By Josh Noem '98, '05M.Div.

Why are the bones of a little girl from second-century Rome resting in a church in northern Indiana?

The remains of St. Severa, which are contained in lead boxes below this wax model of her body, are the focal point of the reliquary chapel in Notre Dame’s campus church, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. A side chapel behind the main altar holds display cases containing more than 1,600 relics from nearly 800 different saints. Among these relics are fragments of St. Joseph’s robe and pieces of Mary’s hair, as well as chips from the column where St. Paul was beheaded and the cross upon which St. Peter hung upside-down.

The word “relic” comes from the Latin word for “remains” and refers to an object connected with a saint, such as a part of their body or clothing, or an item that they used. Relics might be connected with saints or with holy men and women in the process of becoming saints.

There are three classes of relics: first degree relics are parts of the saint’s body; second degree relics are parts of clothing or an item used by the saint during life; and third degree relics are composed of something that was touched directly to a first degree relic.

Most relics in the Basilica are very tiny pieces of cloth or bone. Many in the reliquary chapel are inside a locket-type medallion, covered with glass, about the size of a quarter.

The Church teaches that only the Trinitarian God is worshipped and adored. We honor and venerate the saints, and we respect their relics as an extension of their existence. All Christians recognize Jesus as the source of divine grace, so Catholics do not look to relics as having any special powers in and of themselves.

Of course we can’t be 100% certain that all of the relics in the reliquary chapel are accurate. For some saints, the relics are much more reliable—we have relics from St. Andre Bessette, for example, because he was in the same Holy Cross community as the brothers who founded Notre Dame. Relics from St. Stephen, though, might be more questionable because they came from the first century, but who knows?

There are two sides to the story. On one hand, relics from ancient Christianity (from the life of Jesus or Mary or the first disciples) could very well be unreliable, given the time and distance between us and those events. The practice of venerating relics grew with the Church, so early on it is possible that some items were fake or were mishandled. As relics became more valuable to the life of the Church, a black market arose through which relics were traded and sold—it is possible that some items were forged.

On the other hand, relics are our connection to important moments and figures of our faith, and they would have been important to Christians of different ages as well. It is not a stretch to consider that early Christians would have tended the remains of saints with great care. Church authorities would not have been careless in how they handled them and passed them on. We have many reports, for example, of missionaries being sent to America with relics so that they could share tangible connections to our faith in the churches and monasteries that they founded.

We err on the side of sharing the stories of our relics on FaithND because they are displayed in the Basilica. Even if we don’t have 100% certainty that every relic in the chapel is authentic, that does not diminish their effectiveness. The collection of relics remind us that real people with real bodies sought lives of faithfulness—relics ignite our imaginations and connect us in a physical way to a vast community of faith that spans space and time. (For a longer reflection on the role of relics in our lives of faith, read this article.)

An office in the Vatican, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, verifies and preserves relics. By current Church law, relics may not be sold or traded, and can only be transferred with permission from this office. Any relics on display for public veneration must be accompanied by official documents, called authentica, that identify what the relic is (bone, cloth, teeth, etc.), and the name and location of the person who donated the relic. Authentica for the relics in the reliquary chapel are housed in the office of the sacristan for the Basilica. 

Saints are a gift to us from God. They are examples to us of how to embody virtue in large and small moments of life; they are also our constant companions in prayer. FaithND offers details of the lives of saints because they remind us of our own calling to become holy by imitating Christ in our own time and place. This is the same reasoning that inspired Notre Dame’s founder, Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., to collect relics of saints for veneration in the Basilica. “The relics of the saints are more precious than silver and gold,” he once said. 



From the beginning, the church on campus was intended to have a special place to house the honored remains of the saints. The reliquary chapel was consecrated along with other side chapels and the Lady Chapel in the Basilica in 1888. Most of the relics were collected by Father Sorin, or offered as gifts by visiting bishops. Father Sorin made frequent trips to Rome, and may have acquired some there as well.

Relics remind us that men and women who lived lives of holiness in all times and places were real people with flesh and blood—that salvation history unfolded concretely in a tangible place and a specific time. Included in the reliquary, for example, are relics from each of the 12 apostles, a piece of the manger that held the infant Jesus in Bethlehem, and a fragment from the table where Jesus gathered with the disciples for the Last Supper. The chapel also holds a splinter from the True Cross that is used in Good Friday liturgies.

These relics remind us that we share with saints the same call to holiness and the same eternal destiny of union with God in heaven, and they tell us that this calling and this destiny is within our reach if we seek to conform our lives to Christ as they did.

Anyone can visit the reliquary chapel when the Basilica is open and not being used for liturgy—it is located behind the main altar on the right side of the church next to the Lady Chapel in the rear. The reliquary chapel contains a directory on a stand that lists the names of every saint with a relic on display, along with a map of where to find it.

To learn more about the authentication and cataloging of relics, read this article from Notre Dame Magazine. Take a virtual tour of the Basilica’s reliquary chapel here.