Religious Heathenism

Mutilating a corpse and discreetly packing a piece in your luggage before boarding a plane is the sort of thing that gets people arrested.

But not if you are the Pope. Lopping off a bit of the dead Pope John XXIII and donating it to Sofia's new cathedral was considered an honour to Bulgaria's Catholics.

Which part was cut off is not clear, because the gift was not part of the official programme of the Pope's four-day visit to Bulgaria, which ended on Sunday.

John's body was embalmed hours after his death in June 1963. When it was exhumed last year, it was found to be in almost perfect condition, a feat of preservation hailed by some as a miracle. The relic was removed from the corpse last July after it was put in a glass coffin and displayed in St Peter's square to thousands of pilgrims.

Known as the Good Pope for his compassion, John is on a Vatican fast-track to canonisation, after which he will be known as St John.

Probably the most popular pope of modern times, he is revered in Bulgaria because he served there as a priest from 1929 to 1934 and fell in love with the people and country.

Sofia's new cathedral was built to replace one destroyed by bombing in 1944. According to the Rome daily, La Repubblica, the relic, wrapped in a medieval cloth, will be kept in the cathedral as an object of veneration.

The cathedral authorities were expecting a relic in order to make a shrine, but had no inkling they would receive such a spectacular present from the Vatican.

It has now emerged that the Pope chose to give them a relic.

It could have been any part of the body. The basilica in Padua in northern Italy displays St. Anthony's tongue, jawbone and vocal chords. Other churches and cathedrals boast hanks of hair, bits of bone, heads, fingers and toes.

The practice has long been criticized as a medieval hangover. Pope John Paul is a traditionalist whose reverence for relics has reinvigorated the tradition.