St. Veronica Didn’t Exist--RCC Displays Her Hanky Anyway

Okay. It isn’t actually a hanky, it’s a veil. The Veronica who didn’t exist is the one in the Roman Catholic Church-sponsored legend who wiped the sweat from Jesus’ brow with her veil as he toiled along the streets of Jerusalem carrying his cross to Calvary. The veil was said to have retained the image of Jesus’ face and Veronica later cured emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD) from something unspecified with a touch of the veil. The legend says Veronica left the veil in the keeping of Clement I (fourth Pope-88-97) and it’s been in the Vatican’s vault ever since. There is no mention of Veronica in the Bible. She is a figment of the RCC’s fertile imagination. However, the legend is commemorated in the RCC Stations of the Cross. She was made a Saint. And her veil is kept in a vault in the Vatican where it’s trotted out once a year for pilgrims to view and venerate. The non-existent Veronica’s feast day is July 12. Now here’s where the story gets really bizarre. The veil of a woman who never was, disappeared from the Vatican in 1608. No problem. The ever-creative RCC substituted a fake veil for the fake real veil of a fake saint so as not to disappoint the faithful. But the fake real veil of this non-existent woman has recently reappeared. Since the razzmatazz about The Shroud of Turin caused no end of agida to religious historians, the story of the reappearance of Veronica’s veil is getting the hairy eyeball. And now we’re hearing that the veil is real and that the legend of Veronica (the name means “true image”) was invented to explain the existence of the veil. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Well…that surely explains everything except the RCC’s wildass lies invented to bamboozle the gullible faithful. As they say in Latin: Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. One more thing. There is another Saint Veronica. She is Saint Veronica of Binasco who died in 1494. Her feast day is January 13.