Incorruptible Saints - How do you discover their bodies are incorruptible?

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Practically speaking, how do you discover that a saint’s body is incorruptible?

Take Carlo Acutis for example. I assume he was never buried. How did they know not to bury him? Did coroners notice his body hadn’t decomposed like normal after his death and they decided to keep him out? Or… Did they bury him, later exhume him, and discover he was incorrupt? I read recently that John Paul II’s body is in a casket but it hasn’t been opened so it’s unknown if his body is incorrupt.

What about random saints? Like if my grandma (who is already buried) became a beatified or canonized saint, would they exhume her body for the sake of seeing if it were incorrupt?
 
Hello @Kschwartz6!

The body of Ven. Carlo Acutis wasn’t incorruptible. According to a spokeswoman “It was present but not incorrupt”. It undergoes the process of decay just like the other body. Ven. Carlo’s body was buried in Assisi and exhumed on Thursday. His body could have been covered by wax or silicone.

I’m not sure if that is a part of the Canonization process but we use to do exhumation to check if they were incorruptible and to gather their relics for public veneration. Some saints were incorruptible but after the exhumation, the body began to decompose or to turn to black. Some saints wear wax and silicone masks just like St. Bernadette and Padre Pio even they were incorruptible. I guess, the Church would gather data before declaring that a body was really incorruptible.
 
Without being to glib. You dig them up. Now the practice of entombment makes this easier.
 
Nowadays the body is exhumed and a medical examination is done to see if it has decayed. As someone said, Acutis’ body, though it looked well preserved, had started to decay, so he wasn’t incorrupt.
EugeneCharles said:
I’m not sure if that is a part of the Canonization process but we use to do exhumation to check if they were incorruptible and to gather their relics for public veneration.
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The Church still does this. It is a step in the canonization process.
 
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