Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires -- Archbishop Bergolio and the Scientific Analysis

Edit: when an alleged Eucharistic Miracle was explored in Minnesota recently, I don't get the impression it was investigated with this level of care.

(Buenos Aires) Pope Francis had as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires to conduct a scientific investigation into an alleged Eucharistic miracle, as the Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires became known and is said to have taken place between 1992 and 1996. He himself went several times a year to St. Mary's Church, to keep in the visible signs of the miracle and to hold Eucharistic adoration there.

The event is little known, because the pastor and his flock, probably without consultation with the Archbishop, wanted no media furor. Since the election of Cardinal Bergoglio as successor to the Apostle Peter, the message is still spreading slowly. In the German-speaking Catholic internet forum, Viaveritas the first to report about it was in 2009.

The Facts

The event began in 1992 in the same year and month, as Jorge Mario Bergoglio was called by Pope John Paul II from the Argentine Province and appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires. Everything has happened in the parish of Santa Maria y Caballito Almagro in the quarter in the Old City of Buenos Aires. On May 1st, 1992, a Friday, two consecrated hosts were found on the corporals of the Tabernacle. At the direction of the pastor, Father Alejandro Pezet, they were placed in a water container and sealed in the tabernacle, as is usual in such cases. After several days, the hosts had not dissolved. A week later, on Friday the 8th May 1992 were soaked with blood as the two hosts. On Sunday, the 10th Were discovered in May 1992 during the evening service on the paten drop of blood on which the consecrated host is placed during the Eucharistic celebration. The blood was examined by a doctor and several hematologists. All found beyond reasonable doubt that it was human blood.

On the 15th, 1996, the Solemnity of the Assumption, when the Communion during the Mass was over, a woman approached Pastor Pezet and told him that she had found on the back of the church an apparently desecrated host. The priest hurried out to pick them up and put these in a glass of water to dissolve them. Instead of dissolving, however, the host turned into a bloody piece of meat. From this metamorphosis, Cardinal Antonio Quarracino (1990-1998), then Archbishop of Buenos Aires and his Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio were immediately informed. They instructed the priest to have a photographer photograph everything. The pictures were made on the 6th of September, 1996 and sent to Rome.

Scientific Research

As several years passed there were no signs of visible decay, the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires who is the present Pope conducted a thorough investigation. A tissue sample piece of meat into which the Host in the tabernacle had changed in 1996, was examined medically by a forensic examiner. It was noted that it is certainly the part of a human heart. As the pathological institute further noted that it had to be the heart of a living man. These are living cells. The coroner had not been instructed on the origin of the sample, so as not to affect the outcome in any direction.

In the same year the well-known, among other things, German trained, Neuropsychopharmacology Physiologist Castañon Ricardo Gomez from Bolivia, was commissioned to carry out some further investigations. This time on two alleged Eucharistic miracles, that of 1992 and that of 1996. On the 6th of October 1999, Castañon took a blood sample in the presence of representatives of the Archbishop and of a notary, and sent it to the  Analytical Forensic Institute Forence  of San Francisco in the United States. The withdrawal was cleared by the Archbishop with Rome. Direct contacts were the Canon Lawyer and Current Curial Bishop, Gianfranco Girotti, the private secretary to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine and the Faith. On the 28th of January 2000, the result was announced. The Institute noted that it was human blood, confirming the previous studies. The DNA code is uniquely human. The samples were also sent to Professor John Walker of the University of Sydney in Australia. Independently of any other studies it was found that the muscle cells and white blood cells originate from a human and are perfectly intact. The studies also showed that the tissue was inflamed, which means that the person to whom it belongs, had suffered a trauma. In 2003, Walker told Castañon that the samples comply with an infected male, according to the signs also still alive according to the state of the heart.

To make matters deeper, then the samples were sent to the specialists for heart disease, Frederic Zugibe of the Columbia University of New York, one of the most renowned practitioners in the U.S. Court. On the 26th of March, 2005, he presented the results of his investigations. He presented the analyzed material as a definitive fragment of the heart muscle, which originates from the left ventricle near the aortic valve. The left ventricle pumps the blood to all body parts. The investigated heart muscle, says Zugibe, is located in an inflamed condition and contains a large number of white blood cells. The example then that the heart was living when the sample was taken from him, because white blood cells die off outside a living organism. More, the white blood cells have penetrated into the tissue, which indicates that the heart has suffered a great stress situation. Also, Zugibe and his scientific team were not informed about the background and origin of the samples from consecrated Hosts.

Witnesses of the studies were the attorney Ron Tesoriero and Mike Willesee, one of Australia's best known journalists, then converted to the Catholic faith. As Zugibe later learned that one sample a month the others were stored in distilled water even for three years, he was completely taken aback. He was even more surprised when he learned of the origin of the samples from wafers. The "living" part of it is a male heart fragment came from a piece of consecrated bread. Zugibe was stunned: How could the fragment of a piece of bread be a part of a human heart? How was it possible that these samples he examined, which must have been taken from 1996, for those who do not believe in miracles, could be from a dead man, still remain "alive" years after removal, meaning that the tissue cells were active and moving?  Within 15 minutes, the white blood cells break down in a dead organism. How was it possible it was still observable in 2005?  Zugibe's response, "How and why can the consecrated Host can mutate and become the flesh and blood of a living human being, remains an inexplicable mystery for science, a mystery that lies outside its competence."

Comparison with Lanciano and the Shroud of Turin

The results of the analysis of the New York Institute were finally compared with those of another Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano that, the earliest known of its kind in Lanciano, both the remains of a bloody Host and preserved human heart, which was transformed from a consecrated Host. The Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano is already 1300 years old, and yet are still remains a Host and part of the heart muscle can be seen and is exhibited in the local Franciscan Church. The miracle occurred in the first half of the 8th Century, when the area of Lanciano in southern Italy was Lombard. From Byzantium many monks fled West due to the iconoclast controversy under Emperor Leo III. (717-741). One of them, a Greek Basilian, doubted while he celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Real Presence of Christ. He doubted that the bread and wine would actually convert into flesh and remain the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. During the consecration, the bread turned in his hands and under his eyes actually into flesh and blood. Recent scientific studies have also confirmed it has been a revered relic for almost 1,300 years as human blood and human heart tissue. There were no preservatives found that could explain such a long preservation.

None of the scientists were informed about the origin of the two samples from Italy and Argentina when comparing the studies of Lanciano and Buenos Aires. The comparison showed that the studied samples come from the same person in both cases. The blood type is AB + for each, which occurs in about five percent of all people worldwide. The DNA is the same in the both cases. In addition, there are features that the man came from the Middle East. Further comparisons showed the same agreement with the grave cloth of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo.

The Vatican has yet to recognize the Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires. The Church can thus usually take enough time and not be rushed. Nevertheless, Argentina seems to be ripe with a long series of Eucharistic miracles that run through the course of time in Church history in a very special way, against the doubts of priests, recalling for religious and laity that transubstantiation is quite real and vivid in the memory.

Text: UCCR / Giuseppe Nardi
Image: UCCR / Giuseppe Nardi
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMGD

Eucharistic Miracle in Argentina: The Parish and the Parish Priest

Edit: previously we addressed an alleged Eucharistic miracle confirmed by Pope Francis. One of the readers requested to know where the priest and his parish. It's Fr. Alejandro Pezet of the parish of Jesús Misericordioso de Rosario de Lerma in Buenos Aires. Here are some photos we present without comment which were taken from his Facebook profile, although we will say that it does seem that he’s very interested in a kind of Lifeteen Ministry.

One thing we will note is that the Host fell to the floor while someone was receiving It in the hand, as noted by the Diocesan investigator Doctor Zugibe. We still don’t know what became of the “sample” or of any further miracles associated with this phenomenon.

Pope Investigated and Possibly Confirmed a Eucharistic Miracle

Edit: a friend sent a link to this Liturgical design blog  which reports the possibility of a Eucharistic miracle in Argentina, which Pope Francis, then Cardinal Bergoglio, investigated to reveal that the Host which did not disintegrate, was possibly human heart tissue.  A similar occurrence took place in St. Paul Minnesota in June of 2011.  It’s interesting to note the contrast in the way the way the investigation was handled in the two respective locations.  In the case of Cardinal Bergoglio’s instigation, he seems to have been more directly involved and kept the possible miracle secret while he immediately investigated it, while in the case in St. Paul, the event received immediate publication.  When the St. Paul Archdiocese eventually engaged lab tests, they determined that it wasn’t even Serratia Macescens, but a “fungus”.  The Diocese did not comment on what the “fungus” was, and it was unclear whether the sample is still extant, for more testing.

In any case, this is much more encouraging and miraculous.  It’s even more interesting because of the current Pope’s involvement with it.  This is from a website by a Fr. M. Piotrowski, SChr.


A consecrated Host becomes flesh and blood

At seven o’clock in the evening on August 18, 1996, Fr. Alejandro Pezet was saying Holy Mass at a Catholic church in the commercial center of Buenos Aires. As he was finishing distributing Holy Communion, a woman came up to tell him that she had found a discarded host on a candleholder at the back of the church. On going to the spot indicated, Fr. Alejandro saw the defiled Host. Since he was unable to consume it, he placed it in a container of water and put it away in the tabernacle of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.

On Monday, August 26, upon opening the tabernacle, he saw to his amazement that the Host had turned into a bloody substance. He informed Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who gave instructions that the Host be professionally photographed. The photos were taken on September 6. They clearly show that the Host, which had become a fragment of bloodied flesh, had grown significantly in size. For several years the Host remained in the tabernacle, the whole affair being kept a strict secret. Since the Host suffered no visible decomposition, Cardinal Bergoglio decided to have it scientifically analyzed.

On October 5, 1999, in the presence of the Cardinal’s representatives, Dr. Ricardo Castañón Gomez ("Castanon", sic throughout) took a sample of the bloody fragment and sent it to New York for analysis. Since he did not wish to prejudice the study, he purposely did not inform the team of scientists of its provenance. One of these scientists was Dr. Frederick Zugibe, ("Zugiba", sic throughout) the well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist. He determined that the analyzed substance was real flesh and blood containing human DNA. Zugiba testified that, “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.”

Two Australians, journalist Mike Willesee and lawyer Ron Tesoriero, witnessed these tests. Knowing where sample had come from, they were dumbfounded by Dr. Zugiba’s testimony. Mike Willesee asked the scientist how long the white blood cells would have remained alive if they had come from a piece of human tissue, which had been kept in water. They would have ceased to exist in a matter of minutes, Dr. Zugiba replied. The journalist then told the doctor that the source of the sample had first been kept in ordinary water for a month and then for another three years in a container of distilled water; only then had the sample been taken for analysis. Dr. Zugiba’s was at a loss to account for this fact. There was no way of explaining it scientifically, he stated. Only then did Mike Willesee inform Dr. Zugiba that the analyzed sample came from a consecrated Host (white, unleavened bread) that had mysteriously turned into bloody human flesh. Amazed by this information, Dr. Zugiba replied, “How and why a consecrated Host would change its character and become living human flesh and blood will remain an inexplicable mystery to science—a mystery totally beyond her competence.”

Only faith in the extraordinary action of a God provides the reasonable answer—faith in a God, who wants to make us aware that He is truly present in the mystery of the Eucharist.

The Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires is an extraordinary sign attested to by science. Through it Jesus desires to arouse in us a lively faith in His real presence in the Eucharist. He reminds us that His presence is real, and not symbolic. Only with the eyes of faith do we see Him under appearance of the consecrated bread and wine. We do not see Him with our bodily eyes, since He is present in His glorified humanity. In the Eucharist Jesus sees and loves us and desires to save us.

In collaboration with Ron Tesoriero, Mike Willesee, one of Australia’s best-known journalists (he converted to Catholicism after working on the documents of another Eucharistic miracle) wrote a book entitled Reason to Believe. In it they present documented facts of Eucharistic miracles and other signs calling people to faith in Christ who abides and teaches in the Catholic Church. They have also made a documentary film on the Eucharist—based largely on the scientific discoveries associated with the miraculous Host in Buenos Aires. Their aim was to give a clear presentation of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the subject of the Eucharist. They screened the film in numerous Australian cities. The showing at Adelaide drew a crowd of two thousand viewers. During the commentary and question period that followed a visibly moved man stood up announcing that he was blind. Having learned that this was an exceptional film, he had very much wanted to see it. Just before the screening, he prayed fervently to Jesus for the grace to see the film. At once his sight was restored to him, but only for the thirty-minute duration of the film. Upon its conclusion, he again lost the ability to see. He confirmed this by describing in minute detail certain scenes of the film. It was an incredible event that moved those present to the core of their being.

Through such wondrous signs God calls souls to conversion. If Jesus causes the Host to become visible flesh and blood, a muscle that is responsible for the contraction of a human heart—a heart that suffers like that of someone who has been beaten severely about the chest, if He does such things, it is in order to arouse and quicken our faith in His real presence in the Eucharist. He thus enables us to see that Holy Mass is a re-presentation (i.e. a making present) of the entire drama of our salvation: Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. Jesus says to his disciples, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (Jn 4: 48). There is no need to actively seek out wondrous signs. But if Jesus chooses to give them to us, then it behooves us to accept them with meekness and seek to understand what He desires to tell us by them. Thanks to these signs, many people have discovered faith in God—the One God in the Holy Trinity, who reveals His Son to us: Jesus Christ, who abides in the sacraments and teaches us through Holy Scripture and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

A mystery that surpasses our understanding

The Eucharist—the actual presence of the risen person of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine—is one of the most important and most difficult truths revealed to us by Christ. Eucharistic miracles are merely visible confirmations of what He tells us about Himself; namely, that He really does give us His glorified body and blood as spiritual food and drink. Jesus established the Eucharist on the eve of His passion, death, and resurrection. During the Last Supper, He “took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, gave thanks,and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Mat 26: 26-28). When Jesus took and gave the apostles the bread and wine, He said, “this is my body….this is my blood” by which He clearly meant that the bread and wine which He gave them to eat and drink really was His body and blood, and not some sort of symbol.

Earlier, in the famous Eucharistic sermon recorded by St. John the Evangelist, Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (Jn 6: 53-56). Shocked by Jesus’ words, the Jews said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (Jn 6: 52). Many of Jesus’ disciples were also scandalized. “This saying is hard,” they objected, “who can accept it?” Knowing that the truth of the Eucharist was a shock and a scandal to many of His listeners, Jesus responded not by retracting His words, but by raising the stakes: “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life”” (Jn 6: 62-63). Here Jesus goes to the heart of the mystery by anticipating the glorification of His humanity through His death, resurrection, and ascension. He will give His flesh and blood as food and drink after the Ascension; that is, when His flesh and blood have been glorified and divinized, for, unglorified, “flesh” is indeed “of no avail.”

Not all Jesus’ listeners accepted His teaching of the Eucharist. Thus He turned to them, saying, “‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him” (Jn 6: 65). Judas’ betrayal began with his rejection of Jesus’ teaching about His real presence in the Eucharist. In confirmation of this fact, Jesus said, “‘Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?’ He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve” (Jn 6: 70-71). The Eucharist is the Risen Jesus Himself in His glorified, and thus invisible, humanity. This is the essence of His teaching of the Eucharist (Jn 6: 62-63). By its death and resurrection, the humanity of Jesus takes on a divine nature; it assumes a new order of existence: “For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity, bodily” (Col 2: 9). In His glorified humanity, the Risen Jesus, becoming omnipresent, gives of Himself in the gift of the Eucharist. He shares with us His resurrected life and love that we may even here on earth experience the reality of heaven and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity.

Confronting the mystery of the Eucharist, human reason feels its impotence and limitations. In his encyclical devoted this sacrament, John Paul II writes: “‘The consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bead into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this change transubstantiation.’ Truly the Eucharist is a mysterium fidei, a mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith, as is often brought out in the catechesis of the Church Fathers regarding this divine sacrament: ‘Do not see—Saint Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts—in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are his body and his blood: faith assures you of this, though your senses suggest otherwise’” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 15).

The Eucharist is Christ’s supreme gift and miracle, for in it He gives us Himself and engages us in His work of salvation. He enables us to participate in His victory over death, sin, and Satan, share in the divine nature, and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity. In the Eucharist we receive “the medicine of immortality, the antidote to death” (EE, 18). For this reason, Mother Church holds that every deliberate and freely willed absence from Holy Mass on Sunday is an irretrievable spiritual loss, a sign of loss of faith, and hence a serious sin. Let us also remember that if “a Christian’s conscience is burdened by serious sin, then the path of penance through the sacrament of Reconciliation becomes necessary for full participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice” (EE, 37).

Fr. M. Piotrowski SChr

There will be further report on the validity of this.

SSPX DICI on Papa Bergolio in Argentina

15-03-2013

DICI obtained the opinion of Fr. Christian Bouchacourt, District Superior of South America, on the evening of the Pope’s election.

Cardinal Bergoglio wishes to be a poor man among the poor. He cultivates a militant humility, but can prove humiliating for the Church. His appearance in the loggia of St. Peter’s in a simple cassock without his rochet and mozzetta is a perfect illustration. He is a fine politician… And idealistic apostle of the poverty of the 70’s, he is completely turned towards the people, the poor, but without being a disciple of the theology of liberation.
Very conscious of the dilapidated state of his clergy, he did nothing to fix things. Never has the seminary of Buenos Aires had as few seminarians as today. It is a disaster, as have been the liturgies presided over by the “Cardinal of the Poor.” With him, we risk to see once again the masses of Paul VI’s pontificate, a far cry from Benedict XVI’s efforts to restore to their honor the worthy liturgical ceremonies.

He was firmly opposed to abortion. But while he wrote a beautiful letter to the Carmelites of Buenos Aires against the homosexual “marriage” bill – which was unfortunately voted through in the end – he had a regrettable discourse read during the protest against this bill, in which the name of Our Lord was not pronounced even once, while the Evangelistic pastor who spoke before him to excite the crowd delivered a more courageous discourse…(see DICI #219, July 24, 2010).

During an ecumenical meeting, he knelt to receive the blessing of two pastors.
He is a man of consensus, who hates confrontations. He kept his distance from the Catholics who denounced the blasphemous expositions that were held in Buenos Aires.

I have met him 5 or 6 times and he has always received me with benevolence, seeking to grant me what I wished, without going out of his way to overcome obstacles….

(sources : SSPX – DICI #272, March 15, 2013)

Leftist Attacks on Catholic Church in Spain and Argentina

Violent Attacks by Enemies of the Church Increase

(Madrid/Buenos Aires)  Two violent attacks against the Church and Catholics. Two events independent of one another in different places.  Nevertheless, there are significant connections.  In common there is a horrifying hatred of Christendom and the Catholic Church.

Argentina: Radical Feminists Attempt to Storm the Cathedral -- "The only enlightening Church is a burning Church"

From the 6th to the 8th of October, a national women's meeting (Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres), a finalist, lay and left organization, took place.  A group of 500 radical feminists poured through the streets with the demand of the decriminalization for the murder of unborn children, and damaged then schools, private homes, autos and memorials.  Finally the violent mob attempted to force their way into the Catholic Cathedral and let loose its destructive fury.  Young Catholics stood protecting the church and formed a peaceful human chain to prevent the profanation of the Cathedral.

The young Catholics prayed the rosary there and earned with that even more anger from the self-proclaimed "Battlers for Tolerance".  The feminist attackers smeared the faces and clothes of the Catholics with pain, which they humbly but undeservedly endured. (film report)

The left-extremist Church-haters could not get through the unit of young Catholics into the church,  still smeared the outer walls of the cathedral with slogans: "The only enlightening church is a burning church", "No God, no model, no husband", "Shit-church, you are a dictator".

The Bishop of Posada, Msgr Juan Ruben Martinze criticized the absence of the police, who did not comply to whose duty it is to keep order and offer protection.  The Bishop demanded prosecution for the aggression, which the young Catholics and the Church suffered.  Additionally he explained that the anti-Church hate slogans won't be removed for two days, so that the people could see them and think about them, about the methods and the level of their hatred for the Church.

Spain: Left-extremists attack Catholic School -- "We will burn the priests at the stake"

On October 17th 100 Left-extremists attempted to storm the Salesian Order operated Catholic school "Maria Auxiliadora" in Merida, Spain.  There are more than 1,100 students educated in the school.  The results are a few lightly wounded and damage from vandalism.

With flags and symbols of anarchistic and Left-extremist groups from the Spanish Civil War, youth attacked the school.  With loud speakers the attackers shouted anti-Church slogans:  "Where are the priests?  We want to burn them at the stake!", "More public schools, less crosses".  The faculty of the Catholic school were insulted wias "fascist whores".  Ten violent attackers managed to get into the school despite the efforts of teachers and security personnel.

The Salesians reported in complaints "against these violent groups", whose behavior "is unacceptable in a just country".  During the bloody Spanish Civil War (1936- 1939) the anti-Church groups murdered more than 4,000 priests, religious and Catholic laity because of their Faith.

Last August Left-extremists action group Pussy Riot desecrated the Russian Orthodox Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, which is the most important church of the Russian Orthodox, in order to promote their political ideas.  The feminists, who've never distanced themselves from their attacks, were condemned to two years in prison.  Of the three women, one was released from custody.  In the courts group memers entered with the symbols of the anti-Church popular front of the Spanish Civil War.  Various initiatives have been called for against the Russian group for their anti-Christian actions since the incarceration of Pussy Riot.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: UCCR/Libertad Digital
Translation to English: Tancred

Link to katholisches....

New Pro-Life Politician in Argentina

Channeling Evita Peron and Billy Graham.

Read further, here.