Despite our collective rejoicing and gratitude over Pope Francis’
voluntary visit to the Philippines last January (evidenced by the 7-million
strong crowd that attended his concluding Mass at the Luneta), not a few people
will admit to being “slightly disappointed” that his visit then meant the
Pontiff could not be expected to return in order to be present at the
International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) to be held in January 2016 in Cebu.
Take heart! There could be
another way through which the erstwhile Bishop of Buenos Aires, now Bishop of
Rome and “the people’s pope”, could somehow be with us on this monumental
event—by opening the IEC’s doors to what a growing number of people believe to
be the “Eucharistic miracle of Buenos Aires”—with the prerequisite blessing of
the Holy See, of course.
Documents, photos and videos point to the existence of a “Eucharistic
phenomenon” that reportedly took place on August 18, 1996 at St. Mary Catholic
Church in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
As Padre Alejandro Pezet was finishing distribution of the Holy
Communion, a woman came up to say she’d found a host someone had dropped and
refused to pick up to consume it as it had been soiled. Fr. Pezet took the host and as is
customary in such instances placed it in a container with water and kept it
locked in the tabernacle.
On August 26, Fr. Pezet assumed the host had been dissolved and that he
could then respectfully water a plant with it, but to his amazement he found
that instead of being dissolved the host had turned into a seemingly bloody
substance. He reported it to Mons.
Jorge Bergoglio, then Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires. Antonio Cardinal Quarracino, then
Archbishop of Buenos Aires, instructed that the host be professionally
photographed and the event studied and documented. On September 6, 1996, photographs taken showed a significant
increase in the host’s size. On
the instruction of Cardinal Quarracino, the whole affair was kept a secret. The host was kept in a container of
distilled water in the tabernacle; meanwhile, photographs and documents were
reportedly submitted to Rome.
Three years later, the host still showed no signs of visible
decomposition, thus in 1999, the now Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio
followed the case through. He
deemed it best that the host be subjected to scientific examination. On Oct. 5, 1999, Dr. Ricardo Castanon,
a neuro-psycho-physiologist who happens to be an atheist, was allowed to take a
sample of the bloody substance which he was to take to the United States for
analysis following typical FBI procedures. To ensure a prejudice-free study, Dr. Castanon purposely
concealed the origin of the bloody fragment from the team of scientists who
would do the study.
The team determined that what had been analyzed was real flesh and
blood, containing human DNA. One of these scientists, Dr. Frederick Zugibe, a
well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist, stated: “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.”
Witnessing these tests were two Australians, journalist Mike Willesee
and lawyer Ron Tesoriero; both men knew the background of the sample, and were
naturally stunned to hear Dr. Zugibe’s testimony. Willessee asked Dr. Zugibe, “How long would white blood
cells have remained alive if they have come from a human tissue which had been
kept in water?” Dr. Zugibe
replied, “They would have ceased to exist in a matter of minutes.” Willessee, gradually unveiling the
truth, informed Dr. Zugibe that before it reached the doctor’s hands, the
sample was “from a tissue that had first been kept in ordinary water for
a month and then in a bowl with distilled water for three years.” As Dr. Zugibe had no scientific
explanation for it, Willessee finally told him the truth, that “the analyzed
sample came from a consecrated host.” Astonished, Dr. Zugibe replied that “how and why a host
would change its character to become living flesh and blood would remain an
inexplicable mystery to science, a mystery totally beyond my competence.”
Dr. Castanon then arranged to have the lab reports be compared to those
made of a relic of the similar miracle which took place in Lanciano (Italy) in
the eighth century. The experts
making the comparison were not told of the origin of the samples; nonetheless
they concluded that “the two lab reports must have originated from samples
obtained from the same person.” They further added that both samples revealed
an AB positive blood type, all characteristic of a man who was born and who
lived in the Middle East region.
Dr. Castanon, reportedly an avowed atheist, set out to disprove the
Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires and ended up converting to
Catholicism. Author of the book Cuando La Palabra Hiere (“When the Word
Hurts”) he is now committed to his mission of traveling the world,
investigating Catholic mystical phenomena and running scientific tests to prove
or disprove them.
We know and understand how long it takes for a “miracle” to be
officially approved by the Church.
It should be so, otherwise, any religious phenomenon could be used to
lead the innocent and the ignorant to perdition. On the other hand we have also seen how many a cold heart
has been inflamed by the sight or the feel of a saint’s relic. A countless number of church-goers take
Holy Communion barely knowing its grave significance. Even priests sometimes admit to taking the Host for
granted—having celebrated Holy Mass for years, sometimes up to seven times on a
Sunday, “the celebration part is gone, only the obligation part remains.” So why not try and bring the Living
Flesh from Buenos Aires to the Philippines for the Eucharistic Congress? Then we’ll have not just the Pope from
Buenos Aires but the Lord Himself in our land. Our nation is in dire need of it. We are aware that this suggestion is a shot at the
moon. But remembering what Pope
Francis said to the young people of Cuba—“Dream on!”—we dream on and leave our
dreams at the feet of the Crucified Christ, fully trusting in God’s plan for
us. And that’s the truth.
