Here is a traditional way of categorizing relics:
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- First class relics consist of the bodies or parts of the bodies of saints or blesseds.
- Second class relics consist of clothing or other articles used by the saint or blesseds.
- Third class relics consist of objects touched to a first class relic (or, according to some accounts, also to a second class relic).
These categories are familiar to many Catholics in the English-speaking world, but (at the time of writing), Wikipedia says something interesting in its article on relics:
In 2017, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints abolished the relics of the third degree, introducing a two-stage scale of classification of relics: significant (insigni) and non-significant (non insigni) relics.
Is this true? Has the Vatican changed the way relics are categorized? And have third class relics been abolished?
The Three-Fold System
To answer this question, we need to ask about the history of the three-fold system of classification.
Despite considerable searching, I have been unable to locate any official Church document that uses the terms “first class,” “second class,” and “third class” for relics.
Neither do the terms appear in scholarly sources where you might expect it to appear. For example, the article on relics in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia does not use these terms. Similarly, the terms are not used in the 1970 encyclopedia Sacramentum Mundi.
What Church Documents Say
What do we find in official Church documents when relics are discussed?
According to the 1917 Code of Canon Law:
The important [Latin, insignes] relics of saints or blesseds are the body, head, arm, forearm, heart, tongue, hand, leg, or other part of the body that suffered in a martyr, provided it is intact and is not little (can. 1281 §2).
Here we have only a definition of important relics, but the implication would be that there also are less important ones.
The parallel canon in the 1983 Code of Canon Law (can. 1190) does not provide a definition of important relics, but it does refer to “relics of great significance,” implying that there also are relics of lesser significance.
The 1977 rite for the Dedication of a Church and an Altar discusses placing relics beneath a church’s altar and notes:
Such relics should be of size sufficient for them to be recognized as parts of human bodies.
Hence excessively small relics of one or more saints must not be placed beneath the altar (II:5a).
The requirement that relics should be “of sufficient size . . . to be recognized as parts of human bodies” also corresponds to the 1917 Code’s requirement that an important relic be “intact” and “not little.”
Another discussion is found in the Congregation for Divine Worship’s 2002 Directory for Popular Piety and the Liturgy, which states:
The term “relics of the saints” principally signifies the bodies—or notable parts of the bodies—of the saints who, as distinguished members of Christ’s mystical body and as temples of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 3, 16; 6, 19; 2 Cor 6, 16) in virtue of their heroic sanctity, now dwell in heaven, but who once lived on earth.
Objects which belonged to the saints, such as personal objects, clothes, and manuscripts are also considered relics, as are objects which have touched their bodies or tombs such as oils, cloths, and images (n. 236).
The Directory covers what the term relics “principally signifies”—i.e., “bodies—or notable parts of the bodies” of saints.
This largely corresponds to what the 1917 Code referred to as “important relics,” except that the latter named only eight body parts (head, arm, forearm, heart, tongue, hand, leg, or part that suffered in martyrdom).
The 2002 document extended this to any part of the body, provided it is “notable”—corresponding to the 1917 Code’s requirement, “provided [that] it is intact and is not little.”
The Directory also covers other things besides what the term “principally” means. It also includes things owned by the saints or touched to their bodies or tombs.
Evaluating the Three-Fold System
If you look at the discussion provided by the Directory for Popular Piety, it would be easy to read the first class/second class/third class system onto it:
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- First, the Directory mentions bodies and parts of them.
- Second, it mentions things that belonged to the saints.
- Third, it mentions objects touched to bodies.
However, there are some differences. One is that the Directory mentions “notable” parts of bodies—not very small ones—so the latter would not be within what the term relics “principally signifies.”
And second, the Directory refers to “objects which have touched their bodies” as relics. It does not discuss whether an object touched to just a part of the saint’s body is a relic. If you touch the object to the substantially intact body of the saint, it clearly would count, but if you just touched it to a saint’s finger (or something smaller), it might not.
Finally, the Directory also includes objects touch to the tombs of saints—not just their bodies—as relics.
Despite these differences, the three-fold classification system approximates what the Directory says, and it is a useful way of categorizing relics.
Yet it does not appear that the three-fold system is an official one. The fact that Church documents don’t use it and that it does not appear in various scholarly resources suggest that this is instead a popular system of categorization and that the terms “first class,” “second class,” and “third class” are non-official.
Each of the Church sources that we’ve looked at uses primarily a two-category system. Into the first category goes what the 1917 Code called “important relics,” what the 1977 rite of dedication considered relics suitable for putting under altars, and what the 2002 Directory said that the term relics “principally signifies.”
Into the second category goes everything else. By implication of the 1917 Code, this would include non-enumerated body parts or ones that are small or non-intact. By implication of the 1977 rite, it would include body parts that are too small to be recognized as parts of the human body. And according to the 2002 Directory, it would include non-notable body parts, objects that belonged to the saints, and objects touched to their bodies or tombs.
Introducing a Two-Stage System?
Now let’s look at what the Congregation for Divine Worship did recently. In 2017, it published an instruction titled Relics in the Church: Authenticity and Preservation. The introduction to this document states:
The body of the blesseds and of the saints or notable parts of the bodies themselves or the sum total of the ashes obtained by their cremation are traditionally considered significant relics [Italian, reliquie insigni]. . . .
Little fragments of the body of the blesseds and of the saints as well as objects that have come in direct contact with their person are considered non-significant relics [Italian, reliquie non insigni].
Here we see the same two-fold classification system we’ve seen in other Church documents: the important relics and everything else.
The English translation uses the term “significant,” but you’ll note that the Italian original uses the adjective insigni, which is a cognate of the Latin term insignes, which was used in the 1917 Code (quoted above). It also could be translated distinguished, eminent, great, or important.
But we’re talking about the same, two-fold classification system that Church documents have traditionally used.
Wikipedia is wrong in saying that the Congregation “introduce[ed] a two-stage scale of classification of relics.”
Abolishing Third Class Relics?
Did the Congregation abolish third class relics?
Clearly, it did not. Among the non-significant relics it included (1) “little fragments of the body” and (2) “objects that have come into direct contact with their person.”
The second of these two categories would include both what English-speakers commonly call second class relics (objects owned by the saints, since obviously they touched the things that belong to them) and third class relics (since the document does not say that the saint must have touched them during life).
Wikipedia is thus wrong (or at least its current article is). All the 2017 instruction did was repeat the same two-fold classification system that Church documents have traditionally employed, and it elaborated the same sub-categories that are evident from the 2002 Directory on Popular Piety.
The first class/second class/third class categorization is simply an unofficial system that overlaps with and approximates the official one.
Here is how the two systems compare:
| Item | Church System | Unoffical System |
| Body | Significant | First Class |
| Notable body part | Significant | First Class |
| Small body part | Non-significant | First Class |
| Object owned by saint | Non-significant | Second Class |
| Object touched directly to saint or tomb | Non-significant | Third Class |
