There’s high excitement amongst Catholic Sydneysiders this week, as a mouldy old Italian cawpse comes to town:
The body of [inspirational Catholic] Pier Giorgio Frassati … has been transported from the Turin Cathedral to Sydney following a farewell mass. Mr Frassati was only 24 when, after a one-week illness, he died of polio.
On Wednesday at 12pm (AEST) his body will be transported to St Benedict’s Church in Chippendale in inner Sydney where it will remain in the church for veneration until July 10. The following Thursday his body will be moved to St Mary’s Cathedral for a pilgrimage. The coffin will remain on display in the cathedral until July 22.
The transportation of his remains was organised by Sydney Archbishop George Pell and World Youth Day co-ordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher in conjunction with the Vatican Council for the Causes of Saints.
Frassati died in 1925 and was beatified in 1990, but you can’t hold old Frassa down: his corpse is embarking on an antipodean holiday more than 80 years after he turned up his toes and started to putrefy.
Not since the most recent tour by the Rolling Stones (who, let’s face it, aren’t in much better condition) have Sydney’s Catholics been whipped into such a frenzy. Dem Frassati bones will be doing gigs in Sydney churches, book now at Ticketek. The visit will coincide with that other more animated bag-of-bones, Joe Ratzinger, formerly of the Hitler Yoof.
Frassati’s visit recalls memories of the High Middle Ages, when stupid pious Catholics trudged tirelessly around Europe trying to catch a glimpse of Saint Peter’s foreskin, Mary’s breastmilk or one of Christ’s arse-hairs left clinging to the true cross. Fortunately today we live in a more enlightened and scientific age, so stupid pious Catholics will now be able to catch public transport.
Criticisms of Frassati’s tour have been dismissed by Catholics, who suggest that cultist pilgrimages to the cadavers of long-dead saints are perfectly normal. It is unknown whether Sydney authorities will inspect Frassati’s remains for a silver tongue.
GrodsThink Ep.29 (26/8/08)
Saturday 28 June 2008, 3:06 am #THR
So it’s Weekend at Pier’s?
I’ve heard the Lenin ‘corpse’ is a fake, incidentally. They don’t allow anybody to take pictures normally.
Nonetheless, it is a tradition of the far left to go down this morbid path. Lenin, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh. According to Piers Akerman on The Insiders, Obama, Julia Gillard and the entire cast of Grodscorp are currently getting quotes from the former-USSR’s most exclusive taxidermists.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 3:36 am #Bridgit Gread
There are pics of Lenin having a nice formaldehyde bath here. If any of the male Grodscorpers get the Lenin treatment, I demand they receive a vanity towel over the pickled onions, just like Vlad had.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 3:41 am #THR
I believe they are developing a vanity fleshlight, precisely for this cause…
Saturday 28 June 2008, 7:28 am #EC
The last line of the article is a crack -
“It is the first time the body of Mr Frassati has visited Australia.”
I immediately began imagining globe-trotting Catholic corpse-zombies racking up frequent flyer points.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 8:06 am #Jack Dorf
I’ll be praying to St Isodore of Saville that AQIS were allowed to carry out the necessary biological import tests on these items before they entered the country.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 9:54 am #Jeremy
“There’s high excitement amongst Catholic Sydneysiders this week, as a mouldy old Italian cawpse comes to town:”
I wasn’t sure when the Pope was coming - when I read that I thought you were saying this was it.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 11:46 am #weez
$86 million out of NSW taxpayers’ pockets for this gory debacle. Kid you not.
I bet you could get Flying Spaghetti Monsterism convention happening for a lot cheaper. More pirates, too.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 12:07 pm #Bridgit Gread
“It is the first time the body of Mr Frassati has visited Australia.”
They’ll be organising Contiki tours for them before long.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 1:26 pm #Wah
Isn’t that corpsist?
Saturday 28 June 2008, 1:49 pm #Antrew Boltgenous
What is it with the Left and mockery of the veneration of beatified travelling northern Italian mortal remains?
Saturday 28 June 2008, 1:54 pm #Bridgit Gread
If they were southern Italian remains, I’d have no problem.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 9:41 pm #alister
Jeremy notes,
No, that would be if the post wrote, “There’s high excitement amongst Catholic Sydneysiders this week, as a mouldy old German cawpse comes to town.”
Saturday 28 June 2008, 10:52 pm #Bron
Just don’t mention the War.
Sunday 29 June 2008, 1:00 am #Ray Dixon
Having just watched some of the Nelson Mandela 90th birthday concert in London, I’d rather they bring the dead Italian out here on tour than Annie Lennox. At least he doesn’t pretend he can sing with African choirs.
Sunday 29 June 2008, 2:57 am #Montague "Pitty-Pat" Smythe-JeJones
It all sounds very similar to Howard’s recent tour of America.
Sunday 29 June 2008, 8:28 pm #Mikey
Apparently they are also selling indulgences for this one.
Why is the tax payer shelling out 100 million for this? I mean it’s church and fucking state for fuck’s sake.
Monday 30 June 2008, 11:50 am #Bridgit Gread
Where did you read that, Mikey?
Monday 30 June 2008, 12:26 pm #Mikey
Various SMH articles had 16 million from Fed and 85 million from state for it. The SMH saturday paper mentioned the indulgences.
Monday 30 June 2008, 12:39 pm #Bridgit Gread
Bastards. Millions to import one wrinkly German and one very wrinkly corpse. I wonder how much government support I could get if I organised a World Atheists’ Day here in Melbourne.
Monday 30 June 2008, 1:07 pm #John Surname
I heard that the price was as high as $130 million, which is ludicrous, especially when you consider that the Catholic church is the world’s richest church. For shame, Government.
Tuesday 1 July 2008, 5:14 pm #JT
You don’t know how morbid the Catholic Church’s veneration of the remains of long dead people that they deem as saints actually is until you visit the Golden Chamber in the Church of St. Ursula (she of the 11,000 virgins) in Cologne. The shelves on the lower walls in the vault were filled with skulls, some wearing velvet caps. But if that wasn’t morbid enough, on the upper walls, human bones of all sort - femurs, pelvises, ribs etc. - were arranged in all these patterns, such as swirls and criss-crosses, and some of the bones were arranged to make Latin words including the name of the saint.
And it’s only one euro admission!!!
Tuesday 1 July 2008, 10:16 pm #John Surname
Bargain.