St. Padre Pio

The places which were blessed by the presence of the Stigmata are still intact. That is wonderful! God uses His servant even after the servant's glorification!

It also shuts up those critics claiming that he burned his hands and feet with acid to produce the stigmata... had he done that, they could not have disappeared. Praise the Lord!

Its interesting that St Bernadette, according to the books I've read, was not completely incorrupt, either. Her nose, for example, had collapsed, and some of the tissue in her legs had crumbled away. She is actually an example of something as strange as being incorrupt: a body mummified while interred in damp conditions.

Her rosary was rusted & her clothing was damp, mideweed and some of her skin had patches of mildew, but her body had mummified and was without odor. Her internal organs also did not decay or crumble, which is also quite odd in such damp conditions. (That beautiful face that we see in repose in photos is also wax, but much of it a light coating. Because her skin had darkened after exposure to air after she was exhumed the first time, her eyes had sunken in and her nose collapsed, it was thought that her corpse made for 'unpleasant' viewing. In close ups you can see some wax around her eyebrows..)

http://www.catholicpilgrims.com/lourdes/bb_bernadette_body.htm More info on the Saint's body here. Much of the information at this site is taken from the book "St Bernadette Soubirous" by Francois Trochu.

Thank you Shana.

Too weird. Bury the bodies.

I don't think a simple wax mask can stop tissues decay, especially the internal organs (which usually be the first to corrupt).

So, if there's no other preservative chemical other than wax mask, I'd say we have another incorrupt saint.

As far as I am aware the word 'incorrupt' refers to the medical condition of the internal organs; not what we civilians would think of as being incorrupt i.e. still looking life-like.

I agree with Mack that the bodies should be buried and not exhibited and used as tourist attractions.

Begging your pardon Sharon, but the display of bodies is not for tourist attraction (even if there is plenty of that as a consequence), but for veneration of saints and relics. Dave Armstrong has a recent dialog on the practice in general here: http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2008/06/dialogue-with-baptist-pastor-on-relics.html

There is a tradition of exposing incorrupt bodies for veneration, but exposing decaying bodies is simply macabre. Bury the bodies.

"There is a tradition of exposing incorrupt bodies for veneration, but exposing decaying bodies is simply macabre. Bury the bodies."

But first, whack off the incorrupt parts! :)

Seriously, folks, you really are recapitulating the reasoning for cutting off incorrupt saintly body parts. Either be grossed out by that, or grossed out by the whole body on display with the corrupt parts covered by wax, but make a decision on which one.

"Ignore and bury the mighty miracles the Lord has worked in his servants' bodies, already partially glorified" has not traditionally been seen as an option.

Sorta ungrateful, that would be. Like the servant who buried the money instead of investing it.

I suppose there is room for discussion on what to do with partially uncorrupted saints, but I'd need some assurance that this isn't really a roundabout attack on veneration of relics in general. "There is a tradition of..." always reads like, "Yeah, we have an Aunt Mildred, but she's crazy and we keep her locked in the attic."

Padre Pio was indeed embalmed with the usual formalin-based embalming fluids that many people currently have when they die. Hence, the preservation of most of his body is not entirely unusual 40 years after the fact. His stigmata actually disappeared before his death, and when his hands were inspected at the time of his death, there were no scars seen, fulfilling what he had been told by our Lord, that he would bear the marks for 50 years. He received them on September 20, 1918, and died on September 23, 1968.

I recently returned from a pilgrimage in Italy, and had an opportunity to see both his remains on display for veneration in San Giovanni Rotondo, and those of St. Zita in Lucca, a 13th century saint. Her body, though dried, and discolored, is remarkably intact considering she died nearly 800 years ago with absolutely no signs anywhere of any attempts at bodily preservation, including a recent church-requested inspection by scientists. It remains similar to how it was found when it was exhumed some 300 years after her death. This was a woman whose life was difficult, and whose body was riddled with tuberculosis.

(on the outside looking in) Forgive me, but I thought incorruption of the body was one mark of potential sainthood.
I do agree there's a Yuck! factor in displaying a body, or moreso body parts, but I can see the idea of venetration of a holy person. Still, if the body is really decaying it is not going to be pleasant to look at, no matter how holy the person was.

Well, bones are just as good as any other relics, of course. They're partially glorified, too -- just in a different way. So yeah, usually if they open up the tomb and St. Somebody is mouldering, they just put him back for a hundred years or something, until the mouldering is done with.

But with saints that show any kind of incorruption, it usually is the mind of the Church to show that off; and it's perfectly natural to show off embalmed saints' bodies or wax statues of them on top of their tombs, for that matter. Heck, we have viewings of the body after death, even for ordinary Christians with ordinary levels of sanctity, or great villains who apparently died unrepentant. So it's not surprising that Italians who are devotees of Padre Pio were eager to see him.

Mack and Sharron,
If I may suggest the following article:

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1993/9306fea1.asp

It may help.

Dean

Love the Greek captcha joke!

If ever in Louisville, visit St. Martin of Tours on Shelby St. There are two third-century Roman martyrs, skeletons, dressed up and laid out in glass cases for viewing, right in the church. I think the church was given these bodies of these saints in the late 19th/early 20th century, from Italy; and I was pondering what might have made that happen. Perhaps the threat of desecration by Garibaldi's marauding nationalists? Anyhoo, it's awesome!!!

This church also seems to be the repository of all the discarded statues from the "Spirit of Vatican Too." Awesome.

Regardless of our rot or not, you know we're going to be resurrected in the body on the last day, right?

Me, I won't be incorrupt. I rot while living (three cancers so far) and want to be cremated. Incorrupt cremains would be a neat trick!

My wife and I watched a secular documentary on incorruptibles several years ago that was fairly objective, not too much in the skeptic camp, and based primarily on what the Vatican itself says.

Most "incorruptibles" fall into one of two categories:

1. When they died, enough people felt they were potentially saints to go to the trouble of embalming them during eras when embalming was unusual . When, as with Padre Pio and Bl. John XXIII, the bodies were dug up, the public said, "WOW! Incorrupt! Amazing!"

2. Certain natural conditions lend to natural embalming. So a lot of saints who were buried in catacombs, or in caves, or similar structures, ended up being naturally "embalmed" by the circumstances.

In both cases, it boils down to the fact that we don't normally dig up people's bodies decades or centuries after they've died.

The real importance in the bodies is their use as relics.

Here is an interesting article on St Pio's devotion to St. Gemma Galgani:
http://stgemmagalgani.blogspot.com/2008/09/st-padre-pios-devotion-to-st-gemma.html