Pope Francis and many people attending the canonisation Mass in St Peter's Square were alive when St Paul VI and St Oscar Romero were alive, but the new saints' relics and those of five other people canonised on October 14 were still present at the Mass as reminders that the saints were flesh-and-blood people who lived holy lives.
The very formal relics, present in reliquaries with a red-wax seal, were set at the feet of a statue of Mary during the Mass. Most were what the Church traditionally described as "first-class" relics: a piece of the actual physical remains of the saint, often bone fragments.
