Why DNA is a red herring

Your correspondent M H Wise (St Thomas DNA Test Needed, Letters and Opinion, Kentish Gazette, June 9) wrote that it would be interesting to compare DNA from the Hungarian and Canterbury relics of St Thomas.

Such a comparison would only prove a) that the samples were from the same body or b) that they were from two different bodies.

Whether either body was that of St Thomas would remain unknown.

As with Richard III in Leicester four years ago, living descendants would need to be identified in order to provide a benchmark sample to determine whether St Thomas’s DNA is present in either relic.

DNA is something of a red herring. We are dealing with faith. I realise that for many who cannot accept the Christian religion, faith is a stumbling block.

The post-enlightenment attitudes which are all around us have all but relegated

religion and faith to the long grass. The Hungarians came on pilgrimage to Canterbury because of their faith as did the medieval pilgrims to Canterbury.

There was also an ecumenical dimension to their journey, helping to build bridges with the Anglican church after the disastrous consequences of the Reformation.

We at St Michael’s Church, Harbledown, were very privileged to have the relic on our altar with a full church of Roman Catholics who joined in a short act of devotion led by our own parish priest before the procession started out to the cathedral.

This was real ecumenism for which we thank God. Peter Osborne Mulberry Court, Stour Street, Canterbury