The Detached and Distributed

St Catherine of Siena’s head sits behind glass at the Basilica of San Domenico in Siena, looking out from the high altar at the city she loved. Her foot is in Venice. Her finger is in Rome. The rest of her body lies under the altar of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, except for her right shoulder blade, which is preserved separately. The saint is, in one sense, scattered. In the older Catholic understanding, she is also, in another sense, multiplied — present at each altar at which her relics rest, available to each city that venerates her.

The Catholic theology that justifies this strange-looking distribution is not embarrassed by it. The saint, after death, is in heaven; the saint’s presence at the relic is the saint’s continuing presence among the faithful through God’s ordained means. The presence is not divided by the division of the body. Where any first-class relic rests, the full saint is venerated. The site holds with this older understanding without apology.

The principle

“The honour due to the saint, by whatever portion of the body the saint is venerated, is the honour due to the whole saint. The bone divided is not the saint divided. The saint divided is not possible; the saint is one.”Site paraphrase of the standing Catholic theology, drawing on Aquinas Summa III q. 25 a. 6 and the Second Council of Nicaea (787)

“Those who do not honour the relics of the saints do not understand that the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and that whatever is consecrated by long association with the soul continues to be of value when the soul has departed.”Site paraphrase of St Jerome, Contra Vigilantium (406), in defence of relic veneration against early critics

The bodies, distributed

St Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) is one of the two patrons of Italy and a Doctor of the Church. She died in Rome and was buried there, but Siena (her birth city) reclaimed her head and thumb shortly after, by a story that involves a small theft and a miraculous concealment. The head is at the Basilica of San Domenico in Siena. The right thumb is preserved separately at the same basilica. The right foot is at Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. The right shoulder blade is at the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna. A finger is at the Cathedral of Astenovo. The body remains at Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Each location holds a real first-class relic; each is venerated. Catherine’s presence is, in the older grammar, available at all of them.

St John the Baptist — the saint with the most contested distribution. The Forerunner’s head is claimed, in various forms, by: the Cathedral of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome (which holds a complete head); the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus (which holds the head in the Muslim tradition, where John is venerated as the prophet Yahya); the Cathedral of Amiens in France (which holds a portion of the face, brought back from the Fourth Crusade); the Residenz of Munich (a portion); and additional smaller fragments elsewhere. The site does not propose to adjudicate which is the “true” head. The medieval tradition’s position, which the editors find defensible, is that the saint’s presence answers to each veneration at each true relic, regardless of whether contemporary archaeology can confirm specific provenance.

St Anthony of Padua (1195–1231) was exhumed in 1263, thirty-two years after his burial. The body was found largely decomposed, but the tongue and the jaw were found whole, fresh, and red as if alive. St Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, then Minister General of the Franciscans, was present and took this as a sign that the saint’s preaching had been a special gift of the Holy Spirit. The tongue and jaw are preserved in the Chapel of the Relics at the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua, where they continue to be venerated as the seat of his gift. A portion of the throat is preserved with them.

St Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Doctor of the Church. His body is at the Jacobins Convent in Toulouse, where it was translated in 1369. His right thumb — the thumb of the writing hand — is preserved separately, also at Toulouse, and was historically venerated as the source of the prodigious theological output.

St Lucy of Syracuse (283–304), virgin martyr. Her body is at the Church of San Geremia in Venice. Her eyes are preserved separately, in keeping with the tradition of her martyrdom in which her eyes were taken (whether plucked out by her tormentors or removed by Lucy herself to discourage a suitor who praised them). She is the patron of the blind, of the eye-afflicted, and of writers; her veneration in Sweden as “Sankta Lucia” on December 13 is one of the more luminous folk feasts of Northern Europe.

St Agatha of Catania (231–251), virgin martyr. Her breasts were cut off during her torture under Decius; St Peter is said to have appeared to her in prison and restored them. The Cathedral of Catania preserves her relics; the iconography of the saint commonly shows her holding her breasts on a plate, and the Sicilian pastry minne di Sant’Agata — small breast-shaped cakes — is eaten at her February feast. She is the patron of breast cancer patients.

The editors’ position

The distribution of the saints across multiple altars is not a scandal of medieval credulity. It is the working out of a real theology: that the saint in heaven is fully present to each veneration on earth, regardless of how many altars hold portions of the body. The site holds that the older Catholic intuition is correct: pilgrimage to one of these places, with right veneration, accesses the full saint. The detached portion is not a fragment of presence; it is presence-in-the-fragment.

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