Is this simony

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I know I have rosaries with low class relics embedded in them from Lisiuex, etc. I would say it is nt sunny since it is sold with the box and rosary. Not entirely sure though. 🤷
 
sharpag said:
I was recently on EWTN’s religious catalog and I noticed that a 3rd class relic was being sold with a rosary and a wooden box ewtnreligiouscatalogue.com/OLIVE+WOOD+ROSARY+AND+BOX+WITH+RELIC/cid=433/page_no=8/edp_no=10201/shop.axd/ProductDetails and I was under the impression that relics cannot be sold. Is this simony or is this permissible if the price is configured and the relic is added as a sort of bonus?
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Simony is paying for God’s gifts for your own use. Simony would be believing that by buying the relic God will be under your control. Simons sin was that instead of having faith in God, he wanted a magic trick. He thought he could buy it like you or I would buy a pain killer. That once he had it, he could go around and use it and sell it to others. He thought of God as a simple transaction.

The relic is still under God’s control. It would be simony to give money for it with the assumption that by having a relic you could force God to do your will. That when you wanted you could heal someone, and when you didn’t you could withhold it. But if you buy it you aren’t buying God’s control, you are paying for delivery etc. God still controls the Holy Spirit and that is why it’s not simony.

Think of it this way. How much would it cost for you to buy a rosary of that quality, travel to the tomb of Jesus, touch the tomb and bring it back. That is what you are paying for. You are paying for someone else to go do the journey that you cannot afford, not for a ‘magic’ item. Would it be simony if you bought a rosary for $25 dollars, and your mother or father flew to the tomb and touched it for you?
 
sharpag said:
I was recently on EWTN’s religious catalog and I noticed that a 3rd class relic was being sold with a rosary and a wooden box ewtnreligiouscatalogue.com/OLIVE+WOOD+ROSARY+AND+BOX+WITH+RELIC/cid=433/page_no=8/edp_no=10201/shop.axd/ProductDetails and I was under the impression that relics cannot be sold. Is this simony or is this permissible if the price is configured and the relic is added as a sort of bonus?
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As the others have said simony is not the sale of relics.

However, the sale of relics is forbidden and Canon Law does not differentiate the classes.

Can. 1190 §1 It is absolutely wrong to sell sacred relics.

Some try to get round canon law. How?
  • Sell a Rosary, Reliquary etc and say the relic is free.
  • Give the relic free but charge for administrative/shipping costs.
  • Give the relic free but ask for a donation.
Whatever the gimmick is if money changes hands and a relic is involved then a sale has taken place.
It astounds me to think people can be so naive to think it has not.
 
thistle said:
As the others have said simony is not the sale of relics.

However, the sale of relics is forbidden and Canon Law does not differentiate the classes.

Can. 1190 §1 It is absolutely wrong to sell sacred relics.
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They are allowed to charge for the cost of materials for the “rosaries”, etc. If it’s just the “relic”, itself is encapsulated within it. This means, if it is a 3rd class cloth relic, they cannot charge for the cloth, but the encasing of the cloth, unless the cloth is exposed without surrounding materials.
Relics may be legitimately obtained from Church sources, i.e., the Vicariate in Rome, the religious Order of the Saint involved, the shrine of the Saint involved, etc. When this is done, a donation is usually expected to cover the cost of the metal container (theca) that contains the relic, but in any case, a profit cannot legitimately be made from the sale of relics by anyone.
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DihydrogenOxide said:
They are allowed to charge for the cost of materials for the “rosaries”, etc. If it’s just the “relic”, itself is encapsulated within it. This means, if it is a 3rd class cloth relic, they cannot charge for the cloth, but the encasing of the cloth, unless the cloth is exposed without surrounding materials.
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Canon Law does not say a profit is forbidden. It says a sale is forbidden. That means no money can change hands. As I said people use gimmicks to try to get round the canon law but folks should not be so naive about this this.
 
thistle said:
As the others have said simony is not the sale of relics.

However, the sale of relics is forbidden and Canon Law does not differentiate the classes.

Can. 1190 §1 It is absolutely wrong to sell sacred relics.

Some try to get round canon law. How?
  • Sell a Rosary, Reliquary etc and say the relic is free.
  • Give the relic free but charge for administrative/shipping costs.
  • Give the relic free but ask for a donation.
Whatever the gimmick is if money changes hands and a relic is involved then a sale has taken place.
It astounds me to think people can be so naive to think it has not.
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for me its not simony if they’ll ask for donations (the nuns or priests) in giving relics. Imagine if 100 people requested relics and each relic would cause them about $50 dollars all in all then it would be $ 5000. Where will they get that money? id rather nor give relics and use 5000 dollars in feeding the hungry
 
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