“Our mission is simple: to bring the saints closer to you, wherever you are.” With a broad smile, Anthony Di Mauro, a young man living in Spokane, Washington, is particularly enthusiastic. On the occasion of the Feast of the Veneration of Holy Relics, he launched an interactive map of relics.
This is just part of his initiative called “The Relic Project.” The goal? To find and catalog the thousands of relics scattered around the world, to make them better known and to strengthen the devotion of the faithful to the great saints who have marked history. It’s an ambitious project, which the young man carries out with humility and dedication.
Addressing an international need
He calls on faithful from around the world to help fill out his database to make the map as comprehensive as possible. These are his “relic hunters.” He told Northwest Catholic that he currently has them in the U.S., Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, and Philippines, but hopes to get more volunteers involved.
His adventure began with a personal experience nearly five years ago: “After encountering a hidden relic in my home parish, something in me awakened,” he told the National Catholic Register (NCR). “I began searching for more throughout my diocese, only to realize how many sacred treasures were hidden or undocumented.”
DiMauro told Northwest Catholic, “It started as a Spokane Diocese Relic Project, and then quickly evolved into The Relic Project, because it is an international problem,” Di Mauro said. “We have all these relics out in the world, we just don’t know where they are.”
“The Church needs a comprehensive database of relics, so we can truly know who we have, where they are and how the faithful can benefit from these treasures in their midst,” he told NCR.
Relics of life
This database was created inspired by the work of one of the project’s patron saints, St. Carlo Acutis, on Eucharistic miracles. A missionary endeavor, it aims to make Catholicism known to as many people as possible “through documentation, authentication, and the sharing of sacred relics.”
In practical terms, this interactive map, which currently lists 600 relics, allows users to explore relics by saint, place, or category by clicking on a specific location on the map. On their website, the project's founders explain what a relic is and how its authenticity is verified.
His titanic project is primarily driven by a spiritual need, which the young man considers to be disappearing. “We aspire to enable the Church, as a whole, to grow in wisdom and piety through the Saints and thus grow in our adoration of God.” For him, relics are “a living reminder that heaven is closer than we think.” “These small fragments — bones, cloth, a piece of a saint's habit — [are] not relics of death, but of life.”
Breathing new life into an ancient practice
The problem, he believes, is that “many relics around the world are hidden or misunderstood.” "Some have no records, some sit in storage, and others risk being lost entirely. The Church has given us this sacred tradition for 2,000 years, yet we’re in danger of losing track of it."
Indeed, between the dispersal of thousands of small fragments around the world and the falsification and resale of these objects in centuries past, the Church currently has no way of knowing exactly how many relics exist and where they’re located.
The veneration of relics is a very ancient practice. Initially limited to Christ, the instruments of his Passion, and the first martyrs, it quickly spread to all those who were credited with miracles. Today, the faithful travel in large numbers to venerate them. “The saints aren’t distant figures of the past. They are companions on our journey of faith,” says Anthony Di Mauro enthusiastically. “This is more than a project. It’s a movement!”
