The Bishop of Assisi, Mons. Domenico Sorrentino, filed a complaint with the Italian authorities for the Internet sale of alleged relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis and regretted that something similar happens with relics attributed to San Francisco de Asís.
According to the Italian diocese in its websitethe Prelate has filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office of Perugia, led by Raffaele Cantone, which has already initiated the corresponding investigations.
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The diocese specifies that it is specifically a Blessed and Future Holy hair, which already offers more than 2,000 euros, and that it would have been authenticated by the application. The hair would have been put up for a man, from whom only a nickname is known so far.
“We have asked for your seizure,” said the Bishop of Assisi. “We do not know if the relics are real or false, but even if everything were invented, if there were deception, we would be facing not only before a scam, but also before an insult to religious feeling.”
Who was Carlo Acutis?
Carlo Acutis was beatified on October 10, 2020 in Assisi (Italy), the land of San Francisco, where his remains rest.
He was a video game fan and a computer programmer who loved the Eucharist, the Virgin Mary and football. The miracle that will make it Holy has as its protagonist a young woman from Costa Rica. It will be canonized on Sunday, April 27 in the Plaza de San Pedro in El Vaticano.
San Francisco relics
The Italian diocese also specifies that other relics also circulate on the Internet, also attributed to Carlo Acutis and San Francisco de Asís.
“On the Internet there is a relic market of several saints, such as our Francisco, with a price list. Something inadmissible,” said Mons. Sorrentino.
The prohibition of selling relics
The prelate explained that canon law, the law that governs the Universal Church, prohibits this trade. In fact, the relics are donated free of charge by the bishops and, at most, the offerings or donations that the faithful want to do are destined to the sanctuary from where they proceed.
Indeed, the canon 1190 The Canon Law Code establishes that “it is strictly forbidden to sell sacred relics”, in addition, the text adds that “the distinguished relics as well as those that enjoy great veneration of the people cannot in any way alienate themselves validly or move to perpetuity without a license of the apostolic headquarters”, that is to say of the Vatican.
To conclude, the Bishop of Assisi commented that “after verifying the auction on the Internet, we decided to file the complaint. What can the idol of money take us? I fear that Satan has something to do with this.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.