Sometimes you have to laugh at the antics of some Christians, particularly the Catholics who have a long tradition of venerating any random thing they can convince themselves has some connection to either Jesus or one of the Saints. From finger joints to burial shrouds there’s a lengthy list of holy relics they cling to in contradiction of their claims that they need no proof of God’s existence as their faith is enough. It probably shouldn’t come as any surprise then to learn that a church in Calcata, Italy has been guarding what they believe to be Jesus’ foreskin. A Star Tribune writer decided to check it out during a recent visit only to learn that Jesus’ dick skin has gone missing!
But Calcata’s most remarkable attraction—and the subject of a book that Farley is now writing—turned out to be something no longer there: the supposed foreskin of Jesus Christ.
For more than four centuries, the “Holy Prepuce” had been the city’s treasure, kept behind bronze doors over the altar in the Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. It was displayed every year on Jan. 1, the Feast of the Holy Circumcision. At one time, pilgrims who came to venerate it were rewarded with an indulgence that cut 10 years from their time in purgatory.
To believers in Jesus’ Resurrection, Farley notes, the foreskin is “one of the only conceivable parts of his body that he could have left on Earth.”
The Feast of the Holy Circumcision!?! Now there’s a party I’d rather not be invited to.
- “Hey Bob, where’re you headed off to in such a hurry?”
“I’m headed to the Feast of the Holy Circumcision! If I’m lucky I’ll get a chance to see Jesus’ foreskin!”
“Uh, good luck with that. I guess.”
As it turns out it appears this “relic” is one of at least 18 supposed holy dick skins that have been claimed by various churches over the centuries and this one has been missing since 1983, which is probably a big bummer for recent attendees of the Feast of the Holy Circumcision hoping to get a glance at it. It also probably means the folks in Calcata aren’t really in crisis mode anymore, but it makes for a good headline just the same.
When it comes to weird religious rituals and artifacts it’s hard to bear the Catholics.
Posted on 12/13/2007 at 07:33 PM 
This might be a good place for a retelling of the story of St. Agnes Blannbekin, who died in Vienna in 1315. Her “Revelations”, as collected by her spiritual advisor, were published by the Benedictine B. Pez in 1731, and included the following tidbit (sorry, just in German: the following is my translation), from chapter XXXVII, “The Lord’s Prepuce”:
“This person had the habit, starting almost in childhood, to weep profoundly at the Feast of the Circumcision, touched to the heart by the blood spent by Christ, who deigned to suffer so early.... Thus she started to wonder, where the prepuce might be. And lo and behold! Soon she felt a little skin on her tongue, like the skin of an egg, full of great sweetness, and she gulped it down. Hardly had she swallowed it, when she felt the little skin again, and so she swallowed it once more. And she did so a good hundred times.... And it was revealed to her, that on the Day of Resurrection the prepuce was also resurrected. So great was the sweetness when she swallowed this little skin, that in all her limbs and in all the muscles of her limbs she felt a sweet transformation...”
St. Agnes’ confessor added after this chapter the note:
“I was greatly comforted, that the Lord would reveal himself to people this way, and burned to hear more.”