Decomposing bodies smell like vanilla. While it is not clear how much and after what time, it is quite clear how full of shit the catholic church is. All kinds of it, including mummy remains kind of shit. BBC link

The story is about Joan of Arc's remains, which in fact turned out to be pieces of a human and cat mummies, perhaps Egyptian. It's sad how much hypocrisy this story keep reveling throughout the centuries. Joan was burned as a witch, for fun of the crowd. It shows just how much the church was ready to use its claimed connection with god for purely political reasons and not a tad more. These days, churches claim they have bigger, ehmm, stronger, ehmm better family values and what not. Yes, that and a connection with god.

Joan was canonized whopping half a thousand years later, made into a saint by the same church that burned her for witchcraft. Not only did they not give a shit for burning people alive just to get rid of them, they did not give a shit to admit to doing that. They went even further. They burned her for fun and profit, and they canonized her just because the chick went so well with the crowd. Somebody really wants to be popular, huh?

To give more grounds to the canonization, some crap was presented a century ago to be her unrotten remains. These are then declared sacred and people think somehow being associated with these will help them heal, which is your textbook example of neurosis. I just wish it turned out to be a mummy's dick in that jar.

The sad part of it all? It took more then half a millennium for this turn. And nobody will make a connection with today's most popular schizophrenics.