Perhaps it is my simple-mindedness, but it seems to me that some saints should really be 100% incorruptible, but I suppose that idea is silly from a biological point of view. Can someone with good scientific background explain to me why the incorruptibility of certain saints truly is a miracle? How do we know that they were not injected with chemicals or they are not just mummified by some natural process? Is it a true miracle that defies natural explanation? Why??
Take two of my favorite saints…Bernadette and Catherine of Siena, for example… Catherine’s head is far from completely incorrupt and Bernadette was given a was covering on her face, so the skeptic in me finds difficulty in this idea of incorrptibility. Help!!
read the book “The Incorruptibles” by Joan Carroll Cruz.
It’s the best book on the subject.
The church does not mess with people bodies in any way.
Padre Pio was interred normally…loads of witnesses, and when he was found to be incorruptible. No way to fake it.
The wax covering is mostly due to protecting the fragile skin from the soot of the many candles that are often lit. St. Clare is almost completely black from the centuries of candle soot.
The Mexican bodies referred to are the mummies of Guanajuato. The soil of that region dries out the bodies, in only a few years. If the families do not pay rental on the graves, the dried-out bodies will be exhumed and placed on display.
This is not comparable to incorruption, however. It happens generally to human bodies buried there, and because 70% of a human body’s volume is water, the natural drying leaves only skin, bones, and clothing. Whereas, saintly incorruption occurs in situations where bodies do not normally preserve, and the bodies almost look alive.
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