Title XVI: Of the Worship of the Saints, Sacred Images, and Relics

It is good and useful to invoke suppliantly the Servants of God reigning together with Christ and to venerate their relics and images; but before the others let all the faithful pursue the Most Blessed Virgin Mary with filial devotion.

§ 1. It is lawful to venerate with public worship only those Servants of God who by the authority of the Church have been numbered among the Saints or Blesseds.

§ 2. To those canonically enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints the worship of dulia is owed; Saints can be honored everywhere and by any act of this kind of worship; but Blesseds cannot, except in the place and manner which the Roman Pontiff will have granted.

Laudably also, with the things to be observed observed, Saints of nations, dioceses, provinces, confraternities, religious families, and other places and moral persons are chosen and, with the confirmation of the Apostolic See acceding, are constituted Patrons; not likewise Blesseds, without a peculiar indult of the same Apostolic See.

§ 1. It is lawful for no one in churches, even exempt ones, or in other sacred places to place, or to take care that there be placed, any unusual image, unless it has been approved by the local Ordinary.

§ 2. Moreover, the Ordinary is not to approve sacred images to be exposed publicly for the veneration of the faithful which do not agree with the approved usage of the Church.

§ 3. Let the Ordinary never allow in churches or other sacred places images of false dogma to be exhibited, or images which do not bear before themselves due decency and propriety, or which furnish to the unlearned an occasion of dangerous error.

§ 4. If images exposed to public veneration are solemnly blessed, this blessing is reserved to the Ordinary, who nevertheless can commit it to any priest.

Precious images, that is, those outstanding by antiquity, art, or worship, exposed in churches or public oratories for the veneration of the faithful, if at any time they need repair, are never to be restored without the consent of the Ordinary given in writing; before granting permission, he is to consult prudent and expert men.

§ 1. Notable relics or precious images, and likewise other relics or images which are honored in some church by great veneration of the people, cannot validly be alienated or perpetually transferred into another church without the permission of the Apostolic See.

§ 2. Notable relics of Saints or Blesseds are the body, head, arm, forearm, heart, tongue, hand, leg, or that part of the body in which the martyr suffered, provided that it is whole and not small.

§ 1. Notable relics of Saints or Blesseds cannot be reserved in private buildings or oratories without the express permission of the local Ordinary.

§ 2. Relics not notable can be kept with due honor even in private homes and piously carried by the faithful.

§ 1. Only those relics can be honored with public worship in churches, although exempt ones, whose genuineness is established by an authentic document of some Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, or of the local Ordinary, or of another ecclesiastical man to whom the faculty of authenticating has been granted by apostolic indult.

§ 2. The Vicar General cannot, without a special mandate, declare relics authentic.

Local Ordinaries are prudently to remove from the worship of the faithful a relic which they know certainly not to be authentic.

§ 1. Sacred relics whose documents of authenticity have perished because of civil disturbances or because of any other case are not to be exposed to public veneration unless a judgment of the local Ordinary precedes, but not of the Vicar General without a special mandate.

§ 2. Ancient relics, however, are to be retained in that veneration in which they have been up to now, unless in some peculiar case it is established by certain arguments that they are false or supposititious.

Local Ordinaries are not to allow, especially in sacred sermons, books, newspapers, or commentaries destined for fostering piety, questions concerning the authenticity of sacred relics to be stirred up from mere conjectures, from merely probable arguments, or from prejudiced opinions, especially in words savoring of mockery or contempt.

§ 1. Relics, when they are exposed, must be enclosed and sealed in cases or capsules.

§ 2. Relics of the Most Holy Cross are never to be exhibited for public veneration in the same case with relics of Saints, but are to have their own separate case.

§ 3. Relics of Blesseds, without a peculiar indult, are not to be carried around in processions, nor exposed in churches, except where their office and Mass are celebrated by concession of the Apostolic See.

Relics of the Most Holy Cross which a Bishop perhaps bears in a pectoral cross pass, upon his death, to the cathedral church, to be transmitted to the successor Bishop; and if the deceased had presided over several dioceses, they pass to the cathedral church of the diocese in whose territory he passed his last day, or, if he died outside the diocese, to that from which he last departed.

§ 1. It is forbidden as sacrilegious to sell sacred relics; and therefore local Ordinaries, vicars forane, pastors, and others having care of souls are carefully to beware lest sacred relics, especially of the Most Holy Cross, especially on the occasion of inheritances or the alienation of a mass of goods, be sold, or pass into the hands of non-Catholics.

§ 2. Rectors of churches and the others to whom it pertains are carefully to watch lest sacred relics be profaned in any way, or perish through human negligence, or be kept less decently.