Protestants and The Incorruptibles

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I was wondering if there have ever been any Protestant’ Incorruptibles? For those of you who don’t know what an Incorruptible is its a Saint who’s body has not decomposed and had no methods of preservation. If there haven’t been any then do you believe in this or do you reject as a trick? (Orthodox are also invited to answer about their Saints) If there are than how did they live and what did they do?
 
The question that always springs to mind when I hear about this sort of thing is just, well, why?

Why would it matter? Why would God do such a thing? What purpose does it serve beyond generating a kind of “wow factor”? What is it evidence of, and why?

I mean, I know (or I think I know) what the RCC believes it means and what they say it’s for but I have never understood how they come to the conclusions they do about it.

It is also perhaps significant that a good number of happy, devout Catholics feel the same way I do. It doesn’t mean I’m right but it may mean that there is something to my skepticism.
 
james_dillaplai said:
I was wondering if there have ever been any Protestant’ Incorruptibles? For those of you who don’t know what an Incorruptible is its a Saint who’s body has not decomposed and had no methods of preservation. If there haven’t been any then do you believe in this or do you reject as a trick? (Orthodox are also invited to answer about their Saints) If there are than how did they live and what did they do?
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None of the reformers were incorruptibles. However, I do know that one of Luther’s pastrami sandwiches reportedly is still in existence in a local winery in Erfurt.
 
TriuneUnity said:
None of the reformers were incorruptibles. However, I do know that one of Luther’s pastrami sandwiches reportedly is still in existence in a local winery in Erfurt.
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That is a half-truth. The rye bread was recently shown to have been replaced in the 19th century. It was a good attempt, but it was a hoax none the less.
 
Steadfast said:
The question that always springs to mind when I hear about this sort of thing is just, well, why?

Why would it matter? Why would God do such a thing? What purpose does it serve beyond generating a kind of “wow factor”? What is it evidence of, and why?

I mean, I know (or I think I know) what the RCC believes it means and what they say it’s for but I have never understood how they come to the conclusions they do about it.

It is also perhaps significant that a good number of happy, devout Catholics feel the same way I do. It doesn’t mean I’m right but it may mean that there is something to my skepticism.
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I honestly couldn’t answer you but maybe someone else on here could.
 
Steadfast said:
The question that always springs to mind when I hear about this sort of thing is just, well, why?

Why would it matter? Why would God do such a thing? What purpose does it serve beyond generating a kind of “wow factor”? What is it evidence of, and why?

I mean, I know (or I think I know) what the RCC believes it means and what they say it’s for but I have never understood how they come to the conclusions they do about it.

It is also perhaps significant that a good number of happy, devout Catholics feel the same way I do. It doesn’t mean I’m right but it may mean that there is something to my skepticism.
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In some ways, i agree. It is kinda cool, but still. Someone told me that it ties to Paul’s teaching that decay of the body is a result of sin, and when we are made new in Christ our bodies may lose the decay factor.
 
ralphinal said:
In some ways, i agree. It is kinda cool, but still. Someone told me that it ties to Paul’s teaching that decay of the body is a result of sin, and when we are made new in Christ our bodies may lose the decay factor.
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I am satisfied with waiting for the resurrection of the dead on that one.

Although…do you guys have the belief that the eucharist affects us physically, as in improving health? We do.
 
TriuneUnity said:
I am satisfied with waiting for the resurrection of the dead on that one.

Although…do you guys have the belief that the eucharist affects us physically, as in improving health? We do.
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Sort of. I know some saints have discussed it, and it is a part of last rights to receive viaticum, but I am not sure if it is spelled out dogmatically. Paul does say that some of the illnesses of the Church is from people receiving unworthily. I guess that is more proof that it is symbolic.
 
A few years ago, I watched a very fair-handed documentary on incorruptibles. It was not overtly skeptical/anti-Catholic as many of those documentaries are. It was based upon an officially sanctioned Vatican study, and most of the people they interviewed were the members of the study, believing Catholics.

Here’s the thing:
  1. Most people don’t go digging up dead bodies. Catholics do it to those considered for sainthood. While there have been some pretty remarkable incorruptibles (They say that St. Teresa Margaret Redi of the Sacred Heart still grows hair and fingernails) or particular preservations (St. Anthony’s tongue), most “incorruptibles” are your basic mummies. It’s very likely that many bodies around the world are “incorruptible,” but they don’t dig 'em up.
  2. Many of the “incorruptibles” were martyrs and ancient saints who died in caves or were buried in catacombs. The natural conditiosn of those areas, they explained, cold and sterile, led to natural preservation. When the bodies were exhumed for relics, people said, “Oh, look! They’re incorrupt!”
  3. Most of the other incorruptibles, the study found, had been embalmed. Now, here’s the tricky part: you get someone who’s poor, in an era when few, if any, were embalmed, being embalmed. Decades, or centuries later, when that person is beatified, they exhume the body and say, “oh! Look! An incorruptible!” Remember also that this is mostly a popular reaction.
Veneration of relics comes from the passage in Revelation about the martyrs being under the altar.

The Church supports veneration of relics, but she has never really given a statement on incorruptibles (just as St. Pio is the only person officially recognized by the Church as having had stigmata; the Church does not even officially recognize the stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi).

So, what really happened is that the people, and the church leaders, took the effort to have people embalmed if they expected them to be potential saints, just as religious orders today will preserve the “second class relics” of members they expect to have a potential of canonization.

They get embalmed, and preserve better than their contemporaries, and get dug up. When the body is dug up, the church officials realize it’s because of embalming, but the public immediately yells “Incorruptible!” (We saw this happen when they exhumed Bl. John XXIII).

All that said, there are some incorruptibles that the commission could not explain.

However, the final analysis was that the phenomena of “incorruptibles” is not so much supernatural intervention to identify saints as the intervention of the hierarchy and laity of the individual’s time to mark out someone they believed to be saintly.
 
Steadfast said:
The question that always springs to mind when I hear about this sort of thing is just, well, why?

Why would it matter? Why would God do such a thing? What purpose does it serve beyond generating a kind of “wow factor”? What is it evidence of, and why?

I mean, I know (or I think I know) what the RCC believes it means and what they say it’s for but I have never understood how they come to the conclusions they do about it.

It is also perhaps significant that a good number of happy, devout Catholics feel the same way I do. It doesn’t mean I’m right but it may mean that there is something to my skepticism.
Click to expand...
I believe God utilizes the incorruptibles as a means to reach those that need tangible signs for the evidence of God’s existence. The incorruptibles reach us on a very primordial level. When Chirst became man he attained for matter a state which it had never before achieved. He came down to our level and brought us the ability to become adopted sons and daughters of God. We are made both of physical and metaphysical substance, but since we cannot see the latter portion of our personhood God continues to use matter to bring us closer to Him. Which is one of the reasons why the Eucharist is such an awesome example of God’s love for us and how it reaches us at the very core of our existence as mankind. However, the Eucharist is not accepted universally any more and so God continues to reach out to us through things like the incorruptibles.
 
ralphinal said:
Sort of. I know some saints have discussed it, and it is a part of last rights to receive viaticum, but I am not sure if it is spelled out dogmatically. Paul does say that some of the illnesses of the Church is from people receiving unworthily. I guess that is more proof that it is symbolic.
Click to expand...
Haha! Every time I pass by a billboard of Budweiser I get slightly inebriated, yeah…that’s the ticket.
 
james_dillaplai said:
I was wondering if there have ever been any Protestant’ Incorruptibles? For those of you who don’t know what an Incorruptible is its a Saint who’s body has not decomposed and had no methods of preservation. If there haven’t been any then do you believe in this or do you reject as a trick? (Orthodox are also invited to answer about their Saints) If there are than how did they live and what did they do?
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Are you aware there are Buddhist incorruptibles?
 
(Orthodox are also invited to answer about their Saints)

**It happens. St. John of San Francisco’s body is incorrupt, but in itself incorruptiblity means nothing.

Righteousness of life is the principal criterion.**
 
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