September 7, 1998 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Chicagoites should be pleased to learn that the Catholic Church has bestowed upon their fair city some very "holy" bones. The bones allegedly belong to San Diego de Alcala, the "saint" for whom the ever-sunny southern California city is named. San Diego died 535 years ago in Spain.

Two of his bone fragments--the Catholic Church calls them "first-class relics"--now reside at Loyola University. They will be proudly displayed in a silver showcase.

An article in the Chicago Sun Times notes that these are not the only holy relics in Chicago. "A bone from the right arm of Mother Cabrini, who died in 1917 and was declared a saint in 1946, is on display at the National Shrine to St. Frances Cabrini at Columbus Hospital" and "at least three pieces of leg bone, believed to belong to St. Jude, one of Jesus' 12 Apostles, are encased at the National Shrine to St. Jude."

Further, priest Thomas Poprocki, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Chicago, said there are at least 378 relics in Chicago "because every church in Cook and Lake counties would have one or more embedded under its altar stone. Not all are bone fragments. Relics can be skin, clothing or instruments connected to a martyr."

Catholic leaders cited in the article protest that the relics are not worshipped but are simply "venerated" as "a piece of memory." There is very little difference between venerate and worship. I’ve seen Catholics lighting candles and incense and bowing before relics in many parts of the world--at the Vatican in Rome, at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Montreal, at shrines in Slovakia and Ireland and India and England. This, my friends, is idolatry. Those who visit these places hope that the holiness of the relics will somehow make their prayers more efficacious, and they are taught to pray directly to the "saints" represented by the relics. All of this is forbidden by the Word of God. Nowhere are we taught to pray to anyone other than Almighty God. To do so is blasphemy and idolatry. There are no prayers to Mary or to saints in the Bible. The Lord Jesus Christ taught us to pray to God the Father.

We don’t come to God through bones; we come through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13). "In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:14). "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus" (Hebrews 10:19).

There is not one hint in the Bible that Christians are to save the bones of the dead and make keepsakes of them for any purpose whatsoever. This is pagan and occultic. When the first martyr Stephen died, the church at Jerusalem did not keep his bones. They did not hack off a few pieces and distribute them to the other churches. They buried the man (Acts 7:2). All of him! Even in Old Testament times the bones of the saints (every child of God through faith in Christ is a saint--1 Cor. 1:2) were not kept and incorporated into their worship. The body of Joseph was kept, not to use in worship but to carry to the Promised Land to give him a proper burial there (Gen. 50:25; Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32). God buried the body of Moses to prevent any possibility that his bones would be used as holy relics (Deut. 32:5-6).

"Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry" (1 Corinthians 10:14).

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen" (1 John 5:21).