The Science of Miracles

by Joe Nickell

  And the textbook that obviously provided the lesson is, again, Emmerich's The Dolorous Passion.

  According to Emmerich's visions (134):

  They then dragged his arms to such a height that his feet, which were tightly bound to the base of the pillar, scarcely touched the ground. Thus was the Holy of Holies violently stretched, without a particle of clothing, on a pillar used for the punishment of the greatest criminals; and then did two furious ruffians who were thirsting for his blood begin in the most barbarous manner to scourge his sacred body from head to foot. The whips of scourges which they first made use of appeared to me to be made of a species of flexible white wood, but perhaps they were composed of the sinews of the ox, or of strips of leather.

  She further envisioned:

  Our loving Lord, the Son of God, true God and true Man, writhed as a worm under the blows of these barbarians; his mild but deep groans might be heard from afar; they resounded through the air, as a kind of touching accompaniment to the hissing of the instruments of torture. These groans resembled rather a cry of prayer and supplication, than moans of anguish….

  The Jewish mob was gathered together at some distance from the pillar at which the dreadful punishment was taking place…. I saw groups of infamous, bold-looking young men, who were for the most part busying themselves near the watch-house in preparing fresh scourges, while others went to seek branches of thorns.

  And so on, in this extreme detailing of violence.

  The scope of Emmerich's The Dolorous Passion is essentially that chosen by Gibson for The Passion. Although an article in Christianity Today magazine noted that Gibson did not follow Emmerich slavishly, it did concede the debt, acknowledging, “Many of the details needed to fill out the Gospel accounts he drew from her book” (Neff 2004).

  A “CATHOLIC” FILM?

  And that is the point many seem to have missed. Conservative Catholic commentator Cal Thomas (2004) stated that the Veronica incident was the only “doctrinally Catholic” element he could see in The Passion, thus ignoring the heavy reliance on a Catholic “visionary” for much of the film's content.

  The emphasis on Mary is another strongly Catholic element. The film does stop short of making Mary a major object of veneration (creating what some refer to as “Marianity” [Craveri 1967, 32] or, especially when expressed before statues and other images, “Mariolatry” [Ashton 1991]). Yet Gibson, who has been struck by the positive evangelical response to The Passion, admits that it is all the more amazing, since “the film is so Marian” (quoted in Neff 2004, 35).

  The focus should not be surprising. After all, Mel Gibson is a devout Catholic. Moreover, the film's Jesus, Jim Caviezel, insisted each day's filming begin with the celebration of Mass (Neff 2004, 30).

  The result is a film that offers neither a historical nor a fundamentalist view. Of course, historically, apart from later Christian sources, there is virtually no evidence for Jesus’ crucifixion—or even his very existence. There are merely a few texts that many critics hold to be “too uncertain or too late to provide any support for the Gospel story, with the only substantial piece of it [allegedly by the Jewish historian Josephus] easily discreditable as a total Christian forgery” (Doherty 2001, 47; see also Price 2003).

  As to the accounts of the Passion in the Gospels, they are very brief, and scholarly analysis demonstrates that they are also untrustworthy. For example, as Jesus Seminar scholar Robert Price (2003, 321) observes, “The crucifixion account of Mark, the basis for all the others, is simply a tacit rewrite of Psalm 22, with a few other texts thrown in.” Jesus’ exclamation—“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”—comes verbatim from Psalm 22; also from that psalm are the piercing of the hands and the feet, the casting of lots for the garments, and other story motifs.

  Small wonder that a filmmaker would look elsewhere for details to fill in an otherwise sketchy outline. But Mel Gibson's heavy reliance on a dubious “visionary” is unfortunate, producing not a praiseworthy cinematic account of a story essential to Christianity, but merely another technically impressive yet pseudohistorical Hollywood shockumentary.

  Did an incident that reportedly occurred in Turin, Italy, in 1453 (unrelated to the famous “shroud” later enshrined there) offer unimpeachable evidence of the supernatural? How else can one explain the wonderful story of “the Miracle of Turin” and other Eucharistic miracle claims?1

  INTRODUCTION

  In her book Eucharistic Miracles, Joan Carroll Cruz (1987, xi) states, “The greatest treasure in the Catholic Church is, without question, the Holy Eucharist—in which Jesus Christ humbly assumes the appearance of bread.” In Catholicism, the Eucharist is the sacrament in which the bread and wine consumed at Communion in remembrance of Jesus’ Last Supper are, by the miracle of “transubstantiation,” changed into the actual body and blood of Christ, whence they are known as the Blessed Sacrament (Stravinskas 2002, 139, 302, 734). In other words, Catholics take literally Jesus’ statement regarding the bread: “Take, eat: this is my body,” and regarding the wine, “Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:26–28).

  In contrast, Protestants understand the story (given in various other versions: Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:19, 20; John 6:48–58; and 1 Corinthians 11:23–26)2 as symbolic of Jesus’ dying for mankind. Indeed, it is an evolved form of the Jewish Passover ritual (Dummelow 1951, 710). Religious writers Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan (2006, 192–94) consider the story, together with the entire Easter narrative, as a parable (a simple story with a moral, whether factually true or not).

  EUCHARISTIC MIRACLES

  Nevertheless, transubstantiation is a dogma of Catholicism and, from at least the eighth century, numerous “Eucharistic miracles” that seem to verify its reality have been reported. In addition to a few dozen accounts in Cruz (1987), many more are related in Legends of the Blessed Sacrament (Shapcote 1877), and no fewer than 142 are featured in a Vatican international traveling exhibition titled the “Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” which I was able to view in Lackawanna, New York, on September 20, 2007. (The exhibition consists of display panels, otherwise available online [“Eucharistic Miracles of the World” 2007].)

  Some Eucharistic miracle tales (Cruz 1987, 187–88, 191–92, 208–209) seem to be little more than derivations of biblical stories. For example, the account of a boy having eaten Communion bread that keeps him from harm inside a fiery furnace evokes the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel (3:10–30); the Holy Sacrament's curing of a demoniac recalls Jesus’ similar feat in Mark (5:1–16); and the multiplication of some twenty consecrated wafers—or Hosts—into enough to serve almost six hundred people obviously recalls Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the multitude of five thousand with only “five loaves, and two fishes” (Matthew 14:15–21). (Interestingly, the multiplying Hosts was accomplished by St. John Bosco, 1815–1888, who, in his youth, had been a magician [Cruz 1987, 208]!)

  Many of the Eucharistic miracle stories have a suspiciously similar plot, which suggests derivation. For example, at least three stories—from Lanciano, Italy, eighth century; Regensburg, Germany, 1257; and Bolsena, Italy, 1263—concern a priest who had doubts about the reality of transubstantiation. When he spoke the words of consecration, the Host was suddenly transformed into flesh and/or the wine became visible blood (Cruz 1987, 3–7; 59–62).

  As another example, several tales—from Alatri, Italy, 1228; Santarem, Portugal, early thirteenth century; and Offida, Italy, 1280—feature a woman who kept the Host in her mouth so she could make off with it and, as instructed by some occultist, transform it into a love potion. Subsequently, the Host was turned into flesh (Cruz 1987, 30–37; 70–83), and in one instance it also issued a mysterious light (Cruz 1987, 38–46).

  At least two anti-Semitic tales—one from Paris, France, 1290; and one from Brussels, Belgium, 1370—involve a Jew or Jews illicitly acquiring a consecrated wafer and stabbing it
with a knife, whereupon blood spurted forth in triumph over their mocking disbelief (Cruz 1987, 63–65; 112–22).3 In the latter tale there are even conflicting accounts of the Jews’ fate: one says they were burned at the stake, the other that they were banished from the area. Such variants—as folklorists call them—are a “defining characteristic of folklore,” since oral transmission naturally produces differing versions of the same tale (Brunvand 1978, 7).

  TURIN “MIRACLE”

  The story of “the miracle of Turin” begins just before the middle of the year 1453 at a church in Exilles (then in the French Dauphinate), according to a parchment that I personally examined at the Turin city archives (Valle n. d.). Reportedly, some men (two soldiers, in popular legend [Cruz 1987, 145]) had come from a war between the French Savoys and the Piedmontese, pillaged a church, and then loaded a sack full of plunder—including a silver reliquary with a sacred Host—upon a mule. They made their way via Susa, Avigliana, and Rivoli to Turin, but after the beast passed through the city gate, it halted in front of the church of San Silvestro and fell to the ground. Out of the pack tumbled the Host—“the true body of Christ”—and it miraculously ascended into the air, shining “like the sun.” The bishop, Ludovico Romagno, was summoned along with the clergy, whereupon they discovered the reliquary on the ground and “the body of the Lord in the air with great Radiant splendor.” The bishop knelt and brought out a chalice into which the Host descended, thence being transported to “the doorway of the Cathedral.”

  The parchment, signed only by a ducal official, nevertheless lists the names of several witnesses and notes that “after completion of the new cathedral” the Host is to rest therein and to be the subject of an annual octave (an eight-day event) in commemoration of the “miracle” (Valle n. d.).

  Unfortunately, there are problems with the document, although it is certainly consistent with a parchment of the fifteenth or early sixteenth century.4 Significantly, it is undated and merely bears in the heading the date of the reported event: “in the year 1453 on the 6 of June, a Thursday.” Actually, the sixth was a Wednesday, only one of several indications that something is amiss. Another problem is the reference to the anticipated completion of the “new cathedral,” presumably that of St. John the Baptist, which was not built until 1491–98 (“Turin Cathedral” 2007).

  Everything about the document indicates that it is not original, including the fact that another undated one—with a similar text (including the erroneous “Thursday”)—is known. Indeed, it is the latter whose text is reproduced in the official booklet published with the imprimatur of the Metropolitan Curia of Turin. However, this document is noted as “presently missing,” and—lest it be thought to have been the original—it is described as a “sixteenth-century text” (Il Miracolo di Torino 1997, 55). Moreover, although the two documents include many similarities, there are differences in wording and detail. For instance, the published document specifically mentions the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist by name, and the respective lists of witnesses’ names show evidence of garbling. (For example, “Michaele Burry” is given in the parchment versus “Michel Muri” in the published document; only one of the eleven names is exactly the same, and the published document omits a name. The list in Cruz [1987] is different still.)

  Despite the late, differing versions and the apparent lack of a true original—all of which inspires skepticism—the copies themselves nevertheless indicate there was, at least at some point, a narrative and a list of names of alleged eyewitnesses to some occurrence. But what was it?

  AN EXPLANATION

  The texts suggest that it may well have been some celestial event, the supposed Host being described as “in the air with great Radiant splendor” and “shining like the sun” (see figure 35.1). The accounts say the event occurred “at hour 20” (Valle n. d.; Il Miracolo di Torino 1997, 55), but the printed text has an editorial insertion clarifying that it was “between the hours 16 and 17”—that is, between four and five o'clock in the afternoon (Il Miracolo di Torino 1997, 55). Therefore, the duration was apparently less than one hour. On the other hand, the event obviously lasted long enough for residents to fetch the bishop and clergy, so it was too long for, say, a meteor.

  That it was described as “shining like the sun” suggests to me that it could have been a phenomenon known as a “mock sun” (or “sun dog”), that is, a parhelion. Parhelia can appear as very bright patches in the sky. They are among the various ice-crystal refraction effects that include halos, arcs, solar pillars, and other atmospheric phenomena (Greenler 1999, 23–64).

  I posed the question of the mystery occurrence to Major James McGaha (USAF, retired), who is not only an experienced pilot and noted UFO expert but also director of the Grasslands Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. He conducted a computer search of the sky for the place, date, and time of the occurrence. He found nothing of an astronomical nature that might have caused such an effect. (For example, there was no conjunction of planets, and the moon—a new moon—would have been invisible [McGaha 2008].)

  He agreed with my suggestion that a parhelion-type phenomenon could be consistent with the “miracle of Turin.” That is especially likely in light of the celestial object being reported as “over the surrounding houses” and “shining, as a second sun” (“Eucharistic Miracles of the World” 2007)—an apt description if the phenomenon were indeed a mock sun. A parhelion could well last for the duration reported, and it would be most likely to appear when the sun was relatively low in the sky, observed McGaha (2008).

  He considered one other possibility, given that there was a question of the date. If the event did occur on June 6 but three years later, in 1456, the celestial object could convincingly be identified as Halley's Comet.

  In any event, what might have happened is that the witnessing of a genuine, sensational occurrence was seen as miraculous—a “sign”—by superstitious folk and clergy, the latter interpreting it as the radiant body of Christ in the sky. This could have prompted the bishop to hold aloft not only a chalice but also a Host, and as the phenomenon soon ceased to be visible, the belief was that the celestial light was absorbed by the wafer. According to this scenario, it was this “miraculous” Host that was displayed. (It was thus kept until 1584 when the Holy See ordered it consumed so as “not to oblige God to maintain an eternal miracle by keeping the Host always perfect and pure” (quoted in Cruz 1987, 147).

  This celestial incident, witnessed by various persons, might then have been grafted by the process of folklore onto a somewhat similar tale, like one set in Paris in 1274 (Cruz 1987, 63). Or it could have been confabulated—in the manner of the Roswell UFO crash myth (McAndrew 1997)—and enhanced by faulty perceptions and memories, together with the impulse to create a pious legend.

  Such religious legends are often called belief tales because they are intentionally grafted “to give credence to folk beliefs” (Brunvand 1978, 106–108). Indeed, Cruz (1987, 145) states revealingly that “at the time of the miracle of Turin, the faith of the people had grown feeble, and it is thought God wanted to give a sign to arouse them from their apathy.” The miracle, she states, “effected the desired change.”

  Arguing in favor of this hypothesis, I think, is the allegorical nature of the Turin narrative—a dramatic tale in its own right, and an even more profoundly Christian one if seen as allegory of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Consider, for example that similar to Jesus’ emerging from exile (Matthew 2:13–15), in the Turin-miracle narrative the Corpus Domini (“Body of Christ”) is placed on a mule and led from Exilles into Turin (which would become known as “the city of the Holy sacrament” [Il Miracolo di Torino 1997, 32]). Jesus’ Last Supper (Matthew 26:17–30) is evoked by the wafer of Communion bread, which has been spilled.

  This (tradition says) happened between two robbers, like Jesus’ crucifixion, which occurred between two thieves (Matthew 27:38). And just as Jesus bodily arose from his tomb (Matthew 28:1–7) and was “carried up into heaven” (
Mark 24:51), the “Body of Christ” emerged from its reliquary (a container for holy remains) and ascended into the sky, radiant like the sun, as Jesus came to be (says John 9:5) “the light of the world.” The subsequent descent of the Holy Host into the chalice obviously symbolizes the gift of the Eucharist to Christianity—a theme common to all of the Eucharistic “miracle” tales.

  Among the intriguing mysteries of modern Catholicism are the “miracles” and “secrets” supposedly imparted by the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 (Oliveira 1999). In addition to an allegedly miraculous “dance of the sun,” there were three major secrets, two of which were revealed at the time. The third and final one—kept in an envelope by the Vatican—was not made public until mid-2000, provoking much interest and controversy. I was involved in the media debate over the release of the third secret, appearing on a documentary for the History Channel series History's Mysteries titled “Fatima: Secrets Unveiled” (which aired January 4, 2001) as well as being interviewed for newspaper articles (for example, Valpy 2000; Barss 2000). Here is my investigative take on the entire Fatima phenomenon.

  THE LADY APPEARS

  The reported visits of the Virgin Mary to Fatima occurred in a time of trouble. After the fall of the Portuguese monarchy in 1910, there came a wave of anticlerical sentiment and persecution, followed by various revolutionary conflicts and Portugal's involvement in World War I.

  On May 13, 1917, three shepherd children were tending their flock about two miles west of Fatima in a town near Ourém. The children were Lucia Santos, age ten, and her two cousins, nine-year-old Francisco Marto and his seven-year-old sister, Jacinta. A sudden flash of lightning sent the children fleeing down a slope, whereupon the two girls beheld the dazzling apparition of a beautiful lady, radiant in white light, standing among the holly-like leaves of a small holm oak.