These were given by H.E. Most Rev. Gianfranco Girotti, who then was under-secretary at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and direct collaborator of Cardinal Ratzinger. On October 21 I went to the Forensic Analytical genetics laboratory in San Francisco, which was supposed to perform the analysis of the samples that I had brought. On January 28 of 2000 they found some fragments of human DNA in the samples, it was human blood that contained the human genetic code.
In March of 2000 I was informed that also the famous legal histopathologist Dr. Robert Lawrence, one of the top experts in tissues, would participate in this analysis. I feared for the participation of Dr. Robert Lawrence because this would have required some substantial costs which I would have had to bear myself, but I was told that they desired his collaboration because in the samples they had found some substances which resembled human tissues. Dr. Lawrence studied the samples and found in them human skin and white blood cells. In December of 2000 Dr. Lawrence told me that he could have obtained other samples of DNA.”
“In 2001 I went with my samples to Professor Linoli who identified the white blood cells and said to me that most probably the samples corresponded to heart tissue. The results obtained from the samples were similar to those of the studies performed on the Host of the Miracle of Lanciano. In 2002 we sent the sample to Professor John Walker at the University of Sydney in Australia who confirmed that the samples showed muscle cells and intact white blood cells and everyone knows that white blood cells outside our body disintegrate after 15 minutes and in this case 6 years had already passed.”
In September of 2003 I went again to Professor Robert Lawrence who confirmed that in the light of the new investigations one could conclude that the sample could correspond to the tissue of an inflamed heart.
The studies therefore had demonstrated that these tissues were of an inflamed heart: this meant
that the person to whom they belonged must have suffered a lot. To clarify our doubts, on March 2,
2004 we went to the greatest expert in cardiac pathologies and forensic medicine of the heart,
Professor Frederick Zugibe of New York, at Columbia University. The professor however did not know
that the sample I had brought to him came from a consecrated Host.
‘The sample which you brought me – Professor Zugibe said to me – is the muscle of the heart, of the
myocardium, it is precisely the left ventricle’ and he confirmed that my patient had suffered a lot. Then I asked him: ‘Doctor, why has my patient suffered a lot?’ He answered me: ‘Because your patient has some thrombi, at certain moments he could not breathe, oxygen did not reach him, he labored and suffered much because every aspiration was painful.
Probably they gave him a blow at the level of the chest. Moreover the heart showed dynamic activity (alive) at the moment when you brought me the sample.’ ‘Why, I ask him?’ ‘Because we found some intact white blood cells and white blood cells are transported only by the blood and thus if white blood cells are here it is because at the moment in which you brought me the sample it was pulsating.’
The professor then asked to whom this sample belonged and when we told him that it came from a consecrated Host he exclaimed: ‘I do not believe it.’ He was greatly moved. The same professor had shown to us in a book the case of one of his patients who showed the same lesions, similar to those of the sample that we had brought to him. The myocardium is the muscle that gives life to the whole heart and to our body.
Rightly a theologian made me note that the fact that it was really the myocardium, was not casual but it concealed a symbolism. The Lord in this miracle wanted to show us his myocardium, which is the muscle that gives life to the whole heart, just as the Eucharist does with the Church. And why the left ventricle? Because from it comes the purified blood and Jesus is the one Who purifies his Church from her sins. ‘Doctor – Professor Zugibe said to me again, at the moment in which you brought me this sample, this heart was alive!’
His report was sent out on March 26, 2005, 5 years and a half after the start of the studies and the conclusions were: ‘They are tissues of the heart, undergoing degenerative changes of the myocardium and these changes are due to the fact that the cells are inflamed and it is the left ventricle of the heart.’” On March 17, 2006 I brought the results to Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio.
FROM POSTER 1 TIXTLA
n October 21, 2006, the effusion of a reddish substance was noted from a consecrated Host during the Eucharistic Celebration at Tixtla, in the Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa. The Bishop of the place, Most Reverend Alejo Zavala Castro, then convened a Theological Commission of investigation and, in Oc- tober 2009, he invited Doctor Ricardo Castañón Gómez, to take on the leadership of the program of scientific research whose purpose was in fact that of verifying the said event. The Mexican Ecclesiastical authorities turned to Doctor Castañón Gómez be- cause they were aware that, in the years 1999-2006, the scientist had conducted some studies on two con- secrated Hosts that also bled in the Parish of Saint Mary, in Buenos Aires.
The Mexican case starts in October 2006, when Father Leopoldo Roque, pastor of the Parish of Saint Martin of Tours, invites Father Raymundo Reyna Esteban to lead a spiritual retreat for his parishioners. As Father Leopoldo and another priest were distributing Communion, assisted by a re- ligious sister who was to the left of Father Raymundo, this latter one turns towards him with the “pix” con- taining the Sacred Particles, looking at Father with eyes filled with tears, an incident that immediately at- tracted the attention of the celebrant: the Host that she had taken to give Communion to a lady parishioner had begun to effuse a reddish substance.
FROM POSTER 2 TIXTLA
The scientific research conducted between October 2009 and October 2012 came to the following conclusions, presented on May 25, 2013 during the course of an international Symposium held by the Diocese of Chilpancingo, on the occasion of the Year of Faith, and which saw the participation of millions of people coming from four continents.
“1. The reddish substance analyzed corresponds to blood in which there are hemoglobin and DNA of
human origin.
- Two studies conducted by eminent forensic experts with different methodologies have shown that
the substance originates from the interior, excluding the hypothesis that someone could have placed
it from the exterior.
- The blood type is AB, similar to the one found in the Host of Lanciano and in the Holy Shroud of Turin
- A microscopic analysis of magnification and penetration reveals that the superior part of the blood has been coagulated since October 2006. Moreover, the underlying internal layers reveal, in February 2010, the presence of fresh blood.
- They also found intact white blood cells, red blood cells, and active macrophages that engulf lipids. The tissue in question appears lacerated and with recovery mechanisms, exactly as occurs in a living tissue.
- A further histopathological analysis determines the presence of protein structures in a state of deterioration, suggesting mesenchymal cells, very specialized cells, characterized by an elevated bio- physiological dynamism.
- The immunohistochemical studies reveal that the tissue found corresponds to the muscle of the heart (Myocardium). On account of the scientific results and the conclusions reached by the theological committee, last October 12 the Bishop of Chilpancingo, his Eminence Alejo Zavala Castro, announced the following:
– The event does not have a natural explanation.
– It does not have paranormal origin.
– It is not traceable to manipulation of the enemy.”