Montreal Cathedral Relics Declared Not Genuine
It may well cause a sensation, and a deeply painful one in Roman Catholic circles—the announcement made at a high mass in the Montreal Cathedral the other day, that a number of relics brought from Rome in 1880 by Monseigneur Fabre, bishop of Montreal, are not genuine, and that his lordship has been victimized by a Jewish relic-merchant of the Holy City. This is very sad—and the pathos of the thing lies in the fact that these bones have been working several very satisfactory miracles during the four years they have been adored. It was wicked in that Roman Shapira to sell old tibiae and fibulae and clavicles for sacred relics which were not sacred, but very, very secular. But the bones are not wholly blameless. They ought not to have worked such miracles. It is a satisfaction, though, to know that the osseous reminiscences have been destroyed by order of the pope. We hope never to record like imposture on the part of any old bones again.—Christian at Work.