the Church there have, unfortunately, been numerous instances of error and
fraud in relation to relics. As early as the late fourth century, St. Augustine
of Hippo decried against impostor monks who profiteered from the sale of
fake relics. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits “that many of the more
ancient relics duly exhibited for veneration in the great sanctuaries of
Christendom or even at Rome itself must now be pronounced to be either
certainly spurious or open to grave suspicion” (Vol. XII, p. 737, ed. 1911).
Professional anti-Catholics such as Loraine Boettner and Bart Brewer
attempt to make great headway from the existence of fraudulent relics. In
their writings we find ridicule and derision directed not only against proven
frauds but also against the very doctrine of relic veneration itself. For
example, Bart Brewer in his life-story, Pilgrimage from Rome, states:
“It is said that if all the pieces of the cross displayed in Catholic
churches were assembled together, it would take a ten-ton truck to
carry them. It is clear that most ‘relics’ are frauds. Furthermore, there
is nothing in the Bible that supports the veneration of relics, even if
they are genuine.”³
Despite the existence of frauds it must always be remembered that abuse
does not abolish use. Even if fraudulent relics of the True Cross or Apostles
exist, there are also genuine relics in both cases deserving of veneration. In
any case, no one is obliged to pay homage to dubious relics, and even when
people do so, no dishonor is done to God if the error has been passed down
in perfect good faith over centuries.
The claim that there are enough fraudulent pieces of the True Cross to fill a
“ten ton truck” was examined and refuted by Rohault de Fleury in the late
nineteenth century. Despite long and arduous research, de Fleury could
only discover enough relics to make up approximately one-third of a cross.
This included 370 cubic inches of relics that once allegedly existed but at
the time no longer did.
3
P. 132.
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