From a reader…
Quaeritur:
My family has accumulated over many years lots of religious items, many of them now broken i.e. rosary’s, statues, loose medals.
We’ve never really thrown them out because we’ve been unsure as to whether you can throw out religious items, especially if they may have previously been blessed. What’s the best thing to do? There’s quite possibly boxloads…
One of the simplest solutions could be to bury them. Once upon a time, before synthetic fabrics and plastics, vestments and wooden and otherwise combustible objects could be safely burned and the ashes them buried in the earth.
I can think of a lot of vestments and other objects which ought to be burned, but beware of polyester: melts before it burns. And the fumes are nasty.
It could be that where you are there are local laws about burning things outdoors, and you may have drought conditions.
Another solution which could be a little more complicated to achieve could be to contact those in charge of construction of a new church and have your items incorporated somehow in the foundation. I heard of cases of this when people were trying to figure out how to dispose of obsolete liturgical books after the current English translation came into force.
I am glad that you have a sense that the sacrality of blessed objects is to be respected. Blessed objects should not be simply cast onto the rubbish heap.
