Need Help On Incorruptibility of Saints

  • Thread starter Thread starter JamalChristophr
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JamalChristophr

Guest
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.
 
Thanks Clare, I will see if it’s on Kindle.

I was, however, hoping for the Cliff Notes version. 😃

…and it is on Kindle…but I wonder if the book has pics…and if the kindle version also does…hmmmm.:confused:
 
Embalming and the like were not practiced in Christendom until the mid 1800s.

So if somebody were found incorrupt, that would a priori be a contra-natural occurrence.

ICXC NIKA
 
DaddyGirl said:
There have been many bodies found all around the world that have not decomposed or been “corrupted”, it is not only religion or saint-related.

It can happen accidentally because of the soil or earth in some areas, which will naturally “mummify” a body even tho there had been no embalming done at all.
(There are many corpses that were buried in the 1800’s in Mexico that when exhumed, were all found intact. They are on display in a museum there).

There is the Tollund Man, a 2,000-year-old prehistoric man who was hanged in Denmark and his body was discovered in 1950 after being dumped in a bog of peat. 2000 years later, his hair and beard were still intact.

And for some bodies not in a naturally “balming” environment that we know of, it may just take longer for whatever reason.
The body of Bernadette, as you mention, has been given a wax covering on her face and hands to try and keep them intact, but underneath her skin is brown and her body is decomposing.

I don’t know if someone from a scientific background will tell you a non-decomposed body is a “miracle”. They will most likely say there is indeed scientific reason for some of them. And for others, we may just not know yet.

But the fact that non-saints can be “incorruptible” as well shows us that this can happen to anybody’s body.

.
Click to expand...
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.

ICXC NIKA.
 
JamalChristophr said:
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!!
Click to expand...
Was Catherine of Siena claimed to be an incorrupt?

It does not surprise me that dismembering the body, as was done to her and many others for relic purposes, would prevent full incorruption.

ICXC NIKA
 
Yes, Catherine is an incorruptible. I wonder which saint is least corrupt? Padre Pio? I suppose I had better read up.

Maybe searching CAF, I’ll find my Cliff Notes yet…
 
lol…too funny I was just looking at that page, Clare.

Have you seen the incorruptibles, Clare? (or anyone else)

On this page, it says Catherine Laboure’s eyes, 56 years later, were just as blue as the day she died.
 
JamalChristophr said:
lol…too funny I was just looking at that page, Clare.

Have you seen the incorruptibles, Clare? (or anyone else)

On this page, it says Catherine Laboure’s eyes, 56 years later, were just as blue as the day she died.
Click to expand...
I have the book.
 
I would like to go seem of them in person, God willing. But maybe I’ll just start with the book.
 
Say “hi” to Pare Pio for me then. He’s a good friend of mine.
And also my namesake if you get to Assisi
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top