Alleged relic of the True Cross going on ebay

[tree_and_leaf]

I can't imagine why anyone who thought this was genuine would put it up for sale, so...

Meanwhile, the exhumation of Cardinal Newman has recovered no remains. I am rather cheered by this; a Vatican spokeman said this will not affect his cause one way or another; given that it was Newman's expressed wish that he be buried there rather than in the Oratory, I'd have thought that if anything it might be taken as strengthening it.

In other news, I discovered that I was having great difficulty remembering what acolyte 1 does at High Mass, but there were no actual disasters, and it was very good to serve again. I've missed that very much.

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

There were similar relationships in the army; two senior early eighteenth-century army officers were buried in the same tomb by their request after serving and living together for decades. A fourteenth-century example is the relationship between Edward II and Piers Gaveston, often assumed to be homosexual (and the basis for the charges of sodomy against Edward II at the time of his deposition, it's usually assumed) but described by a 1990s author as adoptive brotherhood, I think.