il santo prepuzio

i'm getting amped up about rome --- i could devote an entire day to relics and catacombs--- st. peters chains, st. pauls head, and wood from the baby jesus' crib, the manger, the true cross, and the last supper table --- if i could only see the holy prepuce!

there were once several claimants to possession of the relic ---

In 1900, the Roman Catholic Church . . . [ruled] that anyone thence forward writing or speaking of the Holy Prepuce would be excommunicated.In 1954, after much debate, the punishment was changed to the harsher degree ofexcommunication, vitandi (shunned); and the Second Vatican Council laterremoved the Day of the Holy Circumcision from the Latin church calendar,although Eastern Catholics and Traditional Roman Catholics still celebrate theFeast of the Circumcision of Our Lord on January 1.

in spite of the church's attempts to suppress its veneration, it was paraded through the streets of calcata, italy, until it was stolen in 1983, some think by the church itself --- but attempts by the bbc in 1997 to locate any examples of the holy foreskin were unsuccessful