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Many religions have relics, symbols and faith based practices which often defy science. For centuries which pious Catholics venerated the Shroud of Turin believed to be the cloth in which Jesus Christ's body was wrapped after the crucifixion until 1988 when scientists established conclusively that it was a 14th century fake.
In the 1970s when the Catholic shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Kudugama, in Sri Lanka achieved much fame under leadership of Father Camillus Jayaratne as a healing and exorcism center, one of its main attractions was the practice called 'thorn blessing'. As described by anthropologist R.L.Stirrat in his book POWER AND RELIGIOSITY IN POST COLONIAL SETTING SINHALA CATHOLICS IN CONTEMPORARY SRI LANKA (1992), in terms of this practice, people were blessed by Father Jayamanne using a thorn which was claimed to be a relic from Christ's Crown of Thorns, brought to Sri Lanka by an Italian priest named Yakonis. People who flocked to the Shrine in the 1970 and 1980accepted the throne as a genuine article with enormous healing power even though archeologically or historically, its authenticity has never been established. But despite what science may have to say, these kinds of relics are nevertheless vested with enormous social and cultural value within the religious communities where they are located. In such contexts, ruled by beliefs, faith and long established traditions, the narrow confines of science, as we underhand them today, have no role to play.
In such situations, the questions we have to ask are very simple:
Are there any clear benefits that can be repeat by exploding people's faith or beliefs based on particular practices or veneration of objects vested with symbolic and religious value ?
If we dismantle such well-established structures of belief what do we offer in their place?
Have we seriously thought about the socio-political as well as psychological consequences of such dismantling?
Is the final aim of these activities to dismantle religion and faith system in general and usher in a new era of scientific rationality or merely insult selected religious practices for whatever reasons?
It is the light of these questions that we need to look at the present controversy and by extension, at the whole phenomenon of attempting to 'rationalize' religion of faith
In symbolic and structural terms, it is very much similar to the Catholic practice of holy communion where wine and bread symbolizes the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ and consuming these items establishes a connection between the believers and the author of Christianity.
When scientists established the Shroud of Turin could not date from the time of Jesus Christ, the immediate impact was that tourist arrivals in Turin dwindled. Fortunately for Catholicism, the Shroud of Turin (which was never authenticated by the Church) was not a defining characteristic of Catholic identity.
(ICRA)