Religion: Devotions by the Dozen

A salesman carrying his sample case arrived at the gift shop of a Roman Catholic shrine and demonstrated “the hottest item this year”: a picture of Jesus in a small plastic frame. By slightly moving the picture, the salesman explained, the bearded face of Jesus could be transformed into the beardless face of Our Lady. When the manager of the shop ordered some small plastic statues instead, the salesman wrote in his book: “6 dozen Him, 6 dozen Her.”

In the national Catholic weekly, America, the shop’s manager, who uses the pen name .Margaret Montgomery, tells of this and scores of similar incidents she experienced in a “profession . . . where the sublime and the ridiculous dwell together in an absurd, often unholy . . . union.” Among her examples:

¶ Christmas cards (many showing Jesus “with tumbling curls and simpering smile”), which are peddled to the trade in three categories: “religious,”‘ “deeply religious” and “profoundly religious.”

¶ The “new. handy ‘rosary-counter,’ [which] has a small dial with all fifteen mysteries. A moving needle points, compass-like, to each bead (or number, in this case) as you click the handy little red plastic button. So you’re interrupted. Look! The needle stays loyally on the elusive bead. Not a mystery is allowed to slip through your fingers anymore.”

¶ A $100 medal of a veiled woman, praying, with a race horse and jockey “immortalized” below. The inscription reads: “Saint Anita, make me a winner.”

¶ Luminous Sacred Hearts that glow in the dark. “So comforting for the sick.” says the manufacturer’s circular. “Hot traffic builder—always in demand.”

Reports Author Montgomery: “Many other shops like my own . . . take in $50,000 a year and more . . . They should, to serve the religious orders and the charities to which the money goes . . . But degradation of the symbols of our faith due to bad display and irreverent merchandise is too high a price … It is not necessary to use such means.”