The Bones of Saint Stephen, Now on eBay
Sales of Religious Relics Draw Protest
By Brian Murphy
Associated Press
Friday, November 24, 2006

Hardly an hour goes by without Thomas Serafin or one of his cyber-sleuths checking what eBay has to offer.

They're not hunting for bargains, and they never place a bid. Their interest is bone shards, bits of wizened flesh and a contemporary twist on the sacred and the profane: How the ancient trade in the most coveted religious relics has moved into the global flea market of online bidding.

"You can find bone fragments supposedly from Saint Augustine being hawked on the Internet along with trinkets and antiques. There is something very wrong here," said Serafin, a professional photographer and Catholic activist based in Los Angeles. Since the late 1990s, Serafin has led an expanding campaign to block the online sale of objects purported to contain the remains of Christian saints. the rest