The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference issued a pastoral letter on the veneration of relics after a video of Cardinal Pietro Parolin crowning the skull of St. Agatha in Catania, Italy, disturbed some of the faithful.
“We write because this video has troubled many of the faithful,” the bishops said in their letter, released yesterday. “For most, the discomfort was not merely at seeing a human skull handled and displayed; it brought to mind necromancy and occultism—the attempt to communicate with the dead, or to seek hidden supernatural power through ritual, outside the worship of God.”
The bishops added:
The crowning of St Agatha’s relic is an act of Christian veneration, not idolatry, and certainly not necromancy or occultism. To anyone asking what it means to crown the skull of St Agatha, the Catholic answer is this: the ceremony honors a woman who, by tradition, remained faithful to Christ rather than renounce her faith. The crown represents a martyr’s victory and heavenly reward; the relic recalls the person who lived that life; and the honor ultimately points to God, the source of her holiness.