THERE are aspects of Catholicism that defy belief, among them the veneration of holy relics, weeping statues and apparitions, as well as much of the faux-theology about Mary put about by misogynistic male Churchmen horrified by the thought that the son of God might be born of an ordinary woman.

Not only was Mary deemed to be conceived without sin, her mother had to be a vessel of purity too. As ever with the Church, it’s really a hang-up about sex.

Although notions of the Immaculate Conception have been around since medieval times, it was only confirmed as dogma in 1854 by Pope Pius IX.

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Any of us who have held a new-born baby in our arms will know that the concept of ‘original sin’ is bunkum. Babies are not called ‘innocents’ for nothing. What happens to us after birth is another matter.

If you’ve lasted this long, you must be asking why have I set off on this subject.

There are more pressing things in the world to talk about: the decline and fall of the British monarchy; pay rises for MLAs; the likely defenestration of Keir Starmer after Thursday’s by-election; Trump and the Supreme Court, tariffs and Iran; and what Emma Little-Pengelly will wear to the White House on St Patrick’s Day – a shamrock-green frock and a curly Irish dancing wig?

You will have to travel to Italy to discover the prompt for my musings on Catholicism.

On Sunday, in the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi, the bones of this most individual of saints went on display.

It’s the first time this has happened in the 800 years since his death.

Not far away you can venerate the body of the Church’s first millennial saint, Carlo Acutis – canonised last year by Pope Leo XIV.

As you now know, I think there is something creepy, sordid even, about putting the remains of saints on show.

St Oliver Plunkett should be left to rest in peace, he suffered enough indignities in his life; why should St Catherine of Bologna be forced to sit upright in a chair for our edification?

Like Oliver Plunkett, St Catherine’s preserved head watches over the faithful in the Church of San Domenico in Sienna.

But Francis is my kind of saint, and this time around I think I am prepared to make an exception.

If ever an era needed a saint to guide us, it is this one.

And, on so many levels, Francis’s example fits the needs of our times, not least among them the enormous damage we are doing to our planet.

He preached to the birds and regarded animals on the earth and fish in the sea as our brothers and sisters. His Canticle of the Creatures is a hymn to Brother Sun and Sister Moon.

It was the inspiration for Pope Francis’s plea for action on the environment, Laudate Si; and, as I have written about recently, his praise for “Mother Earth, who sustains and rules us,” carries with it a warning that by neglecting her we are endangering our own species’ future. If that is not a pressing issue, I don’t know what is.

But Francis is more than a hippy saint who talked to animals. He also demonstrates that you don’t need material things to live a good and productive life.

Born into a rich family, he rejected his inheritance and embraced poverty. He lived and worked among the poor at time when the gulf between rich and poor was as big as it is now.

Unsurprisingly, in his own time he was viewed with suspicion by many in the Church, who saw in his ‘holy poverty’ an implicit criticism of the well-off hierarchy. They were right.

But he was fortunate enough to secure the support and protection of Pope Innocent III.

In 2013 he secured the support of another pope when Jorge Borgoglio became the first Bishop of Rome to take the name Francis.

His papacy was a provocation to the billionaires who have made fortunes off the backs of ordinary men and women; and it was a turning point in the Church’s approach to the environment and the effects of climate change. We must not lose sight of his message under the more restrained ministry of Leo XIV.

Almost half a million people have already booked time to pray before St Francis’s glass coffin over this next four weeks.

If each of them becomes an ambassador for environmental protection, and if it makes them think about their place in the world and how they can be a force for change, this somewhat ghoulish exercise will have done some good.

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