Brain Drop
Read this excerpt from an article titled "Holy Relics: Commerce in saints’ bits and pieces–long forbidden by the Catholic Church–is thriving,” by Monte Burke for Forbes magazine.
Broomer sells the skulls of martyrs ($4,500 each). She sells the teeth of saints ($300). For $975 you can get what may be a tiny splinter from the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified. It takes a certain amount of blind faith to believe all the claims attached to religious artifacts.
Other items in stock include, ostensibly, pieces of the body of Saint Thérèse, the Little Flower, made into paste; clothing worn by Saint Anthony of Padua; and a “touched” nail, meaning a nail that once touched a nail from the Crucifixion.
Broomer, 48, dressed in tennis shoes and a long brown skirt, points eagerly to a closed box. “I just got in three bone fragments of St. Francis of Assisi,” she says. “He will go very quickly. “
Around her are shelves packed with gilt bronze boxes–many in the form of churches–and silver monstrances. Within each are the objects that have become Broomer’s passion and fascination during her two decades as a dealer: pieces of Catholic saints, or artifacts related to them.
Broomer believes she is one of only a handful of specialists who deal full-time in relics and reliquaries (vessels that contain relics), though Christie’s and other auction houses offer them for sale occasionally. Christie’s has no auctions pending but recently sold, through its icon department, a 19th-century reliquary holding a stone from Mount Tabor–the site of Christ’s transfiguration–for $430,000.
The trade is more ingrained in Europe, what with its myriad monasteries and convents. But there’s money to be made off U.S. collectors, too. As U.S. Catholic congregations shrink and churches close, deaccessioned relics are finding their way onto Ebay.
Vendors have a lingo in which relics are classified into grades. “First class” pertains to body parts of saints–a fingernail of the Apostle Paul, say, or a strand of the Virgin Mary’s hair. Items (supposedly) touched by Jesus often are first class. The second class encompasses the relics of lesser figures–Mother Teresa’s tennis shoes. The third class has items that have touched something first class–the “touched” nail described above, for instance.
If and when Pope Benedict XVI is beatified, his visit to the U.S. will have created a host of relics. Anything he touched will count–a business card, a rosary, a faucet.
Some first-class relics come with a red papal seal (meaning they’ve been vetted by the Vatican) and papers, usually in Latin, describing the item and its history. But if saints’ bones can be faked, so can pieces of paper. Broomer says that while her clients care about authentication, in the end, “They want to believe."
Prompt: Do you find the selling of
religious artifacts unethical? Why or why not? Would YOU ever buy a religious
artifact? Would YOU ever SELL a religious artifact? What if you could never be
one hundred percent sure the artifacts you are selling are genuine?
Lecture:
The Canto begins with the poets dismounting from Geryon: The Monster of Fraud.
Land in 8th Circle of Hell, called MALEBOLGE (The
Evil Ditches) and divided into 10 bolgias.
Bolgia One: Panderers
and Seducers
What does PANDERER mean in this context?
Yes, Panderer may mean somebody who caves to someone else’s
whims in a crass way, but could there be ANOTHER meaning?
Let’s look for clues. Remember, all of Dante’s punishment are example of
symbolic retribution, or Poetic Justice. How are the Panderers punished?
(Note that in Canto XVIII's summary, it is insinuated that there may be a possible sexual connotations
of the horns of the demons that torment the Panderers.)
Look at the text, starting at line 52:
Dante recognizes Venedico Caccianemico of Bologna and asks him how he ended up in MALEBOLGE...
And he replied: “I
speak unwillingly,
But something in your
living voice, in which
I hear the world
again, stirs and compels me.
It was I who brought
the fair Ghisola ‘round
To serve the will and
lust of the Marquis
However sordid that
old tale may sound…
…
And as he spoke, one
of those lashes fell
Across his back, and a
demon cried, “Move on,
You pimp, there are no
women here to sell.”
Question: what does Panderer mean in this context? Answer: an archaic
meaning of pandering is a person who solicits for a prostitute, or a pimp.
What does SIMONY mean?
Think back to the Brain Drop.
Simony is named after Simon Magus, referenced in Peter Acts 18:18-20
And when Simon saw that through laying on of hands, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying 'Give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost’. But Peter said unto him ‘Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
Worksheet prompt:
How does Dante seem to regard the damned? Do Dante’s
sentiments fluctuate or remain stagnant? Consider Dante’s opinions in CANTO XIX
as compared to his behavior in in CANTO XV. Use textual evidence (quotes) to
back up your points. Can you detect any differences between Dante THE CHARACTER
and Dante THE POET of the text?
James Verone, an unemployed 59-year-old with a bad back, a sore foot and an
undiagnosed growth on his chest, limped into a bank in Gastonia, N.C., this
month and handed the teller a note, explaining that this was an unarmed
robbery, but she'd better turn over $1 and call the cops. That, he figured,
would be enough to get himself arrested and sent to prison for a few years,
where he could take advantage of the free medical care...
