“Of the Most Holy Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ”¹
In 1802, a book was published in Rome, of course with ecclesiastical approval, titled “Critical-historical Narrative of the Most Precious Relic of the Most Holy Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Which is venerated in the parish church of Calcata…” reprinted by order and with the support of Cesare Sinibaldi Gambalunga, who at the time was lord of that land.
The book was written to attract pilgrims and, at the same time, to settle a long-standing controversy over the authenticity of the relic. This was no ordinary fragment, but a small piece of the divine flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the words of the author, who, incidentally, was anonymous. The work was not the first; several years earlier, another unnamed author, suspected to be a Jesuit, had written a book on the subject, so the 1802 edition merely reinforced the idea, with such success that it received a new edition in 1890, on the eve of the great and final prohibition.
In Calcata, the relic was displayed for the veneration of the faithful on January 1, when the Roman calendar marked the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. To avoid confusion, this feast was replaced in 1960 with another called the Octave of Christmas by Pope John XXIII, and after the Second Vatican Council, by the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
To us, it may seem amusing, or at least bring a smile, the naïveté surrounding this peculiar relic. But to the inhabitants of Calcata, a small town near Viterbo, it was no joke when Don Darío Magnoni, in 1983, informed them that the reliquary containing the Most Holy Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ had been stolen. The reliquary, kept in the parish, was made of gilded silver and adorned with precious stones.
When the villagers learned of the theft, opinions were divided. Some were convinced it was sacrilegious thieves, the type who stop at nothing. Others blamed the mafia. But for many elders, it was clear, and they commented privately, that it must have been the priest, adding: “Now, who will protect us when storms come and earthquakes strike?” With the theft, a dispute between the town and the Vatican ended (for some, miraculously). Rome had already been warning for nearly a century that enough was enough with the “foreskin joke.”
The Vatican had gotten serious since, in 1856, a new foreskin appeared, which turned out to be the one from Charroux, walled up during the French Revolution for fear of being profaned. The reigning Pope, Pius IX, whose arm ached from writing against rationalists, idealists, modernists, and a host of “ists,” did not even have the strength to issue an excommunication against all the irreverent who jokingly doubted that the Son of God had left two foreskins on earth.
In this case, it was Leo XIII who had to take the matter seriously. In 1900, he prohibited, under excommunication reserved to the Holy See, the dissemination or public discussion of such a strange relic. The people of Calcata didn’t care what St. Peter thought. They had repeatedly experienced the protection of the “divine membrane” and were convinced of its authenticity.
They referred to the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy (V,1), an apocryphal text that states: “On the eighth day… He was circumcised in the cave, and the elderly Israelite woman took the piece of skin (others say she took the umbilical cord) and placed it in a small vial of old spikenard oil. And she had a perfumer son to whom she entrusted it, saying: ‘Do not sell this vial of perfumed nard, even if offered three hundred denarii.’”
The narrative continues, stating it was the same perfume that Mary Magdalene used to anoint the Master’s feet. However, others gave more credibility to Saint Bridget of Sweden, to whom the Virgin Mary appeared and said she had lovingly preserved it since the circumcision, but in the end had given it to Saint John the Evangelist, and that it was kept in Rome. To further complicate matters, another version claimed that the Virgin did not give it to Saint John, but to Mary Magdalene.
The holy foreskin(s) helped infertile women conceive and pregnant women give birth. Another one, located in Saint-Coulomb, France, was taken to England at the request of Catherine of Valois, wife of Henry V, who was infertile, and for her it was a miracle worker. It took some time to return to the land of the Gauls, but a more powerful abbey appropriated it. That was Charroux, already mentioned, which disputed with Calcata over which was authentic. Because there were more. In Antwerp, another was brought by Godfrey of Bouillon, purchased from King Baldwin of Jerusalem.
It so happened that when placed on the altar, the bishop of Cambrai saw three drops of blood fall from the sacred skin, proving its authenticity. They preserved the foreskin and the white cloth with the three red stains in the reliquary. In 1426, in the Belgian city, a “Congregation of the Holy Foreskin of our Adored Jesus” was established, well endowed with chaplains in service, who processed the relic once a year. It disappeared in 1566 during the upheavals of the Reformation. Relics could be found everywhere, even in Burgos, as seen by Alfonso Valdés in the cathedral there.
The history of the Calcata relic, like all those claimed to belong to the Redeemer, has its miraculous story. It was delivered by an Angel to Charlemagne while in prayer in Jerusalem, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The emperor gave it to Pope Leo III, who deposited it in the Sancta Sanctorum at St. John Lateran, where it was kept with other equally illustrious relics, including the Master’s umbilical cord and a pair of his sandals. At least, that is what a Dominican wrote in the 13th century. It remained there until the troops of Charles V sacked the Eternal City. One of the Protestant soldiers stole this part of Christ’s anatomy to sell or gift it in his homeland. But he was captured in Calcata. While in jail, fearing the consequences of the theft, he hid the relic in his cell. The prisoner died, and the membrane was almost lost forever. But new miracles indicated precisely where it was.
As the Calcata relic became famous, envy arose and enemies began to object, some so strongly that they nearly created a theological problem. The less credulous, yet very suspicious, reasoned: Christ rose and ascended to heaven with His whole body, there is no doubt, so there can be no part of Him left on earth. But the defenders, skilled in reasoning, countered with arguments based on the writings of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventure. They believed that some parts of the human body could be considered non-essential for the resurrection, such as nails, hair, and, of course, in Hebrew culture, the foreskin. Some even argued that Christ ascended to heaven whole because He had acquired a new one. And there were those convinced the foreskin ascended, but not all the way; it stayed lower, giving rise to Saturn’s rings.
The rediscovery of the treasure alerted the Lateran canons, who immediately acted to demand its return to the Basilica. They sent two of their own to Calcata to request to see the relic. The priest did not object, opening the tabernacle where it was kept and the monstrance where it was venerated. One of the canons, excited, held it with two fingers from each hand and, without realizing it, it broke in two: “one the size of a chickpea, the other the size of a hemp seed.” So the chronicles report. No snap was heard, but a powerful thunderstorm with rain and lightning struck, terrifying the entire land of Viterbo for hours. The canons had no doubt they were facing the one and only true foreskin of the Savior.
They returned to Rome, frightened by such a prodigy, and informed the Lateran chapter that it was indeed genuine, but that, after what they had seen, it was better to leave it far from the Basilica, as any attempt to move it could be catastrophic.
And so it remained protecting the people of Calcata for several more centuries. What I do not know is whether, after its disappearance, misfortunes befell Calcata as the elders had feared. The next time I return to that beautiful town, I will ask those who can still testify.