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London, England, Jun 19, 2018 / 03:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A relic discovered last year by a U.K. waste management company found a home Tuesday in London’s Westminster Cathedral.

“Choosing an appropriate resting place was very important to us,” said Enviro Waste Owner James Rubin in a statement on the company’s website. “Therefore, we think Westminster Cathedral is the best and safest place for the bone due to its importance to the church and to ensure that it won’t get lost again!”

Rubin presented the relic to Archbishop George Stack of Cardiff at the cathedral’s Lady Chapel June 19. Archbishop Stack is chair of the English and Welsh bishops’ patrimony committee.

The relic will be displayed in the Treasures of Westminster Cathedral Exhibition.

The bone fragment is encased in a wax-sealed case and includes an inscription that it is “from the bones of St. Clement, Pope and Martyr.”

St. Clement was a first-century Christian thought to have been a disciple of Sts. Peter and Paul.

It is believed that St. Clement converted from Judaism to Catholicism, and may have shared in some of the missionary journeys of St. Peter or St. Paul, and assisted them in running the Church at the local level.

Around the year 90, he was raised to the position of Pope, following Peter, Linus, and Cletus. His writings reveal much about the early Church, but little about his own life.

According to one account, he died in exile during the reign of the Emperor Trajan, who purportedly banished Clement to Crimea and had him killed in retaliation for evangelizing the local people, around the year 100. He is among the saints mentioned in the Roman Canon.

In 868, the Greek missionary St. Cyril claimed to have recovered St. Clement’s bones.

Enviro Waste conducted public research before deciding what to do with the relic. They posted about it on their website blog in April, requesting input from viewers.

“650+ suggestions and over 9,000 visits to the page” later, the updated post said, they decided that the Westminster Cathedral in London should have it.

The relic’s owner has said it was stolen from his car when it was broken into, and agreed to loan it permanently to Westminster Cathedral.

Vice Chair of the patrimony committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales Sophie Andreae was the one who reached out to Enviro Waste, requesting the relic’s placement be in the cathedral.

She explained to the BBC why relics are important to Catholics.

“Catholics feel that they have not just a link with a very holy person from the past, but also a link with the divine,” Andreae said.

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Pope Francis delivers the Sunday Angelus from the window of his study overlooking St. Peter’s Square, Jan. 28, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Feb 26, 2024 / 06:09 am (CNA).

The Holy See Press Office on Monday announced that Pope Francis’s audiences for the day had been suspended as a precautionary measure due to the Holy Father’s persisting flu symptoms. 

The Monday morning telegram sent out by the Vatican noted that while the pope’s “mild flu symptoms persist,” he did not have a fever. The Holy See Press Office did not provide further details on the pope’s condition, nor hint at whether he would continue with his activities for the week. 

On Saturday the 87-year-old pontiff had canceled his meeting with the transitional deacons of the Diocese of Rome, who will be ordained to the priesthood in April, due to  “a mild flu-like condition.”

However on Sunday the pope appeared in good form when he delivered his weekly Angelus address to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square from the window of the Apostolic Palace as scheduled. 

Last November the pope was forced to cancel his public appearances due to similarly “mild” flu symptoms. He was later admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Isola Hospital to undergo precautionary testing for pulmonary complications, which came back negative. 

In December the pope canceled his trip to Dubai for the COP28 climate conference, at the request of his doctors, due to a bronchial infection.

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