Simony?

[batteddy]

I know that the Church forbids selling spiritual goods, and that major simony (selling the sacraments, ecclesiastical office, etc) is a very grave crime.

 

And that traditionally a blessed item sold at the very least lost its blessing even if, for example, selling an old rosary wasn't strictly speaking considered simony.

 

But what of some other practices which became common?

 

What if you buy an item and the person who sells it to you has it blessed after the transaction "as a gift"? (Although it was understood all along they would take it to their priest for you after they sold it). Does this item lose it's blessing?

 

What about claims that it is "the reliquary" being sold and "not the relics" in the case of relics, and agnus deis? Sometimes the reliquaries ARE very expensive...at the same time, sometimes this seems like just a technicality. Is this very wrong? Does the agnus dei lose it's blessing? What if one is trying to "rescue" such items?

[DominusTecum]

 

What if you buy an item and the person who sells it to you has it blessed after the transaction "as a gift"? (Although it was understood all along they would take it to their priest for you after they sold it). Does this item lose it's blessing?

 

If the intention was for the item to be sold as blessed, and you paid money for the blessing that would be applied then it's simoniacal. Ie: John sells a St. Benedict medal on ebay, and Suzy the Pagan buys it, because she wants to use it in her rituals and John advertised that after he had a buyer, he'd take it to his priest for a blessing.

 

On the other hand, if you're paying money for the object (ie: an antique rosary) and then the person offers to take it to their priest and have it blessed, saving you the trouble, then it's of course not simoniacal, and the blessing is perfectly valid.

 

I believe that the blessing would be valid in both cases, provided it's understood that the blessing took place after the ownership of the item in question changed via the exchange of money. On the other hand, with the way sacramentals work, I'd think that the blessing on the first item might very well be cancelled by such practices, though you'd have to ask a priest, or perhaps someone else would know.

 

What about claims that it is "the reliquary" being sold and "not the relics" in the case of relics, and agnus deis? Sometimes the reliquaries ARE very expensive...at the same time, sometimes this seems like just a technicality. Is this very wrong? Does the agnus dei lose it's blessing? What if one is trying to "rescue" such items?

"Rescuing" these items is permissable, and may be objectively bad (you might contribute to creating a market for them) but isn't simony. I'd say with regard to the reliquary, it truly does all come down to intention. We assume that the buyer isn't guilty of simony, just trying to rescue the relic. On the other hand, if the seller truly says "I've got this thing that I got from that closed church, and I think it's a relic, so I'll sell the reliquary on ebay and whatever's in it is a free gift," that might be OK. On the other hand, if they're using it as an excuse to sell relics and make a fortune off the devotion people have for saints, the cross of Our Lord, an Agnus Dei, etc., then it's wrong.

 

Another note: some people might objectively be committing the sin of simony for one reason or another, but through ignorance they can't be held culpable. In our example above, for instance, the man who got the relic somehow when a local parish was closed may have no idea what it is, or if he does know what it is, he might still not know that it's not bad to sell relics. If he's lived his entire life in a protestant sect, all he might know is that he's got an interesting old wax disc. He might do some research and find out that it's called an "Agnus Dei," and has been blessed by the Pope, but in all likelihood he'd just think "oh, interesting, I should probably add that to my ebay description so people will pay more for it." Of course, that causes us to cringe, but he'll see nothing wrong with it: the only use of it for him is to sell it and get money, and money will be gotten by the papal connection, by the fact that it's in a really nice case, and by the fact that it's an old ecclesiastical curiousity.

[metal1633]

I'd say with regard to the reliquary, it truly does all come down to intention.

In the case of a reliquary...If it is sold for more that the material worth of the reliquary itself then it is simony. One cannot make a profit. Period. Intention is irrelevant. If one "Finds" a relic in an closed church and sells it then they are making a profit and are guilty.

[DominusTecum]

It might objectively be simony, but how does one judge the "value of a reliquary?" A reliquary is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay... if they pay a lot, it's worth a lot. Thus, the simplest way to do it is "by intention." Sure, a simple aluminum, steel, or brass theca isn't going to be worth much. Maybe $20 USD. On the other hand, if the reliquary's made of sterling silver, and is encrusted with precious or semi-precious stones, it's going to be worth a LOT more, nevermind the cost of the relic. Even if it's not particularly ornately decorated, but merely of a not-so-small size, that would make it worth a lot. How old is the reliquary? If it's 300 years old, then even if it's the size of my thumb it might still be potentially very valuable. Maybe a given reliquary is valuable to someone, even if it's of the $20 kind, because it is worn smooth on the back from being worn by a cleric? If well-worn rosaries and missals sell well, I don't see why a reliquary would be any different... maybe that cleric was somebody's beloved uncle?

 

You get the idea. It's very hard to establish a fixed and objective value for anything like that (not to mention nebulous things like "processing fees" that might be added to the cost of a reliquary if someone were to purchase it.) It's best to simply say "if the person has the intention to merely sell the pretty theca or reliquary, then it's not sinful, but if they have an intention, even if only secondary, to make money by selling the relic, then it's simony."

 

 

 

[batteddy]

"if the person has the intention to merely sell the pretty theca or reliquary, then it's not sinful, but if they have an intention, even if only secondary, to make money by selling the relic, then it's simony."

 

Okay, that makes sense for the seller.

 

But for the buyer, how do you differentiate between "wanting to rescue" the relic, and "wanting" the relic. To prove your intention as selfless must you, or should you, donate it to a church or religious order? What if you attend that church and want it to improve your enjoyment of the parish, or give it to the religious order you plan on joining? See what I mean?

 

What about items "blessed by the pope" that they sell? Clearly, they can sell the container or even just the raw material of the item itself. But can we really believe that people aren't attracted to that item because of its blessing, and want it particularly because of its blessing? What if they throw in "a free medal blessed by the pope with every order," and then you order something else just to get the medal? Would that item lose its blessing? Clearly they are not going to take the item to get blessed by the Pope AFTER the transaction, like they might be able to do with "blessings done as a favor to you after your purchase"...

 

Also, it seems that while selling relics may be sinful...the relics arent ruined forever by it. They can still be rehabilitated and used for sacred purposes because they are what they intrinsically are: the remains of saints. That fact doesnt change if they are sold. But since being blessed is just a canonical state, and an item loses its blessing if sold blessed...are those blessings gone forever? I don't really care if it is a rosary or something...I can get that re-blessed. But what about holy water from a particular shrine, something blessed by the pope, an agnus dei? Do they lose their status forever? For agnus deis especially, since they are no longer being made, this is serious because it would mean every day more and more agnus deis on ebay become just pieces of pretty wax, losing their most solemn of blessings through the act of sale...and so can never be rehabilitated unless a pope re-blessed them.  Only a few (usually the ones with the prettier containers) even try to claim they are selling the container and not the agnus itself. 

[DominusTecum]

Yeah, I know what you mean with the Agnus Deis. It's regrettable, but I don't think there's much that can be done about it. (And technically, the Agnus Dei blessing is so solemn that it's referred to as a "consecration," even though it's obviously not a consecration in the same vein as what happens at Mass. I'm not actually sure whether this "consecration" has the same "evaporate upon sale" conditions as a regular blessing -somebody else might know, though.) As for other blessed items, yes. Once a blessed item is sold, then the blessing is gone. It must be re-blessed. Holy water from a shrine is a different matter... if it's been specially blessed, that blessing might well be gone. On the other hand, most people who distribute such water don't try to profit by it, and aren't really "selling" it. They are distributing it and the money merely goes for logistics, like shipping it to the distributor, the bottle it's in, the label, etc. As such, I'd say such water would maintain its special efficacy, whatever that might be. (I'm not sure what the case would be with UNblessed water from a holy place... if you bought a bottle of water from Lourdes, for example... it wouldn't have a blessing to lose, but at the same time, there's hardly any supreme sacrifice of devotion being made to just pay a couple of bucks for "magic water," so...)

 

I agree, the lines become blurry, and sometimes for a buyer, it's hard to ascertain what, exactly, the seller's motives are. I think it's quite safe to say that a rosary being sold as "blessed by the Pope" is A) materially simoniacal, since they are using the blessing as a selling point, and B) effectively nonexistent, because the blessing would disappear when the item was sold.

 

As for the "free blessed medal with every order," I think it probably depends on the buyer's intentions and the sellers, as well. If the intention of the buyer is to buy a blessed object in virtue of the blessing, NOT in virtue of "this item has been touched by the Pope, then it'd probably lose the blessing, and I'd think it'd be simony too. If the seller was including these blessed medals simply because he wanted to use it as a moneymaker, and not out of a good desire to spread sacramentals to as many people as possible, then it'd be "selling blessed objects," even if not in name, and the blessing would disappear. I think it can be safely assumed that in most cases, any time such an offer is publicized, it's going to be "selling blessed objects." If the person truly didn't want the "free medal" to influence a person to buy, he'd not mention it, and simply include it in the package, perhaps with a note of explanation. (I've had Catholic ebay sellers give me holy cards in this manner.)

 

Re: Relics and desire... I'm not sure about this, but I'd think that assuming it was a legitimate Catholic intention, (ie: no "I want 50,000 relics to have more than my neighbor" type stuff,) intention on the part of the buyer wouldn't matter. It's not sinful to want to possess something owned, worn, or a fragment of a saint. The injunction about simony is mostly directed toward those who would make money off the piety of the faithful. You'd have to ask a priest about this, to be safe, though. I know a priest who collected thousands of relics from closed churches... his relic chapel was his "hobby," but yet I don't think one could say he sinned in any way, because he was acquiring these out of a genuine love of the saints in question, and not out of material considerations. There may be some very strict injunction about only exchanging money for relics if it's to save them from sacrilege, but that is still pretty open-ended, and if such an injunction exists, I'm not aware of it. It'd be a good question to ask a priest who would know about such things.

 

 

 

[Ziggamafu]

woah,woah,woah!!! Um, I had no idea that a sacred object / sacramental could lose its blessing! Pray tell, what are the exact teachings in regard to this issue???

Also, here are some particular circumstances re: my stuff:
1. I've had stuff blessed while it was still in its packaging. Legit?
2. I've had a rosary that was already previously blessed by the pope get mixed up with some other rosaries that got a group blessing. Did that "screw up" the previous blessing on the rosary that had already been blessed by the pope?
3. I puked on my scapular. I washed it in cold water to get it clean. Did getting vommit on the scapular kill the blessing or desecrate it or whatever?

[DominusTecum]

woah,woah,woah!!! Um, I had no idea that a sacred object / sacramental could lose its blessing! Pray tell, what are the exact teachings in regard to this issue???

Also, here are some particular circumstances re: my stuff:
1. I've had stuff blessed while it was still in its packaging. Legit?
2. I've had a rosary that was already previously blessed by the pope get mixed up with some other rosaries that got a group blessing. Did that "screw up" the previous blessing on the rosary that had already been blessed by the pope?
3. I puked on my scapular. I washed it in cold water to get it clean. Did getting vommit on the scapular kill the blessing or desecrate it or whatever?

The "exact" teachings are pretty simple, in that any object which has been blessed loses its blessing if it is given to another for a price (ie: selling.) Obviously, donations to cover the cost of a container, etc., are permissable, and don't affect the blessing.

 

1. Legit.

 

2. Your papally-blessed rosary is perfectly fine... having it touch another blessed rosary won't mess anything up.

 

3. Your scapular is fine. If it's clean and wearable, then all's good. (If scapulars are so dirty that they cannot be cleaned, or they fall apart, or whatever, then they should be disposed of by either being buried or burned.) When one gets a new scapular, one need not have it blessed, or be re-enrolled in it by a priest -it's all good, you can just put the new one on and go. If it's not a cloth scapular, but a medal scapular, it does need to be re-blessed if you get a new one. (Though that's really a non-issue as we don't really need/use scapular medals here in the states, or shouldn't, anyway.)

 

 

[batteddy]

2. I've had a rosary that was already previously blessed by the pope get mixed up with some other rosaries that got a group blessing. Did that "screw up" the previous blessing on the rosary that had already been blessed by the pope?

 

No. The new blessing was superfluous as it was already blessed, and the new blessing doesn't "supercede" the old blessing or anything.

 

But I think the important point is that, except with special blessings, something is either blessed or it isn't. Many people like the thought of something blessed by the Pope...but if he merely used a regular rosary blessing formula...his blessing is no more efficacious than any other priests. There is no difference between his blessing and someone elses except sentimentally. The rosary is blessed or not. It is a state it is in or not. The light is on or off.

 

(And technically, the Agnus Dei blessing is so solemn that it's referred to as a "consecration," even though it's obviously not a consecration in the same vein as what happens at Mass. I'm not actually sure whether this "consecration" has the same "evaporate upon sale" conditions as a regular blessing -somebody else might know, though.

 

I've thought that too. That the consecration may be different (ie, permanent) canonically...but I am not sure, and I am not sure the question was ever asked in the past, and thus not sure we will ever get an answer.

 

Holy water from a shrine is a different matter... if it's been specially blessed, that blessing might well be gone. On the other hand, most people who distribute such water don't try to profit by it, and aren't really "selling" it. They are distributing it and the money merely goes for logistics, like shipping it to the distributor, the bottle it's in, the label, etc. As such, I'd say such water would maintain its special efficacy, whatever that might be. (I'm not sure what the case would be with UNblessed water from a holy place... if you bought a bottle of water from Lourdes, for example... it wouldn't have a blessing to lose, but at the same time, there's hardly any supreme sacrifice of devotion being made to just pay a couple of bucks for "magic water," so...)

 

Yeah, that's sort of what I thought. The blessing may be gone (IF it ever was blessed) but maybe not because it is usually just payment for the bottle, shipping etc...and normally one would want this sort of thing sort of like a souvenir because of where it came from, and not so much because of any sort of blessing that could be lost (like devotion to Lourdes water).

 

 

But does anyone know if sale still makes something lose its blessing under the 1983 Code of Canon Law??