(Huff Post) WARSAW, Poland — A vial containing blood drawn from Pope John Paul II shortly before he died will be installed as a relic in a Polish church soon after his beatification later this year, an official said Monday.
Ed. comment
This might be more quaint and benign if we are NOT still recovering from Srarh Palin’s weird use of the term “blood libel.” Perhaps this rather illiterate luddite is unaware of how many Catholics SAW THE host as Jesus REAL BLOOD. 
Of course being Catholic is a very complex thing. Despite the protests of militant atheists, some pretty smart folks have converted to Roman Catholic. When Francis Collins, the current Director of the National Institutes of Health, became a Catholic, he explained that choice as being driven for a need for something spiritual. Many atheists, including myself, were (and are) worried about Dr. Collins’ judgement. The assurance that we all took was that the two worlds of Dr. Collions were separate, his beliefs in the cosmology of the Roman Catholic Church were seperate from his beliefs in scientific fact.
Paolo Uccello, The Miracle of the Desecrated Host, 1465-69, panel 2. A Jewish pawnbroker has bought a consecrated host from a venal priest and is frying (i.e. torturing) it in a pan. Transubstantiated blood from the host is dripping from the pan and seeping under the door.(image manipulated for web)
I assume Dr. Collins would not pray to the remains of JP II’s blood.Actually, I supect that the current Pope sees Sainthood more a a political event than an act of God.
Even so, it would be naive to argue that this relic is only a symbol of John Paul’s deeds. If that were really the case, I am sure the Church could have asked Dr. Collins to sequence the Pope’s blood so we could all wonder not only about the symbol of his blood but about the works of God through the ancestry thatg created a Saint. After all, if as the modcern church is to be credited for acceopting evolution as God’s way of doing things, isn’t it some sort of sin not to know what DNA gave rise to sainthood?
I am sure that someone reading this will think I am being sarcastic. That is not my intent. Truth is a major marketing tool. whether you are promoting Democracy or selling laundry detergent. The ultimate claim of Christianity in particular is to have a special truth that can lead believers to salvation. Relics are objects used to sell that truth somewhat the way a scientist might use fossils. Churches and sects, however, fight wars over over these relics not because of symbolic power but because of the belief that the relic has very real power.
Undoubtedly the vial of polish papal blood will eventually cure someone’s cancer. I wonder though, in the spirit of Dr. Collins, whether a more powerful gesture might be to publish the saint’s genome?
For that matter, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Pope turned out to be Jewish?