Transcription
There are over a hundred documented cases of Catholic saints whose bodies were miraculously preserved without human intervention under conditions that should have caused them to decompose completely. But of all these cases, only a few have been examined by trained physicians who deemed their preservation truly miraculous beyond a shadow of a doubt.
One of the most famous medically verified incorrupt saints is Teresa of Avila. She was a 16th-century Spanish nun who had profound mystical experiences. She died in 1582 while visiting a convent, and I didn't even know this was a thing, but apparently, she was so holy that her body frequently exuded a delightful fragrance that the church calls the odor of sanctity. And it was so powerful on the day that she died that the door and windows of her cell had to be kept open. The nuns of this convent knew that they had witnessed the death of a saint. So they deliberately buried her body under a heap of stone, brick, and chalk to prevent anyone from taking it away.
But here's where it gets truly miraculous because the powerful aroma of her holiness, this odor of sanctity, kept seeping up through the rubble heaped on top of her tomb. And it was so powerful that after 9 months, the nuns of the convent dug up her coffin to see what was inside. The lid of the coffin had been smashed under the weight, and damp soil had poured inside. It was half-rotted and full of mildew, and Teresa's clothes had fallen to pieces. But her body was as fresh and whole as if it had only been buried the day before. When they washed the earth away, the holy fragrance spread through the entire house and lasted for days. And 3 years later, her body was still perfectly preserved. The physicians who formally examined it stated that it was impossible to explain naturally, truly miraculous. Noting that after 3 years without embalming, nothing was wanting to it in any way.
But they found something else they didn't expect. Now, in Teresa's autobiography, she described a mystical experience she had where a small, beautiful angel appeared to her with a long, golden spear tipped with fire. He plunged it into her heart, and when he withdrew it, she felt completely on fire with divine love. Well, after the discovery of her incorrupt body, Teresa's heart was removed and separately enshrined. But nearly 300 years later, several physicians from the University of Salamanca examined it. And they found a wound. Not from the removal, not from any of the exhumations, a separate perforation that didn't match any surgical procedure, but matched exactly the description of the angel who pierced her heart in the vision. Teresa of Ávila's heart is still preserved, and it still bears that wound. It can be seen today in a crystal reliquary at the Carmelite convent in Alba de Tormes, Spain. And though her body has withered since it was first discovered, it was just exhumed again in 2024, and found to be still miraculously preserved.
Now, before we talk about this next saint, we have to understand exactly what incorruptibility means. Obviously, Teresa of Ávila's remains do not look like a fresh dead body, despite the fact that they were found that way years after her death. In fact, of all the saints on this list, only one appears at first glance to be as fresh as the day he died. But there's actually something else going on with this one. Incorruptibility doesn't mean that a saint's body remains in perfect condition forever, but there are a few criteria required for a saint to be considered incorrupt. First, the body must retain lifelike flexibility when discovered, not the rigid dryness of a mummified corpse. It must show natural color and freshness, not brown leathery skin, though it may later dry out and appear that way. There must be a complete absence of putrefactive odor, the smell of decay. And it must be initially preserved without any deliberate human intervention.
Now, all the saints on this list met all four of those criteria and were verified by trained physicians. It's also important to note that the Vatican rarely accepts incorruptibility as a canonical miracle, something that bears weight in a case for someone being named a saint. But there is one notable exception to that rule, and that is Saint Andrew Bobola. The Vatican accepted his incorruptibility as one of the miracles in the case for his beatification because of all the incorrupt saints, his preservation is the most impossible to explain. Unlike the others, he didn't die an ordinary death. He was tortured, mutilated, and buried under the worst conditions imaginable. And 40 years later, his body was found as fresh as the day he died.
Saint Andrew Bobola was a Catholic priest in the 17th century in a region torn between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church and between Poland and Russia. During his lifetime, converting people wasn't just a religious matter. It was political. And it made enemies. That's ultimately why he was martyred. And centuries later, when the same land fell under Soviet rule, it's why his body became a target. In 1657, during a war between Poland and Russia, he was captured. The Cossacks beat him, tied him behind their horses, and dragged him to the next town. There, they burned him, cut the skin from his body while he was still alive, and eventually killed him with a sword. He was buried there in the summertime in damp soil in a tomb full of other rotting bodies where he was left for decades.
But 40 years later, his body was discovered, and it was perfectly intact. The physicians who examined it were professors of medicine at the University of Rome. And although the damp grave had caused his vestments to rot, and despite the fact that he had been surrounded by decaying corpses, his body was perfectly flexible. His flesh and muscles soft to the touch, and the blood that covered his numerous wounds appeared to be freshly congealed. There had been no embalming, no treatment of any kind. The physicians who examined it declared the preservation beyond their ability to explain, and unanimously of a miraculous nature.
But the story doesn't end there, because his body was so perfectly preserved that two centuries later, soldiers of the Red Army opened his coffin, stripped his body, and threw it on the ground in an act of sacrilege. They carried it to Moscow, where the Bolshevik government placed it in a museum to be mocked. Now, thankfully, the Pope eventually was able to negotiate for the body's return. And today, St. Andrew lies under the altar in a church bearing his name in Warsaw, Poland. And though his flesh has since darkened and turned stiff, his body still bears the wounds of his martyrdom.
Now, St. Andrew Bobola may be the most incredible case of a saint's body miraculously resisting decay despite all natural odds. But these next two survived deliberate attempts to destroy their bodies. The first is St. Francis Xavier. He's considered the greatest missionary to unbelievers since St. Paul himself, and his incorrupt body is the oldest medically verified case in church history. He was one of the first seven members of the Jesuit order, and as a young man, he set out to evangelize Asia. Although he converted over 30,000 people in Ceylon, India, Malaya, and Japan, his dream of bringing the gospel to China was never realized, because he died of a fever on an island off its coast at the age of 46.
The people who were with him wanted to accelerate his decomposition so that they could later retrieve his bones. So, before they buried him, they filled his coffin with lime. Now, lime is a harsh chemical powder that violently extracts moisture from organic tissue and generates heat. It was used specifically to accelerate decomposition because it leaves behind clean bones and sometimes mummified skin. 10 weeks passed before a ship came to retrieve the body. They dug it up and when they opened the coffin, to their shock, Saint Francis Xavier's body was perfectly preserved. They transported it and forced it into a tomb that was so small they had to break his neck to fit inside.
Some time passed before a friend of the saint visited his tomb and had it secretly exhumed. And despite being in contact with the damp earth for nearly 5 months, his body was in exactly the same condition. The preservation was so perfect that many skeptics began suggesting the body had been carefully embalmed. So, to settle the matter, the chief medical authority of Goa was commissioned to examine it. The physician, Dr. Cosmas Sareva, confirmed that all the organs were in their natural places and that there had been no embalming of any kind and no artificial preservative agents. Dr. Sareva said that the flesh was so lifelike that, according to the laws of medicine, it could not possibly be preserved by any natural or artificial means. He even had one of his assistants insert his fingers into a wound near Francis's heart and when he pulled them out, they were covered with blood, which the doctor found to be absolutely untainted.
Now, all of this occurred about a year after Saint Francis died. But, 151 years later, his body was found in nearly the exact same condition with fluid blood, flexible features, and solid flesh. From that point on, his body endured countless examinations and mutilations to extract relics, which were sent all over the world. And eventually, under this abuse, his body dried out. But, it can still be seen today at the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa, India, where it rests in a silver reliquary.
Now, unfortunately, this next saint's body is sealed inside of a bronze monument, and I couldn't find any pictures of what it looks like inside. But, his story is so crazy that I had to include it. Unlike many of the other Incorruptibles, Pascal Baylon lived a humble and quiet life. He was born in 1540 in rural Spain to a farming family before joining the Franciscan Friars as a lay brother. As a monk, he cared for the sick and the poor, but he also performed many miracles, which made him famous throughout the region. Because of his local fame, when he died at the age of 52, the crowd that came to see him was so massive that armed guards were required to manage it. His body was on display for 3 days, and by the end of the third day, his body had to be reclothed because his habit had been torn to shreds by so many people ripping off pieces of it to take home as relics.
Like St. Francis Xavier, his body was then buried in lime to hasten decomposition so that his clean bones could be enshrined. But eight months later his coffin was opened and despite being buried in this harsh chemical, his body was found perfectly intact from head to foot, even down to the tip of his nose. Pascal's close friend Father Jean Zamin took his hand to kiss it and found that his flesh was supple and easy to move. Over the years that followed, small fragments of his body like an ear and several fingers were secretly cut off and taken as relics by people who had access to the crypt. At one point, someone even secretly cut off and stole both his feet. The superiors of the order demanded that the feet be returned under pain of excommunication. And a few hours later, they were returned to the coffin. 19 years after his death, his body was still perfectly preserved. There was an official examination held for the beatification process, and the physicians and surgeons who were present declared, "We the undersigning doctors and surgeons affirm on oath before God and according to our conscience that the body of said brother Pascal Baylon is incorrupt and that the manner of its preservation is supernatural and miraculous." Pascal was canonized in 1690 and his remains are enshrined at the Basilica of Saint Pascal in Villareal, Spain.
Now, even barring its miraculous aspects, the story of Saint Pascal is kind of hard to believe. I mean, can you imagine going to the funeral of a holy person or just someone you admired and cutting off pieces of their body to take home with you? As shocking as this is, there's a very specific reason that Catholics throughout history have done things like this. And I promise I'll get to that before the end of the video, but first we have to talk about this next incorrupt saint. His body can be seen today and like Saint Teresa of Avila, he had a mystical experience that permanently changed his body. But what they found after he died was even more incredible.
Philip Neri was a priest known for his holiness, but also for his personality. Gentle, funny, disarmingly joyful, the kind of guy that everybody just seemed to love immediately. While meditating in the catacombs of St. Sebastian as a young man, he described feeling in an extraordinary way filled with God. That same day, a visible swelling appeared over his chest, and he carried it for the remaining 51 years of his life. After he died, a group of physicians oversaw the autopsy of his body. They opened his chest and discovered that two of his ribs had been broken by his own heart, which had grown so large that the broken ribs formed an arch over it. The physicians couldn't understand how Philip hadn't lived in excruciating pain his entire life, and they attested under oath that the cause was supernatural and miraculous. He was buried, and four years later his body was exhumed. They found the lid of the coffin cracked by moisture seeping from the wall. The body was covered in cobwebs and dust, and his vestments had practically turned to dirt, but when they cleared away the debris, it was perfectly intact. The body was so fresh and beautiful, and the skin and flesh so natural that everyone was astonished. It was examined by three physicians who determined that the preservation was undoubtedly miraculous. Now, to ensure that it remained intact, the body was then embalmed, and a silver mask was placed over his face. After his canonization, St. Philip's body was exposed for veneration under the altar of his chapel in Rome, where it can still be seen today.
Now, at first glance, this last saint's body still appears to be as fresh as the day he died. But, like we already said, there's something else going on here. St. Vincent de Paul was a humble priest, but his story is anything but ordinary. After he was ordained, he was sailing home from Marseille when his ship was taken by Islamic pirates. They kidnapped him and took him to Africa, where he was sold as a slave. He was in slavery for 2 years before he succeeded in converting his own master. The two of them escaped Africa together across the Mediterranean, and Vincent made his way to Paris where he began his life's work caring for the sick, poor, and orphaned. He died there in 1660, and 52 years later his body was exhumed and found to be in near perfect condition. There was no smell of decay, and the doctors attending testified that his body could not be thus preserved by any natural means.
Now, like we've said, the visual of Saint Vincent's body is astounding. Until you realize that what you're looking at is a wax figure encasing his remains. Because like all the other saints on this list, his body eventually withered. None of them stayed perfectly preserved forever. But the fact that their bodies are intact at all is still a miraculous sign. But to understand what it's a sign of, we have to answer the question I promised earlier. Why does the church do this? Why dig these bodies up, cut them apart for relics, enshrine them under altars, and place them on display for the whole world to see? To our modern sensibilities, it seems morbid, even disturbing. But the church does this for one specific reason. Because we believe in the resurrection of our bodies. Not just that our souls drift off to heaven after we die, but that you, body and soul, are destined to be raised the way Christ was raised. And that his saving grace has a real impact. The saints were the most extraordinary men and women who ever lived. So, by venerating their relics, we honor their example and are inspired to live like them. The incorrupt saints remind us of death, but they also remind us that death is not the end of the story. Because Christ conquered it. And he conquered it for you. So that you could spend eternity with him body and soul.