AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Today, St. Thomas Aquinas finishes his first-ever tour of the U.S. - only 750 years after his death. What I mean is, the skull of the famous priest made several stops in the U.S. as a celebration of three major anniversaries - roughly, his death, the 700th anniversary of when he was officially recognized as a saint and the 800th anniversary of his birth. The skull has become a treasured relic in the Catholic church, and Carol Zimmerman, news editor at the National Catholic Reporter, saw it while it was in Washington, D.C. She joins us now. Welcome, welcome.
CAROL ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, Ailsa. Happy to be here.
CHANG: Happy to have you. OK, so tell us why this very, very old skull is so significant to many people.
ZIMMERMAN: It follows a long tradition of Christians, Catholics, even other faiths that have a relic - meaning a bone or a piece of cloth that belonged to the person - that people will travel far and wide just to come before that in a way of veneration. Not necessarily praying to the item or the bone, but the bone of that person represents someone that knew God or was close to God or heard from God - so in a way, it's like a connection to someone that has a connection.
CHANG: It summons proximity to God if you're close to the relic.
ZIMMERMAN: Right.
CHANG: And for those who aren't as familiar, who was St. Thomas Aquinas?
ZIMMERMAN: Well, St. Thomas Aquinas is huge in the Catholic church - a theologian, a philosopher who wrote great books that...
CHANG: Yeah.
ZIMMERMAN: Many people study him daily, and they are still trying to figure out what he was saying about faith and reason and, you know, kind of big topics. But he really went into them and described them.
CHANG: Well, there's a part in this piece where you do sound just a touch skeptical. Like, you go to see the relic, and you're wondering if anyone's going to show up. But there happens to be this very long line, with some people waiting up to an hour to see this skull. And by the time you get to the front, they're only giving visitors 10 seconds with the skull. So I'm just curious, what did that feel like - those 10 seconds?
ZIMMERMAN: I was just taken aback by the fact that, even that day, so many people had touched this tiny square. They put their hands on it. Someone in front of me had a baby in, like, a little onesie. They put the baby's feet up to the square. To me, it just was a significant moment that all of these people had a prayer or an intention, or they were thinking about something, or they were wanting help. That's what...
CHANG: Yeah.
ZIMMERMAN: ...Just seemed more real to me - that that was - all those people had something that they were looking for.
CHANG: Did this experience change how you feel about old religious relics in any way?
ZIMMERMAN: Probably because, at first, I was a little more - I just thought it was so macabre, as they say, and just funny. I mean, like, some places you go, you can see a finger or a heart or dried blood. I mean, that's weird. But at the same token, I go back to this quote from St. Thomas Aquinas, who said, "to the person who has faith, no explanation is necessary. And to the one without faith, no explanation is possible" - almost, like, you just have to take this by faith. And if you do, maybe you'll get something out of it. If you don't, we can't explain it to you.
CHANG: That is Carol Zimmerman, news editor at the National Catholic Reporter, where her piece on visiting the relic appears. Thank you so much.
ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, Ailsa. This was fun.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAHALIA SONG, "IN THE CLUB") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
