By Mark Pattison
Posted: 11/10/2006

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A California group is advocating a boycott of eBay unless the online auction house enforces its own rules against selling body parts to prohibit the sale of saints' relics.

"They've had opportunities to stop the sales, and they don't even enforce their own regulations," said Tom Serafin, founder and president of the International Crusade for Holy Relics.

According to Serafin, even a "cursory search" of the popular site will turn up dozens of relics "often purporting to be the bones of saints" for sale.

Catherine England, an eBay spokeswoman, told the Florida Catholic, newspaper for six Florida dioceses, Nov. 6 that the auction site is aware of the organized boycott and that officials from eBay have had conversations with representatives from the International Crusade for Holy Relics in the past, but not recently and so were surprised at the boycott call.

England said eBay does enforce its policies against selling certain human body parts such as bones and organs, but that other items that are legal to buy and sell in the United States are allowed to be sold on the site.

Serafin said he had tried over the years to convince eBay through its former general counsel and customer service representatives that relic auctions should be taken down from the auctioneer's pages but to no avail.

"In the beginning, I thought it would be easy" to get such auctions stopped, he told CNS in a Nov. 2 telephone interview from Anaheim, Calif. "When (online book and merchandise retailer) Amazon.com did it, we contacted Amazon and they didn't do it anymore. How they did it, I don't know."

Serafin said he had a team of as many as six people search eBay's pages for evidence of relic auctions and alert the company. "We send it in. Hours later they send a response: 'We'll look into it,'" he told CNS.

Even if eBay were to stop an auction, he added, "the sellers are savvy. They say 'Visit my store,' or 'Here's my e-mail address,'" giving buyers a way to contact them directly.

He said, "I'd be happy to participate in a review that would qualify whether a relic could be posted. But in proportion to the number of things sold daily, I don't know if it would even be worthwhile." EBay says it sells millions of items each day around the world.

According to Serafin, relics are offered "every day, 24 hours a day." His group is no longer pursuing the halt of individual sales: "Right now we've stopped trying to do it. You throw your hands up in the air and say, 'My God, it's so big.'"

Some items connected to saints that are listed on eBay are contained in reliquaries. Serafin said if reliquaries are offered for sale, eBay should require them to be empty.

Serafin said his group also contacted prospective sellers, with reactions ranging from "Oh, I didn't know" to "You don't run my life" and "I'm not bound by canon law."

Some relics are fraudulent -- Serafin said he once saw an offer that included "a feather from the Holy Spirit" -- but for verifiable relics there are "people who rescue them and bring them back to the church."

How the relics got into the hands of private dealers is uncertain. "If I were the pastor of a church and had 150 relics stolen, I wouldn't mention it out of shame," Serafin said. "However they get 'em is not my problem. What I'm saying is don't give them a marketplace."

On eBay's own site, it says: "Humans, the human body or any human body parts are not permitted on eBay. Items that contain human hair -- such as lockets -- as well as skulls and skeletons that are used for medical purposes may be listed on eBay. EBay does not permit the sale of Native American skulls, bones or other Native American grave-related items, as the sale of such items may violate federal law. Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including: listing cancellation; limits on account privileges; account suspension; forfeit of eBay fees on canceled listings; (and) loss of 'PowerSeller' status."

England told the Florida Catholic, "For the most part, first-class relics would not be permitted" on the site and said eBay has a process in which users are encouraged to report violations of the rules.

First-class relics come from the body of a person declared blessed or a saint. Second-class relics are articles used by a beatified or canonized person, and third-class relics are items touched by first-class relics.

"There is a link to report this on every item. We do have a team dedicated to trust and safety of the items in our marketplace," she said, but she added that on average at any given moment there are 105 million items for sale on eBay, with 6 million new items posted daily.

England said eBay makes an exception to its prohibition against body parts for human hair. Although she said she was not aware of all the reasons for it, she said it might be because sometimes personal lockets include locks of hair.

The Web auctioneer bans other items on its site, Serafin said, including drug paraphernalia, child pornography and automatic weapons.

"There must be a way to stop it (relic auction) before it gets there" on the site, he said. "That man in Podunk, Pa., would not have a worldwide trading platform if it were not for eBay."

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Contributing to this story was Christopher Gunty in Orlando, Fla.

Now if this were any other group, I betcha the offending items would have been banned post-haste.

As we all know, PayPal is the payment method over at the church of satan website, so no one really expects any change, just more weasel words.