should he be superstitious about it.

Nor should he pretend that Scripture contains a detailed rubric for its coronation.

Nor should he accept the Protestant premise that Catholic ceremonies are legitimate only when explicitly described in Scripture.

Nor should he defend every spectacular gesture without examining what it communicates.

The proper Catholic position is more balanced, and more demanding:

The relic is not God.
The relic is not magic.
The relic is not the source of grace.
The relic is the bodily remains of a saint of God.
The saint is not God.
The saint is honoured because God’s grace made him holy.
God alone is adored.

And St. Agatha’s relic does not ultimately tell us to admire a skull.

It tells us to remember a martyr.

The martyr tells us to remember her Lord.

And the Lord tells us what the whole ceremony must finally mean:

“Be thou faithful until death: and I will give thee the crown of life.” (Apocalypse 2:10)

That is the deepest Catholic meaning of the martyr’s crown.

Not the glorification of a bone.

Not the sacralization of an object.

Not an African ancestral cult baptized with Catholic vocabulary.

But the honour of a member of Christ who conquered through Christ, died for Christ, and now reigns with Christ.

The proper Catholic response, therefore, is neither:

“How strange! Catholics should stop doing this.”

nor:

“It is Catholic, therefore every manifestation of it must be defended.”

It is:

“Let us understand what the Church means, preserve what is genuinely Catholic, reject superstition and abuse, and ensure that the honour given to the relic truly terminates in the saint; and through the saint, in God.”

That is not a retreat from Catholic tradition.

It is Catholic tradition properly understood.