About The Eucharistic Miracle in the Church of Santa Maria y Caballito Almagro in Buenos Aires, Argentina:
What sets this church apart from the many churches here in Buenos Aires is not the building itself, but the fact that a Eucharistic Miracle took place in the church. On the evening of August 18, 1986, Father Alejandro Pezet was told by a woman parishioner that a consecrated host had been desecrated on a candle holder in the back of the Church. Unable to consume the host, Father Pezet put it into a glass of water in the tabernacle so that it would dissolve (the ordinary practice for respectfully handling such a host).
When he opened the tabernacle on August 26, he saw that the host had been transformed into a piece of bloody tissue much larger than the original. When Father Pezet informed Archbishop Bergoglio (later to become Pope Francis in 2013) of the occurrence, the Archbishop asked him to have the host professionally photographed.
The photograph was taken on September 6, 1996, and it was decided to keep the host in the tabernacle without publicizing it or its origin.
After three years, the bloody tissue had not decomposed. This is truly extraordinary and virtually impossible to explain through natural causation—a miracle, if you will—mainly because no special attempt was made to preserve it. Since the original photographs revealed a complete lack of decomposition, Archbishop Bergoglio asked that the bloody tissue be scientifically examined.
Scientific Investigation in to the alleged Euchristic Miracle in the Church of Santa Maria y Caballito Almagro in Buenos Aires, Argentina:
In 1999, a scientific investigation was begun under the leadership of Ricardo Castañon Gómez of Bolivia, a clinical psychologist who specializes in brain chemistry. Eight scientists were involved in this investigation from four continents.
On Oct. 21, 1999, Castañon brought a sample to a forensic laboratory in San Francisco to do analysis. On Jan. 28, 2000, scientists found fragments of human DNA in the sample, but not enough to produce amplified DNA. Dr. Robert Lawrence, a top histopathologist, who studies tissues, found human skin and white blood cells upon further analysis. He stated in an interview that the white blood cells were living at the time they were collected, even though they normally die within two hours after being taken from a body.
It should be pointed out that Castañon was an atheist when he began the investigation but converted to Catholicism by the end of this investigation!
On October 5, 1999, in the presence of the Cardinal’s representatives, scientist Dr. Ricardo Castanon Gomez took a sample of the bloody fragment and sent it to New York for analysis. Since Dr. Gomez did not want to prejudice the scientific committee that would be examining the tissue in New York, he did not reveal its source.
A team of five scientists was assembled, including the famous cardiologist and forensic pathologist Dr. Frederic Zugibe (author of many books on forensic pathology). Dr. Zugibe testified:
“The analyzed material is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves. This muscle is responsible for the contraction of the heart. It should be borne in mind that the left cardiac ventricle pumps blood to all parts of the body. The heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and contains a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. It is my contention that the heart was alive, since white blood cells die outside a living organism. They require a living organism to sustain them. Thus, their presence indicates that the heart was alive when the sample was taken. What is more, these white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely about the chest.”
What is so remarkable about this testimony is not so much that the tissues came from the wall of the left ventricle but that white blood cells were present in large numbers in it, meaning the tissue was removed from a heart and was still alive and pumping. This shows that the sample had not decomposed and could not have been obtained from a deceased subject (i.e., a cadaver) which is similar to other Eucharistic Miracles such as the more well-known one in Lanciano, Italy.
On March 2, 2004, samples were brought to New York for analysis by Dr. Frederic Zugibe, a famous cardiologist and forensic pathologist at Columbia University. He was not told what the sample was. Zugibe found that the sample was heart muscle near the left ventricle. It was inflamed and had white blood cells, meaning the heart was alive and pumping when the sample was taken. The heart showed signs of being under severe stress. When told that the sample came from a consecrated Host, Zugibe was speechless.
Castañon was an atheist when he began the investigation but converted to Catholicism by the end of this investigation.
This Eucharistic miracle does not yet have Church approval.
“The problem is that they waited so long,” said Father Spitzer about the investigation. “It took so long to get the genetic sample.”
“I personally don’t have a problem with it. The evidence was so overwhelming with Dr. Castañon that he converted and so overwhelming with Dr. Zugibe that he was unable to speak for five minutes. He said outright, ‘This is naturalistically impossible if what you say is true,’” said Father Spitzer.
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