But that’s not wholly true of Catholicism in which corpses are quite often on show. The embalmed bodies of saints are sometimes on show at the base of altars in parts of Italy and can be viewed through a glass front; in other cases, it’s their waxwork effigy. The body of the teenage Londoner, Carlo Acutis, who is to be canonised soon, is on show in a church in Assisi, looking as fresh as a daisy, and it gave some of the English visitors I was with quite a disagreeable turn to see it. One of them took a detour round the church so as to avoid the spectacle.
