We could always repurpose the Roman Dies Sanguinis (or, Day of Blood), the day on which the novice priests of the goddess Cybele (the Mother of the Gods), castrated themselves. Here's a copy of the post that I made about the holiday a couple of years ago:
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In the ancient Mediterranean world, March 24 was celebrated as the Dies sanguinis, or Day of Blood. Some theologians believe that the holiday is the precursor/origin of the Christian holiday of Good Friday.
Dies sanguinis was the festival day on which worshipers and priests of the goddess Cybele, the Mother of the Gods, slashed themselves and bled to sprinkle pine boughs and the Mothers statue with their blood. This was also the day on which young men castrated themselves to become priests to the goddess, to become Galli.
The day following Dies sanguinis was the celebration of Hilaria, the Day of Joy (also known as Hilaria Matris Deûm). This was a celebration of the day of resurrection of Attis, the consort of the Mother of the Gods. It was a day for the celebration of fertility and the return of springtime to the world.
The site for the largest ceremony in Rome for Dies sanguinis was later taken over by Christians to erect the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter at the heart of the Vatican. The testicles of those castrated in honor of the Mother of the Gods were ritually interred at a site that was later covered by the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest church in Rome dedicated to the Mother of God.
The faith in the Mother of the Gods was the most powerful rival to early Christianity in the empire. It has been argued by scholars of early Christianity (see especially Susan Elliott in the Bibliography (
http://www.eunuch.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=17583) on the Non-Fiction Board) that Pauls Epistle to the Galatians was written largely in reaction to the prevalence of the faith of the Mother of the Gods in Galatia. Its attempt to dissuade Christians from circumcision is seen as a way to distance Christians from the Galli who were castrated as an article of their faith. (Roman law equated castration and circumcision as, apparently, did many early Christians and castration was practiced by many of the early Christian faithful, some of whom thought that all true Christian males should be castrated.)
FOOTNOTE:
Cardinal Bernard Law, who presided over the Boston Archdiocese for nearly 20 years while he ignored repeated pleas from the mothers and aunts of abused children, coddled offending priests, and demanded silence from victims until after the number of cases exceeded 500 he was forced in 2002 to resign his post, was then reassigned as archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
http://forums.eunuch.org/showthread.php ... y-of-Blood