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By Will Bredderman
Brooklyn Daily
The borough of churches welcomed a Portuguese saint this December — 782 years after his death.
The faithful visited the relics of Saint Anthony of Padua — a rib and a layer of his cheek — at two Brooklyn churches this month, as the sacred remains completed an international tour.
The flesh and bone of the Lisbon-born monk — one of the first Franciscans — came to Bensonhurst’s Most Precious Blood Church on Dec. 7 and Dyker Heights’ Basilica Regina Pacis on Dec. 15, along with a metal bust of the saint and an image of Pope Francis, who may have drawn inspiration from the 13th-century figure.
Experts point out that the newly elected Holy Father led a procession bearing the relics through Buenos Aires in 2000, as Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio. On ascending to the papacy in March 2013, Bergoglio became the first Pope to take the name of the founder of the order to which Saint Anthony belonged — a sign of his dedication to the charitable principles of the Franciscan order.
“The Pope was deeply inspired by both Saint Anthony and Saint Francis’s love, care and concern for the poor and marginalized,” said Tom Muscatello, spokesman for the Franciscan Friars of the Anthonian Association of New York, which helped bring the relics to Brooklyn.
The rib and cheek also visited the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2013, as well as California, Chicago, and Milwaukee — celebrating the 750th anniversary of the opening of the saint’s tomb. Forty-two years after Anthony died in 1231, Catholic officials exhumed his body, which was customary with canonized saints. They discovered his tongue had yet to decompose — a sign of divine intervention in Catholic tradition. Theologians view the preservation of Saint Anthony’s tongue as God’s recognition of his gift for preaching.
The notion of venerating the remains of a man dead for seven centuries might seem off-putting to non-Catholics, but Church authorities argue that the practice brings people closer to the holy men they revere.
“There is nothing superstitious about relics. The real meaning of a relic is love — they are a link of love between the person who venerates and the saint,” said Father Mario Conte, a Padua-based friar who travelled with the saint’s remains.