On-line religious sales ring up questions

By KATE BLAIN- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

Go to a website like the popular auction house "ebay.com," and you'll find a thousand Catholic items for sale. Buyers can bid on simple postcards of churches, blessed rosaries and even an alleged piece of the Virgin Mary's veil.

Where do these items come from? Why do people buy and sell them? The reasons are as varied as the items themselves.

A Catholic seller from Ireland, for example, told The Evangelist that he buys zucchettos (the skullcaps worn by bishops, cardinals and popes) in Rome and resells them online simply because there is a market. He believes those who sell zucchettos in the U.S. charge too much.

Making money

Many salespeople agreed that they sell Catholic items simply for profit.

"We purchase boxes of costume jewelry and assorted bits and pieces at auctions, yard sales, tag sales and so on," said a woman selling medals of saints on ebay. "Another dealer in our area said that she had listed several charms or medals of this style and had done well with them."

She added that, as a Lutheran, she was slightly concerned that she would word her descriptions of Catholic medals incorrectly and offend someone. So far, she said, no one has pointed out any errors.

Is it right?

Rev. John Dietzen, a priest from Illinois who writes the nationally syndicated "Question Box" column (see page 20), noted that sellers should be "aware of the spiritual implications" of placing objects in an online auction.

For one thing, he said, "articles for devotion should not be disseminated so indiscriminately that they are subject to possible misuse or abuse by people who would be lacking in faith and appreciation of their significance."

In other words, people shouldn't sell to just anyone but should try to make sure that the person buying the object isn't doing so for an inappropriate purpose.

Higher purpose

Some sellers told The Evangelist that they do indeed have a higher goal in auctioning items. One salesman of a household shrine of Jesus called himself a "recycler" of such items.

"In most cases at [garage] sales, if religious items don't sell, they are tossed in the garbage," he stated.

A devout Catholic woman selling rosaries on ebay noted that she was actually giving them away for a while -- 2,400 in all -- until the website stopped her. Now, she sells them for a small fee.

"I purchase the rosaries from a local international distributor of Catholic religious items. My idea is to get Catholic religious items out at a low cost, hoping that [buyers] are really using the items to better themselves and to come closer to the love of God," she said. "I could not live with myself if I thought that I was profiting from my Catholic venture."

Seeking to help

An ebay seller of religious medals said she scours flea markets, estate sales and other resources for religious items because "I want people to have access to them. Not everybody lives in a large urban area. It may be easy to get a St. Martha medal in New York City, but it's not as easy to find such items in extreme rural areas. I'm glad to help people find the devotional items they're seeking."

She has heard "amazing stories" from buyers, she added.

"Some people are simply devotees of the saint in question. Others are seeking miraculous cures," she explained. "You would also be surprised how many Roman Catholic items I've sold to non-Christians."

For sale

Father Dietzen said that sacramentals -- objects like rosaries, medals or statues -- shouldn't have any extra cost added to them just because they've been blessed. It's permissible for sellers to ask the commercial value of the object, he explained, but "blessings can't be sold."

Father Dietzen added that objects used at Mass, like altars or chalices, should never be placed for sale. They are in a special category of religious items; while they may have historical or artistic value, it isn't permissible to sell them.

Fakes?

The adage, "Let the buyer beware," certainly applies to bidders at online auctions. The Evangelist found several questionable objects for sale, including the aforementioned "piece of Mary's veil."

The seller of that object had posted the following message alongside its photo: "This is it! I have decided that I will not be selling any more relics on ebay because of all the hassles involved. I get tons of e-mail from people...self-styled `experts' who say the relics are fakes, and self-styled `relic protectors' who say that they recognize them as genuine, but that I'm going to hell for selling them. Enough already!"

In response, Father Dietzen quoted P.T. Barnum: "`There's a sucker born every minute.' The next silly offer will probably be someone trying to sell a rosary used by St. Joseph."

Bidders questioning whether an object is authentic should ask for documentation to prove it, he said -- and they should also be aware that "the field is wide open in things like this for every sort of scam."

Father Dietzen recalled that the museum-treasury room at the headquarters and chapel of Charlemagne in Aachen, Germany, houses what are known as the "Great Relics": the alleged swaddling clothes of Jesus, the loincloth He wore on the cross, Mary's cloak and the cloth that covered John the Baptist's head after he was killed.

"Major controversies continue over the genuineness of these objects, which have supposedly been `identified' for hundreds of years," he said.

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