The two skulls of St. Thomas Aquinas

One of the purported skulls of St. Thomas Aquinas will be available for veneration in the U.S. this week, as noted by Anne in a previous post. The skull is normally housed in Toulouse, France, where the rest of St. Thomas's bones are also interred. 

But there is a second skull of St. Thomas in Priverno, Italy, that was displayed in a procession earlier this year on the 750th anniversary of his death..

Which is the real one? To answer that, here's some background: 

St. Thomas fell ill on the way to the ecumenical council of Lyon in 1274. According to some reports, he hit his head hard on a tree branch and grew progressively sicker after that. According to a less reliable report, the King of Naples poisoned him because he didn't want to suffer consequences if St. Thomas became his bishop. 

St. Thomas at last felt he must stop traveling and asked his companions to take him to the monastery in Priverno, where he died and was interred. 

He was canonized in 1323.

In 1369, his remains were translated, at the request of the monks in Toulouse and with the approval of Urban V, one of the Avignon popes, to their monastery. The remains came with a skull, and the French assumed that they had all the relics from Priverno. The skull was placed in a reliquary separate from the rest of the body at the monastery in Toulouse and was duly venerated by pilgrims.

In 1585, a skull was found in the altar at the monastery in Priverno with documents attesting that it was the true skull of St. Thomas Aquinas. Unable and likely unwilling to decide which skull was authentic, the Church allowed for the veneration of both. 

Efforts are now are underway to try to determine which skull goes with the bones interred at Toulouse. Here's an interesting story about the forensic examinations so far and what lies ahead to try to verify which skull is St. Thomas's.

I'm not an expert in this period of Church history, but the importance of saints' relics were vital to the prestige of churches and religious establishments from the beginning of European conversion on. Relics and the celebrations surrounding them attracted the pious and heathen alike. Relics were believed to have healing powers and miracles could strengthen the faith of believers and convert pagans. A church or monastery that could draw crowds through the power of its relics would also have attracted royal attention, and that meant wealth in the form of money, building improvements, and land. 

People being what they are at any point in human history, it's not surprising that trade in relics grew pretty cutthroat at times and that hoaxes were not uncommon. Everybody knew this went on. Chaucer satirized the fake relics trade in the Pardoner's Tale just 20 years after the monks at Toulouse received St. Thomas's relics.

If I had to put cash money on which skull is authentic, it would be on the Priverno skull. I can hardly imagine that the monks cheerfully relinquished the relics of a saint whom they had cared for in his last illness and whose relics they had safeguarded for nearly a century. It seems entirely plausible to me that they saved back the skull, continuing to venerate St. Thomas for nearly 300 years until the skull was found in the altar. 

But I would not be quick to condemn whichever skull turns out not to belong to St. Thomas as a "hoax." People have been venerating both for centuries, and I trust that those prayers have not have fallen on deaf ears in Heaven. 

Moreover, Jesus told the cured leper who returned to say thank you, "Go, your faith has made you whole." If faith is the essential part of any miracle, then the prayers that have been made and granted over the years have validated both relics of St. Thomas as authentic in a spiritual sense. I expect that both will continue to be venerated even when science determines which is the "real" one. 

And, P.S., determining the authenticity of St. Thomas's skull won't be the end of his relics story. There's also an arm bone in Naples ...