The Stigmatists

The classical marks of the Passion

The complete stigmata reproduce the five principal wounds of the Crucified: two on the hands, two on the feet, one on the right side (the wound of the lance, Jn 19:34, without specification of the side in the verse). Many stigmatists additionally bear the marks of the crown of thorns (blood welling from the forehead), the weals of the flagellation (the back, sometimes the whole torso), and more rarely the sixth wound: the injury of the shoulder which corresponds, in Catholic mysticism, to the carrying of the cross^[4]. Some cases show only the wound of the side, as with Louise Lateau in the first weeks of her stigmatisation beginning in April 1868^[5].

The shape of the marks varies: depressions, wounds, circular or elongated traces must not be confused with one another. For Francis of Assisi, Thomas of Celano describes fleshy excrescences evoking nails; the witnesses of Anna Schäffer report small depressions in the palms^[6][7]. The comparison with the historical crucifixion of Christ — palms or wrists — must take account of this diversity, examined below.

Lasting or periodic marks

The stigmata occur in two different modes. Some are lasting: the marks persist for several years, with bleeding rhythms and a skin appearance that vary from person to person. The permanence of the marks does not mean that each wound remains open and bleeding at every moment. Such is the case of Padre Pio (fifty years, from 20 September 1918 until his death on 23 September 1968)^[8], of Thérèse Neumann (first wound on 5 March 1926, then the gradual appearance of the marks until 1929; died in 1962)^[9] and of Roque Jacinto Solaque, the young Colombian religious whose wounds remained open for the last seventeen months of his life without healing or infection, despite a tropical climate^[10].

Others are periodic: the marks appear and bleed at precise moments — most often on Friday, sometimes at the liturgical hours of the Passion (3 p.m., the traditional hour of Christ's death), sometimes during Holy Week alone. This is the classical mode of Louise Lateau (appearing every Friday from 24 April 1868^[11]), of Mother Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit (Laurentin and Mahéo estimate their cumulative duration at one or two hundred hours^[12]), or of Anna Schaffer (who receives her stigmata on 4 October 1910, the feast of Saint Francis, and who obtains through her prayer the withdrawal of the visible marks in 1918 — the pain, for its part, remains until her death in 1925)^[13].

Invisible stigmata: pain without outward mark

Spiritual accounts call invisible stigmata the pains of the Passion experienced without any apparent lesion. The distinction is decisive: an inner experience is documented by the person's testimony; a visible wound additionally allows external observation. Saint Faustine describes precisely the first case, on Good Friday, 26 March 1937:

"From the morning, I felt the Passion in my body: the five Wounds of Christ. [...] Although outwardly there is no trace, these sufferings are nonetheless painful." — Saint Faustina Kowalska, Little Diary, § 1054^[14]

This distinction illuminates the cases of Catherine of Siena and Anna Schäffer: the disappearance of the marks does not necessarily mean the end of the pains.

An enlarged phenomenology: what often accompanies the stigmata

The stigmata in the strict sense are frequently accompanied by a series of related phenomena that medical reports and diocesan investigations have documented. The main ones are as follows.

The sweating of blood (haematidrose) reproduces the episode of the Garden of Gethsemane (Lk 22:44): blood wells to the surface of the skin without an open wound. The phenomenon is exceptionally rare but described in the medical literature^[15]. It is distinct from tears of blood, observed at the eyes, and from the bleeding of a wound.

Bloody tears appear in several twentieth-century cases. With Thérèse Neumann, Dr Witry describes two trickles of blood along the edges of the lower conjunctivae^[16]. Professor Gottfried Ewald, who remains opposed to a supernatural explanation, likewise acknowledges the reality of the bleeding in his 1927 report:

"The spontaneous onset of the bleeding was observed by several doctors beyond any doubt, even with a magnifying glass. The quantity of blood could hardly have come from artificial intervention." — Pr Ewald, Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, no. 46, 1927^[17]

Haemographies refer to a phenomenon in which blood flowing from wounds traces sacred inscriptions, drawings (hearts, crosses, IHS) or even legible texts on bandaging cloths. Joachim Bouflet gives the technical definition:

"Haemography (literally "blood writing"): a phenomenon whereby the blood flowing from wounds — most often stigmata — traces on cloths letters forming sacred inscriptions or draws emblematic figures: hearts, cross, fish, etc." — Joachim Bouflet, _Enquête sur les stigmatisés*, Artège, 2024, p. 189, n. 1^[18]

The best-documented case is that of Natuzza Evolo (1924-2009), a Calabrian housewife whose cloths bear inscriptions in Italian, Greek, Latin, Aramaic and French — five languages listed by Bouflet, who emphasises her lack of schooling^[19].

Counter-gravitational flow is one of the most puzzling phenomena. With Marie-Domenica Lazzari, a Tyrolean mystic († 1848), as with the Servant of God Helena Charithaya of Sri Lanka († 1931), doctors observed that the blood rises from the feet up the legs, and from the hands to the elbows, contrary to the laws of gravity^[20]. Bouflet reports these historical observations; they concern the direction of the flow in the positions described by the witnesses.

Finally, several cases attest to a sweet fragrance given off by the wounds, the blood-stained cloths or the body after death, with no identifiable fragrant substance in the cited testimonies. With young Roque Solaque, both the two doctors who examined his wounds and the person in charge of his laundry attest to a persistent rose fragrance that nothing explains^[21]. With Padre Pio, hundreds of faithful have testified to smelling this fragrance before or after their confession, sometimes kilometres from the convent. Without making either a dogma or a proof of it, the Church has noted these convergences in several canonical processes.

A frontal cross is described with Filomena Carnevale, an Italian mystic who died in 1959: Bouflet reports a skin mark that bled on Fridays during the last four years of her life. He then quotes Anna Maria Turi: "The cross was said to have been seen engraved in the frontal bone." Turi states that she received an autopsy report from Dr Lorenzo Di Cio and mentions a photograph. Neither the photograph nor the report is reproduced in this passage: the bone peculiarity remains an allegation reported in the conditional.^[22]

The absence of infection reported in several cases

Laurentin and Mahéo note the absence of secondary infection in the Yvonne-Aimée case; Bouflet reports the same observation for Roque Solaque's long-open wounds^[23][24]. This finding must be considered alongside the conditions of monitoring and the care received. An open wound carries an infectious risk, but infection and then sepsis are not an automatic outcome within a few days^[25]. This point is one of the indicators that diocesan inquiries retain as pointing to an extraordinary phenomenon — without presenting it as formal proof: the recognition of a physical phenomenon and the judgement on holiness being two distinct steps.

No attested case before Saint Francis

Francis of Assisi is the first case of Christian stigmatisation widely documented by close witnesses and by early biographies. In his 1912 synthesis, Augustin Poulain retains no case earlier than the thirteenth century^[26]. The word used by Saint Paul in Galatians 6:17 does not, by itself, describe five wounds reproducing those of the Crucified.

This historical marker does not allow the cause of the stigmata to be deduced. It locates the appearance of a documented phenomenon within the growth of devotion to the suffering humanity of Christ; its origin must then be examined in the light of the facts proper to each person.

Aimé Michel links this case to an ancient tradition concerning Epimenides of Knossos: according to the Suda, his skin was found marked with signs after his death. Michel notes a lexical kinship with the word "stigma", while making clear that what these signs represented is unknown. This account therefore does not describe wounds reproducing those of the Crucified and does not establish a precedent for Christian stigmatisation.^[27]

Saint Francis at La Verna (14 September 1224)

It was on Mount La Verna, in Tuscany, two years before his death, that Saint Francis of Assisi received the stigmata on 14 September 1224, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. The scene is reported both by Thomas of Celano (first official biographer, Vita prima, 1228) and by Saint Bonaventure (Legenda major, 1263). Thomas of Celano thus describes the wounds on Francis's body:

"His hands and feet seemed pierced through the middle by nails: the heads of the nails appeared on the inside of the hands and on the upper surface of the feet, and their points on the outside. These marks were round on the inside of the hands, and elongated on the outer surface; and certain small pieces of flesh protruded, like the points of nails bent and curved back. Likewise his right side, as if it had been pierced by a lance, bore a reddish scar, from which blood often flowed, so that his tunic and breeches were many times soaked with this blood." — Thomas of Celano, Vita prima sancti Francisci, II, ix, no. 95, 1228^[28]

The detail matters: Celano does not merely say "wounds"; he describes callous growths shaped like the heads and points of folded nails. This precise anatomical description sets his testimony apart from a simple mention of injuries. Pope Francis marked the 800th anniversary of this event with an address to the Friars Minor of the Tuscan province and of La Verna on 5 April 2024:

"They are also a sign of the Easter victory." — Pope Francis, address to the Friars Minor of La Verna, 5 April 2024^[29]

The address thus links the Passion to the Resurrection. The wounds recall the suffering endured out of love and become an image of mercy that reaches out to humankind.

A precise context: medieval devotion to the Passion

The late appearance of the stigmata is not a historical accident: it corresponds to a spiritual turning point of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries known as the devotion to the Passion. Before this period, Christian art overwhelmingly depicts the Christus Triumphans, the victorious and royal Christ on the cross, clothed and impassible. From Saint Bernard of Clairvaux († 1153) onward, through the Carthusians, the Cistercians and above all the Franciscans, the Christus Patiens comes to the fore: the suffering, stripped Christ, whose every wound is meditated upon. This is the era when the Stations of the Cross, the devotion to the Five Wounds, the cult of the Precious Blood, and the Gothic depictions of the emaciated Crucified appear. The stigmata emerge in this climate — not as the mechanical effect of intense meditation (otherwise they would have appeared just as much in the Byzantine East), but as a grace by which Christ configures certain souls to his Passion.

Imbert-Gourbeyre's count (1894)

The standard statistical study dates from the late nineteenth century. Dr Antoine Imbert-Gourbeyre (1818–1912), professor at the medical faculty of Clermont-Ferrand, published in 1894 a two-volume work: La Stigmatisation, l'extase divine et les miracles de Lourdes, réponse aux libres-penseurs. In it, after decades of combing through diocesan archives and the Bollandists, he compiled a list of 321 stigmatized people since the thirteenth century^[30][31]. The Catholic Encyclopedia repeated his figures in 1912:

The work was reissued by Joachim Bouflet in 1996, by Jérôme Millon (Grenoble), with a critical apparatus and an updated bibliography^[32]. It is a historical census of cases retained by the author, not a statistic covering the entire Catholic population.

Tanquerey repeats this count, attributing it to the “Doctor Imbert,” but calls the 62 stigmatized people singled out in his list “canonized.” He thus passes on the same old count, without constituting an independent inquiry.^[33]

The breakdown gives 87 % women and 13 % men. It describes the corpus assembled by Imbert-Gourbeyre: without knowing the reporting practices and available archives, it does not measure a biological probability by sex. Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio and Roque Solaque illustrate the presence of male cases in different periods and settings.

The 62 saints or blesseds represent nearly a fifth of this list. This comparison does not prove that the stigmata make one a saint: the census precisely favors people whose religious life attracted attention. One must also distinguish this old catalogue from a contemporary survey of canonization causes.

Joachim Bouflet, a consultant for the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, states in 2024:

“In 2024, some fifty canonization causes of stigmatized people who died in the twentieth century are underway, following the canonizations of Gemma Galgani (1878–1903), Anna Schaffer (1882–1925), Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan (1873–1926) and Francesco Forgione (Pio da Pietrelcina, 1887–1968). They concern seven blesseds, eight venerables, twenty-nine Servants of God and two Servants of God, to which are added some ten cases under study.” — Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 7^[34]

Bouflet's survey describes the state of the causes in 2024. His final list distinguishes people already canonized, causes open at different stages and cases still under study: these categories must not be added together as if they all represented new inquiries^[35].

A quick overview of the main historical figures, with links to dedicated articles for the best-known cases. This gallery makes no claim to be exhaustive — the complete prosopographical list of twentieth-century stigmatists alone already fills six dense pages in Bouflet 2024^[36].

Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

The great Dominican mystic receives the stigmata at Pisa on 1 April 1375. Raymond of Capua, her confessor, reports the rays emanating from the crucifix and her prayer that the marks might remain invisible; Paul VI repeats this account when he proclaims her a Doctor of the Church in 1970^[37]. Pain and conformity to the Crucified lie at the heart of this testimony. Domenico Beccafumi depicts the episode in an altarpiece of 1514-1515, kept in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Siena^[38]. Catherine had been canonized in 1461.

Saint Lidwina of Schiedam (1380-1433)

A mystic from Schiedam, in the Netherlands, Lidwina is permanently injured after a skating fall in 1395, at the age of fourteen. She remains ill until her death, thirty-eight years later. Huysmans, drawing on her earlier biographers in Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam (1901), reports stigmata that she strives to conceal, particularly on her left hand. The thirty-eight years refer to her illness, not to an attested duration of bearing the stigmata. Leo XIII confirmed her cult on 14 March 1890^[39].

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)

A German Augustinian, visionary of the Passion, Anne Catherine Emmerich receives her stigmata on 29 December 1812, a month after a bloody cross appeared on her breast on 25 November. The diocesan inquiry is conducted by Vicar General Droste, the civil inquiry by Sub-prefect Bönninghausen, from 3 to 29 August 1819. A commission gathering six physicians, a pharmacist, the mayor of Dülmen, and a noted nurse concludes, after day-and-night observation, that there is no trace of any fraud^[40]. The poet Clemens Brentano transcribes her visions of the Passion, which in 2004 would inspire Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. Emmerich was beatified by John Paul II on 3 October 2004.

Marie-Domenica Lazzari (1815-1848)

Known in her Tyrolean village as l'Addolorata di Capriana, Marie-Domenica receives her stigmata in May 1835. Her case is one of the best studied of the nineteenth century: Dr. Leonardo Cloch, the region's chief military and civilian physician, follows the patient for thirteen years; Dr. Antonio Faes, a professor at the University of Padua, comes to examine her; three medical congresses are held in succession at Naples (1845), Genoa (1846), and Venice (1847) to discuss the phenomenon^[41]. The physicians note a troubling detail: the blood flows from the feet upward along the legs, contrary to the laws of gravity — a phenomenon that Cloch records in the Annales universelles de médecine in 1837 without being able to explain it.

Louise Lateau (1850-1883)

A Belgian mystic from Bois-d'Haine, Louise Lateau displays stigmata from 24 April 1868. On 21 and 22 January 1875, Dr. Évariste Warlomont, rapporteur of a commission of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, conducts the sealed crystal globe experiment: the right hand bleeds inside the apparatus, whose seals remain intact. The commission upholds the reality of the stigmata, while attributing them to a "stigmatic neuropathy"^[42]. The full case is treated in the dedicated article The Stigmata of Louise Lateau.

Marie-Julie Jahenny (1850-1941)

A Breton peasant woman from La Fraudais (Loire-Inférieure), Marie-Julie Jahenny receives her stigmata in March 1873. Her case is marked by a particularly rich phenomenology: stigmata of the five wounds, crown of thorns, marks of the scourging, prolonged inedia, a croix de Vendée that appeared raised on her breast, prophecies (the famous prophecies of La Fraudais) announcing persecutions and a return to the faith. The case was the subject of a lengthy diocesan inquiry under Bishop Fournier (Bishop of Nantes 1870-1877), then Bishop Le Coq (1877-1893). See the dedicated article Marie-Julie Jahenny.

Saint Gemma Galgani (1878-1903)

A young Italian laywoman from Lucca, who died of tuberculosis at twenty-five, Gemma Galgani receives her stigmata in June 1899, on the 8th of the month according to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. Her account describes a recurrence from Thursday evening to Friday at 3 p.m., then, for a period, almost daily^[43]. She writes a Journal and an Autobiography of rare spiritual quality. Beatified in 1933, canonized in 1940 by Pius XII — the first canonized stigmatist of the twentieth century.

Saint Padre Pio (1887-1968)

A Capuchin from San Giovanni Rotondo (Apulia), Francesco Forgione (Padre Pio) receives the stigmata permanently on 20 September 1918 — he would bear them for fifty years, until his death on 23 September 1968. Examined by numerous physicians (Dr. Romanelli in 1919, Dr. Bignami in 1919, Dr. Festa in 1925), he was initially diagnosed as a hysterical man or a fraud by the Franciscan physician-psychologist Father Agostino Gemelli in a note sent to the Holy Office in April 1920 — without Gemelli ever having examined the wounds. Gradually rehabilitated from the 1950s onward, Padre Pio is beatified on 2 May 1999 and canonized on 16 June 2002 by Saint John Paul II^[44]. See the dedicated article The Stigmata of Padre Pio.

Mother Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit (1901-1951)

An Augustinian religious, superior of the monastery of Malestroit (Brittany), Yvonne Beauvais, in religion Mother Yvonne-Aimée of Jesus, experiences her first stigmatic pains on Friday 22 February 1924 in Paris, and her visible stigmata from that date onward. Two contemporary and independent testimonies attest to this first episode: Yvonne herself writes the very next day, "Yesterday, I suffered martyrdom throughout my body, from 2:15 to 3:00. [...] it seemed to me that they were being pierced. [...] When 3 o'clock struck, my heart, it seems, began to beat very strongly"^[45]; the same evening, her sister religious Jeanne Boiszenou records in her journal: "Her state of suffering seemed very great, her arms and above all her hands [...] had the coldness and rigidity of death. [...] the heart was beating violently, to such a degree that it visibly moved the clothing and the shawl with which Aimée was covered."^[46] She then strives to conceal her stigmata throughout her religious life: the wound in her side is generally hidden beneath a bandage, and the visible bleedings are observed only by a small circle of confidantes and spiritual directors^[47].

The Witnesses and Documented Episodes

René Laurentin and Dr Patrick Mahéo devoted a complete medico-theological investigation to this case, published in 1988 with the authorization of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They record 90 witnesses who attested to stigmatic episodes, amounting to 167 documented episodes between 1924 and 1951 — a figure the authors carefully distinguish from an extrapolation: if Yvonne-Aimée did indeed receive the stigmata almost every Friday for twenty-seven years, the real total would exceed a thousand, but only the 167 episodes are attested by a precise documentary record^[48]. They also draw up a numerical topography of the marks. The following lines enumerate observed locations, possibly concurrent: their sum does not constitute a total of distinct episodes^[49].

Laurentin and Mahéo state the methodological limitation of the case file with rare frankness:

"It will therefore start from clinical observation, but with limited means, since the witnesses (including two doctors: Doctor Loth and Doctor Michel de la Chevasnerie) did not pursue observation in a scientific manner. We know the stigmata of Yvonne-Aimée only through written and oral eyewitness accounts." — René Laurentin and Dr Patrick Mahéo, Les stigmates d'Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit dans le sillage de François d'Assise, O.E.I.L., 1988, p. 115-116^[50]

The Yvonne-Aimée case file is therefore massive in testimonial terms, but it rests on no material examination of the wounds comparable to Warlomont's sealed globe — here, the convergence of accounts constitutes the documentary evidence to be examined, distinct from an instrumented clinical study.

Good Friday 1927 and the clinical observations

One particularly well-documented episode is that of Good Friday, 8 April 1927, documented by three independent and contemporary records: the diary of Mother Ange Gardien, the notebook of Mother Marie-Anne, and a letter from Abbé Bruneau to the auxiliary bishop of Vannes dated 9 April. Mother Marie-Anne describes:

"Then she had what seemed like a final spasm, and for two minutes, watch in hand, she remained motionless, without pulse, without heartbeat. When the time was up, she came back to herself." — Mother Marie-Anne, cited in Laurentin and Mahéo, op. cit., p. 69^[51]

Abbé Bruneau, however, states that he perceived very faint breathing during the episode^[52]: one must therefore refrain from speaking of "clinical death," in the absence of medical instrumentation, and confine oneself to the attested fact — absence of pulse and of perceptible heartbeat for two minutes, watch in hand. On the persistence of the marks, the witnesses themselves temper a too-mechanical reading: Mother Marie-Anne reports in 1957 that the wounds "healed very quickly and left only a thin scar," while Sister Marie de la Croix states in 1969 that the visible stigmata appeared "only during Holy Week, and even then not every time"^[53].

The pathological hypotheses were examined and dismissed by named clinicians. Self-mutilation runs up against the fact that "many witnesses, often critical, saw the blood flows occur before their eyes, as circumstances happened to have it [...] independently of any action on Yvonne's part"^[54]. Regarding the historical experiments in hypnosis, Laurentin and Mahéo take up Imbert-Gourbeyre's distinction between fleeting redness or droplets and wounds with cyclic hemorrhages^[55]. Consulted by Father de Tonquédec on the hypothesis of hysteria, the psychiatrist Dr Vinchon replies bluntly: "She has absolutely nothing of a hysteric"^[56]. The neuropsychiatrist Dr Henri Daussy, who attended the Malestroit clinic from 1945 to 1951, attests in writing on 6 June 1972 to "the absence of hysteria [...], the absence of simulation, of dolorism or of artifices [...], the absence of neurosis"^[57]. Clinically, the wounds present the same profile as in the other major case files: "spontaneous disappearance of bleedings and wounds, no secondary infection, no medical treatment"^[58], a profile also discussed by the dermatologist Professor Bolgert before the Académie nationale de médecine in 1981^[59].

Laurentin and Mahéo conclude with the methodological prudence that characterizes their entire work:

"The 167 episodes described over 24 years by 90 different witnesses call for pathological conclusions all the less, in that some witnesses had a rigorously critical mind, armored with reductionist hypotheses [...] : notably Mgr Picaud and above all Father de Tonquédec, perplexed before so many facts, whose natural explanation he sought in vain. Moreover, the witnesses never contradict one another; they agree without flaw, among themselves and with what Yvonne-Aimée feels." — Laurentin and Mahéo, op. cit., p. 142-143^[60]

The bringing forth of flowers and the publication of the case file

Her case also includes a rare phenomenon attested by several witnesses: flowers come forth from the stigmata, particularly from the wound in the heart. The canonical deposition of Sister Marie de la Croix, dated 1956, reports it thus:

"Our Mother, lying in her bed, seemed to be suffering greatly [...]. She parted her shift a little, at the place of the heart: I saw a small piece of stem emerging from the wound of the heart with difficulty. Then our Mother pulled to literally tear out a large, splendid carnation, blood-red. She pulled it out and placed it on the bedside table, saying: 'Ah, that's better. It was suffocating me' [...]." — Sister Marie de la Croix, deposition for the informative process of Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit, 1956^[61]

The authors record seven occurrences of flowers brought forth from the side or the mouth, in their synthesis of concurrent phenomena^[62]. The informative process was opened on 4 March 1959. The investigation of Laurentin and Mahéo was itself published with a precisely documented Roman authorization: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, authorizes René Laurentin by letter of 9 July 1986 (protocol 336/55) "to publish, under [his] own responsibility, the [...] works concerning the life and writings of this religious"^[63]; the nihil obstat follows on 26 January 1988, the imprimatur on 3 February 1988 by the bishop of Vannes. This authorization is editorial and not doctrinal: it permits publication under the author's responsibility; it constitutes neither a recognition of the supernatural character of the stigmata nor a judgment on the heroism of the virtues — two questions that the process now underway, currently at the stage of Servant of God, will have to settle separately.

Thérèse Neumann (1898-1962)

Bavarian mystic of Konnersreuth, Thérèse Neumann showed a first wound on her side on 5 March 1926, then marks on her hands and feet on 2 April 1926; the inner faces were affected on 15 April 1927. Observations continued until her death on 18 September 1962^[64]. Her file includes the July 1927 examination, observations by physicians such as Seidl, Ewald, Witry and Urban, as well as those of the historian and journalist Fritz Gerlich. The counter-examination by Professor Martini in March 1928 and the responses it provoked are examined in the dedicated article The Stigmata of Thérèse Neumann.

Venerable Marthe Robin (1902-1981)

A mystic from the Drôme department and founder of the Foyers de Charité, Marthe Robin received her stigmata in October 1930, at the age of twenty-eight, after a long illness that left her paralysed. For more than fifty years (from 1930 to 1981), she relived the Passion of Christ every Friday; during the last period of her life she lived shut away in a darkened room, her eyes no longer able to bear light. Decree of heroic virtue signed by Pope Francis on 7 November 2014 — she is venerable. Her cause is distinguished by the extent of the medical testimonies and by the spiritual quality of the Foyers de Charité, which continue her work.

In his 2024 investigation, Bouflet notes that alongside the five or six iconic figures — Francis, Catherine, Padre Pio, Marthe Robin, Thérèse Neumann — Catholic mysticism knows some fifty cases from the twentieth century alone, with ecclesial files opened and investigated, that remain virtually unknown to the French-speaking general public. The present section offers a selection of them.

Saint Anna Schäffer (1882-1925)

A Bavarian laywoman and Secular Franciscan, Anna Schaffer received her stigmata on 4 October 1910, the feast of Saint Francis. She was twenty-eight years old. She had been bedridden since 4 February 1901, after a fall into boiling lye that burned her legs^[65]. Anna Schaffer underwent some thirty surgical operations, including failed skin grafts and cauterisations, all without success. Her attending physician was Dr Wäldin of Mindelstetten, and she was hospitalised at the university clinic in Erlangen.

Two direct witnesses corroborate the permanence of otherwise discreet marks. Rosa Imlauer, a relative and housekeeper of Father Rieger, testified:

« When I sat near her, Anna would often take my hands and, pressing them against her palms, she would moan: "Rosa, my hands, my feet! The pains I endure in my hands and feet are far, far greater than those of my wounds." Yet nothing out of the ordinary could be noticed [...] Her hands were burning, literally, and in the palms of her hands she had small depressions. » — Rosa Imlauer, testimony reported by Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 23^[66]

Father Rieger confirmed:

« In the hollow of the hands there was a slight bluish depression. These marks in her palms could be seen until her death. » — Father Rieger, testimony reported by Bouflet, p. 24^[67]

Bouflet reports a late testimony concerning the 1901 accident: in 1932, seven years after Anna Schäffer's death, her colleague Anna Kreuzer admitted to having bumped into her. She confided in her replacement, Anna Weiß, who, troubled, confided in her confessor; he had her sign a sworn deposition^[68].

During the visions that accompanied her, Christ told her that He had chosen her as a « victim of expiation » to make reparation for the outrages done to the Blessed Sacrament. Five rays of fire springing from the host came to touch her hands, her feet and her heart. She also received, on Ash Wednesday 1 March 1922, an invisible crown of thorns — announced in 1918 by a vision of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus^[69]. Informative process opened on 17 March 1973, decree of heroic virtue on 11 July 1995, beatification on 7 March 1999 by John Paul II^[70], canonisation on 21 October 2012 by Benedict XVI.

Servant of God Helena Charithaya (1848-1931)

An almost unknown pearl: the Sri Lankan mystic Vithana Appuhamylage Dona Elena Pereradite, known as Charithaya (« the charitable one »). Born on 18 October 1848 in Gonawila (Bolawatta district, British Ceylon), daughter of a Buddhist convert who later apostatised, baptised on 18 March 1849. Illiterate until she entered the group of consecrated laywomen in 1868 — her companions taught her to read; she would never learn to write.

First marks on her heart and head from 12 October 1870; bleeding from the forehead and the right side from 15 November; stigmata fully manifested on Christmas Eve 1870, in the sacristy; hands and feet bled on Good Friday 1871^[71]. Every Friday, she relived the Passion in three successive crucifixions, at 6 a.m., 12 noon and 3 p.m., each with its own intention: personal sanctification, sanctification of the clergy, conversion of sinners and light for non-Christians.

The medical examination was rigorous: Dr Dias, chief physician of the Kurunegala hospital, a Protestant, examined her in March 1872 at the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Family. He observed oval marks of 1.5 × 1.25 cm on the palms, wider on the feet, a horizontal mark on the right side of 5 cm, and bleeding of about 3 cm³ per stigma observed in the height of ecstasy. During the ecstasy, the pulse rose to 100, the eyeballs were rolled back, and the teeth could not be pried apart. A physician (not Dias) held a cloth soaked in ammonia under her nose in the height of ecstasy, on 2 January 1872: no immediate reaction; she remained inconvenienced by it for two days afterwards^[72].

The guarantor bishop is Mgr Christophe Bonjean, Oblate of Mary Immaculate, Apostolic Vicar of Jaffna. He declared on 12 May 1872, in a letter to Father García:

« I have not been able to detect in her, in her actions and character, the slightest sign of fraud or imposture, and I consequently have no reason not to hold her for a sincere and honest devout faithful. » — Mgr Christophe Bonjean, letter to Father García, 12 May 1872^[73]

Bouflet then reports a total inedia from November 1871, as well as bilocations and readings of consciences^[74]. A fragrance of roses persisted after her death on 8 February 1931. Cause introduced by Mgr Valence Mendis, Bishop of Chilaw, in July 2015; rescript of the Nihil obstat on 19 May 2016. She could become the first saint of Sri Lanka.

Servant of God Maria Luisa Zancajo de la Mata (1911-1954)

The most extreme Spanish case of the 20th century, in terms of phenomenology. Born on 4 November 1911 in Sinlabajos, founder in Madrid in 1941 of the Missionaries of Charity and Providence. Stigmatised during Lent 1949. During Holy Week, her ecstasies lasted from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Hands, feet, wound of the side « so wide and deep that one could put a hand into it », crown of thorns covering the face « like a mask ». The heart rose to 300 beats per minute, and blood loss was estimated at about a litre per episode^[75].

Her phenomenology also included: diabolical attacks of unheard-of violence (the demon nicknamed el Calvo, « the Bald One » — scratching, biting, strangling), bilocation (on 7 December 1950, transported instantly from Madrid to Hellín, 300 km away), passing through walls, interior fire that burned her clothes in the shape of a heart, bleeding hosts, statues of the Sacred Heart that opened their wounds, apports (materialisations) of train tickets and medals, permanent sweet fragrance. Everything was documented by Father Manuel Soria Agudo, her spiritual director, with photographs and films^[76]. Decree of validity of the diocesan process on 21 June 2013. She is a servant of God.

Servant of God Natuzza Evolo (1924-2009)

A Calabrian mother of five, married to Pasquale Nicolace, Fortunata "Natuzza" Evolo is known as Mamma Natuzza in her village of Paravati in Calabria. Annual stigmatisation during Holy Week. Her phenomenology includes a phenomenon that is almost unique in the history of Catholic mysticism: the hemographies.

Her blood, flowing from the wounds onto the bandaging cloths, spontaneously traces sacred inscriptions and legible drawings in Italian, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, and French — five languages listed by Bouflet, who stresses her lack of schooling^[77]. The first attested case dates from December 1939 (she was fifteen), on the gauze of a bandage. The phenomenon would repeat itself hundreds of times until her death.

Diagnosed as hysterical by Father Agostino Gemelli in his reply to Bishop Albera, who had submitted the case to him on 18 February 1940 — before any direct examination, exactly as Gemelli had done regarding Padre Pio in 1920^[78]. Yet Gemelli himself relativises his own diagnosis in the same letter:

"From this statement, Your Excellency will hold that from my point of view [Natuzza] Evolo is nothing but a hysterical patient. This is merely an impression; it is not possible for me to give a definitive judgement without a thorough examination of the subject in question." — Father Agostino Gemelli, letter to Bishop Albera, cited in Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 190^[79]

The admission is decisive: the diagnostician himself qualifies his judgement as an impression, not an examination. Committed for three months to the psychiatric hospital of Reggio Calabria under Professor Annibale Puca, Natuzza remains under the supervision of a team that, according to Bouflet, uncovers no fraud. Puca nevertheless maintains the diagnosis of hysteria^[80]. The discernment is refined over several decades: a debate held on 19 April 1985 at the Pontifical Lateran University, based on a filmed report on her case, concludes that her experience is in conformity with the Church's tradition and rules out any spiritist interference in her reported relations with the deceased^[81]. From the 1980s onward, under Bishop Cortese and then Bishop Renzo, the Calabrian Church recognises the spiritual fruitfulness of the case: an association under ecclesiastical auspices is founded in 1987, followed by a home for the elderly (1992), a shelter for sick priests and young people in difficulty, a centre for drug addicts, and healthcare facilities. The funeral draws 35,000 faithful, eight bishops, and 120 priests; Bishop Renzo there delivers the word that sums up the entire dossier:

"Extraordinary phenomena, if you will allow me to say so, however striking and even sensational they may be to us, always remain marginal. Natuzza is not great because of them, however manifest they may be. [...] Natuzza is great through her faith, through her love, through her unreserved 'yes'..." — Bishop Renzo, homily at the funeral of Natuzza Evolo, cited in Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 197^[82]

Diocesan process opened on 6 April 2019.

Amalia Aguirre (†1977)

A Brazilian religious sister stationed in Campinas (State of São Paulo), Sister Amalia Aguirre shows her first stigmatic signs on 17 August 1928. The Bishop of Campinas, Dom Francisco de Campos Barreto, opts for an unusual strategy of transparency: he has the account of the ongoing inquiry published, in seventeen unsigned articles appearing between 13 November and 8 December 1928 in the diocesan daily Correio Popular.

"On 17 August the first stigmatic signs appeared, similar to those borne by Saint Francis of Assisi and Gemma Galgani: the religious presented bleeding wounds on both hands, on the back as well as on the palms, at the exact places where the hands of Jesus were pierced by the nails." — Dom Francisco de Campos Barreto, Correio Popular, cited in Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 95^[83]

The bishop subjects the religious sister to an examination by a commission of three appointed doctors — Doctors Benedicto da Cunha Campolas, Clovis Monteiro Peixoto, and José Falcao de Miranda, all members of the Society of Medicine and Surgery of Campinas. After three months of observation, the practitioners conclude that she is in perfect physical and mental health, that there is no fraud whatsoever, and that it is medically impossible to explain the wounds^[84].

The case was later criticised by the Italian psychotherapist Marco Margnelli (1939-2005), who wrote that after this enthusiastic act by the bishop, the file simply vanished from the chronicles — insinuating a discreet burial ordered from Rome^[85]. Bouflet answers the objection directly by showing that it is factually inaccurate: the case continues to be documented in November 1929 (a cure obtained through the intercession of Sister Amalia) and in March 1930 (Marian apparitions linked to the same shrine)^[86]. This is a clear example of Bouflet's method: quoting the objection in its strongest form, with its precise references, then confronting it with dated facts. Amalia Aguirre died in 1977; Bouflet classifies her cause among the cases under study in 2024^[87].

Servant of God Wanda Boniszewska (1907-2003)

For Wanda Boniszewska, a Polish religious sister of the Sisters of the Angels of Vilnius, her congregation's notice places the stigmatic pains in 1927, and the first outward marks in 1933. Bouflet, for his part, describes an apparition in confession with the opening of wounds on 7 April 1934^[88][89]. The wounds are only discovered by chance by a priest — probably Father Antoni Ząbek, according to Bouflet — and a nurse sister on 2 January 1935; just three people keep the secret at that time, for nearly ten years — a delay that rules out any quest for publicity from the outset. Placed under medical observation in 1943-1944, she receives a contradictory diagnosis: the practitioners judge the wounds to be of natural origin, and a psychiatrist declares her to be of "psychopathic constitution"; sent to a hospice for incurables and then to the psychiatric hospital of Chorzów, she is discharged after just one week, the doctors finding her perfectly sound of mind^[90]. Her life then takes a tragic turn typical of the 20th century: arrested on 11 April 1950 by the Soviet services in the Vilnius region^[91], accused of being a Vatican agent, she is sentenced to ten years in a camp for her correspondence with imprisoned priests. She spends six years (1950-1956) in the Soviet camp system, where her stigmata continue to appear without her jailers' knowledge — her wardresses eventually grow frightened of them^[92]. Rehabilitated on 22 August 1956^[93], she then experiences, according to Bouflet, the complete disappearance of her stigmata in 1980, together with the cessation of the signs accompanying her ecstasies^[94]. Her congregation's notice, however, places the absence of outward marks after her return from captivity and indicates that the exact date of their disappearance remains undetermined^[95]. Wanda then lives a discreet life until her death in 2003. Diocesan inquiry opened on 9 November 2020 by the diocese of Warsaw, following the Roman nihil obstat. The Polish film Stygmatyczka by Grzegorz Łoszewski (2007), based on her memoirs, brought her case to public attention in Poland.

Servant of God Maria « Ionela » Cotoi (1927-2018)

Extraordinary and politically decisive Romanian case: Maria Cotoi, in religion Ionela, foundress of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, of Byzantine-Rite (Greek Catholic) faith. Examined from 10 May to 28 July 1949 under the roof of the apostolic nunciature in Bucharest with the personal permission of Pius XII, by the nuncio Mgr Gerald O'Hara, three doctors and a supervising nun (Sister Maria Clara). The detailed report, preserved in the apostolic archives, describes:

• bloody sweat at Gethsemane (Thursday evening),
• traces of flagellation: "the skin was as if shredded by pincers, and her body was so covered in bruises that one could not have placed a finger between them",
• crown of thorns,
• wounds on the hands and feet, 3 cm in diameter,
• side wound of 6 cm,
• a "sixth wound" on the left shoulder, below the nape of the neck, caused by the carrying of the cross — a rare iconographic detail, attested in Catholic mysticism in only a few cases^[96].

For eleven weeks, total inedia and weight gain (from 50 to 52 kg, without food or drink). Persecuted by the communists: arrested on 30 January 1951, thrown into an oubliette fifteen days later to die of starvation, she survives two months without food or drink; the terrified jailers stop mistreating her^[97]. Amnestied in 1954, re-arrested in 1959, five further years of prison, released in 1964. Bouflet 2024 devotes the book's final chapter to her.

Servant of God Roque Jacinto Solaque (1968-1996)

A young stigmatized man whose cause Bouflet presents among the twentieth-century dossiers. Colombian, an Andean peasant from Junín, a religious of the community of the Sons of the Mother of God under the name Roque (Roch). The pains of the Passion appeared in the night of 12 to 13 October, around 2 a.m. — "like an incandescent awl, a stylus with a fine point, passing through his hands and feet", according to the solemn testimony of Mgr Gregorio Garavito Jiménez, bishop of Villavicencio^[98]. Bouflet gives a duration of seventeen months for the permanent wounds before Roque's death on 25 March 1996^[99]. The stigmata remained permanently open during these last seventeen months, without healing or infection.

The community's first reaction was prudence, not enthusiasm:

"After questioning him, they are disconcerted by the simplicity and concision of his answers, and the superior of the community, Jorge Hernando Vega, informs the bishop to know what attitude to adopt. The latter [...] recommends a very clear line of conduct: prudence, discretion, prayer... and medical examinations. These reveal nothing in particular — Roque is perfectly normal, both psychologically and physically — so much so that it is simply decided to provide him with conditions of solitude and silence suited to fostering his experience, and to attach to him a 'guardian angel' charged with assisting him in the community's exercises and daily tasks." — Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 165^[100]

Roque was then examined by two doctors, including Dr Claudia Regía, who spent three months with him and described him as an active and fully cooperative patient. The wounds, constantly open, showed no healing process and never became infected^[101]. Blood tests, repeated frequently, revealed extreme hypoglycaemia each time, judged incompatible with life^[102].

Related phenomena: total paralysis of the legs, violent diabolical attacks (thrown against the toilet, wheelchair hurled, strangulation with a curtain, six metal dental prostheses destroyed — finding of the odontologist Myriam Reyes). Roque dies on 25 March 1996 (the day of the Annunciation, a date he had announced in advance), at the age of 27. At his death, his room fills with "thousands of multicoloured butterflies", and the stigmata close instantly into fine dry slits^[103]. Mgr Garavito (d. 2016) summarizes before the investigators his twofold criteriological reasoning, setting aside in turn the diabolical origin and autosuggestion:

"This cannot be a diabolical phenomenon, for the demon cannot incite someone to foster a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary, to recite the rosary and to receive the eucharist. Likewise, any kind of autosuggestion accounting for the facts must be ruled out, for that would suppose the man to be singularly or totally unbalanced; whereas I can affirm on the contrary that he was a solid peasant, from the same region as myself, who had known a harsh existence and bitter experiences, which leave us no time to think really about poetic or romantic things. That is why I say with conviction that I firmly believe he was stigmatized." — Mgr Gregorio Garavito Jiménez, solemn testimony on Roque Solaque, cited in Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 169-170^[104]

Symphorose Chopin (1924-1983)

French mystic of the fourth world. Born in Courrières (Nord) on 8 October 1924, into a family of Polish-Spanish miners, Symphorose Chopin is practically illiterate. Her spiritual director is Mgr André Combes (1899-1969), theologian at the Lateran University, senior research fellow at the CNRS and historian of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. A stretcher-bearer at Lourdes, she follows the agony of John Paul I in a vision during the night of 28 to 29 September 1978. Died on 23 July 1983 at the Marie-Lannelongue hospital (Le Plessis-Robinson).

In his investigation published in 2024, Joachim Bouflet reports that after the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981, Symphorose had reassured her loved ones by asserting that John Paul II would not succumb to his wounds and would live more than twenty years longer.^[105]

Her case illustrates on its own all the criteriological prudence that this dossier demands. Symphorose herself refused mystical vocabulary:

"I am not a mystic, I have never understood what that meant and I refuse to be one. [...] I am not a mystic, but a messenger of love and peace." — Symphorose Chopin, cited by Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 147^[106]

Bouflet hesitates before deciding, and it is precisely this methodical hesitation that is worth showing:

"Given her discretion and her reluctance to evoke the sensible graces with which she is favoured, one might wonder whether she was stigmatized, in the strict sense of the term, with wounds and/or effusions of blood, or whether she knew only what are called the 'invisible stigmata'. We do, however, have rare testimonies: that of Mgr Combes, who states that he saw the wounds on her hands, those of her close ones [...] ; those, few in number, of visitors who noticed on certain days — particularly Thursday and Friday — a slight depression in the palms of her hands, with a bluish point surrounded by a brownish halo. Symphorose therefore did present a visible stigmatization, however discreet its signs may have been." — Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 148^[107]

This is a direct example of the criteriological method: weighing the witnesses (a qualified witness such as Mgr Combes rather than rumour), refusing to decide beyond what the facts allow, then concluding with measure rather than by slogan. Symphorose also reports a spiritual communion with Thérèse Neumann, at the latter's death in September 1962:

"These days, I have lived through the painful hours of Thérèse Neumann, whom I loved dearly; I corresponded with her a great deal. I had known her for a long time: the Passion of Christ gives direct contacts, as with Padre Pio." — Symphorose Chopin, cited by Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 147-148^[108]

Symphorose also underwent nineteen surgical operations during her life — at the dispensary, the staff nicknamed her "Cheat-death"^[109]. As early as 1965, physicians regarded her as an exceptional case of interest to medical science^[110]. Combes's remark sums up her entire life:

"A rose blossomed on a dung heap..." — Mgr André Combes on Symphorose Chopin^[111]

Preliminary steps to open the cause were begun in December 2019 by the Symphorose – S.E.R.A.C.E. association (Paris).

Servant of God Rhoda Wise (1888-1948)

American stigmatist, convert from Protestantism. Born in Cadiz (Ohio) on 28 June 1888, a mother, afflicted with abdominal cancer and then an incurable fracture. Baptized a Catholic on 1 January 1939 by Mgr Habig at Mercy Hospital in Canton. Miraculously healed through an apparition of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus on 28 June 1939 (cancer), then on 15 August 1939 (fracture). Stigmatized during Lent 1942. Twenty apparitions of Christ and Thérèse documented. On 8 January 1940, Thérèse placed upon her face seven fresh rose petals bearing her likeness^[112]. A major biographical detail: Rita Rizzo, a teenager who came to consult her in 1941, would become Mother Angelica, Poor Clare of Perpetual Adoration and founder of EWTN — the most widely broadcast Catholic television network in the world. Nearly 15,000 people at Rhoda's funeral in 1948. Closure of the diocesan inquiry on 6 July 2018.

Before the canonization phase, every modern stigmatization case meets an objection that has become classic since the nineteenth century: these marks would be nothing but psychosomatic manifestations of a neurosis, produced by intense autosuggestion in hysterical personalities. The objection is a serious one; it has the strength of a real medical school behind it, and it deserves to be presented in its strong form before being discussed. The dedicated article Can collective hallucinations or hysteria explain miracles? takes up the question in an even more complete way; only the elements specific to the stigmata case are given here.

The medical invention of the diagnosis of hysteria

It was within the great French school of neurology at the Salpêtrière, under the direction of Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), that hysteria acquired its modern medical formalization. In the 1870s-1880s, Charcot organized public clinical lessons during which his patients, including the famous Blanche Wittmann ("queen of the hysterics"), reproduced under hypnosis convulsive seizures and spectacular bodily phenomena: paralysis, skin anaesthesias, contractures, hyperaesthesias, and even a few cases of bleeding from the skin or unusual cutaneous phenomena.

The word "hysteria" is ancient (from Greek ὑστέρα, uterus), and its medical usage has covered very different symptoms. In the history of the stigmata, the issue is to establish what was examined in each person, rather than treating the term as a sufficient explanation.

This pathological hypothesis is notably advanced by Évariste Warlomont (on Louise Lateau, 1874-1875), Achille Deutsch (on Thérèse Neumann, without direct examination, 1930s), Father Agostino Gemelli (on Padre Pio in 1920 and Natuzza Evolo in 1940, in both cases without direct examination) in the files of these stigmatists^[113][114].

The Lechler experiment (1933): the attempt at reproduction

Dr Alfred Lechler, a German physician, published in 1933 an attempt to reproduce stigmata through suggestion on Elisabeth K., a Protestant patient. Boniface reports four years of work under hypnosis and describes superficial alterations on the hands, feet, and side^[115]. Aimé Michel also retraces the variations of the suggestion: crown of thorns, inflammation of the shoulder, and tears of blood. He notes, however, taking up Lhermitte's objection, that Lechler does not expressly state that he observed the initial outbreak of the lesions^[116].

Boniface reproduces a chart by J. M. Höcht comparing the descriptions of Elisabeth K.'s marks with those of mystical stigmata. The three differences below summarize this historical comparison; they do not constitute measurements taken under a common protocol^[117].

A limitation of the monitoring precedes the comparison of the lesions: Boniface reports that Lechler acknowledged insufficient surveillance of Elisabeth K., making it impossible to rule out deceptive manipulations^[118]. The neurologist Jean Lhermitte (1877-1959) thus describes the results, in the passage reproduced by Boniface:

"In reality, this girl, eminently suggestible as the simple-minded are, subjected to repeated and very prolonged suggestions, brought out swellings and rednesses in the regions where stigmata were to appear. But what poor stigmata: a few epidermal cracks, microscopic suffusions of the eyelids that ceased as soon as the suggestion ended. At the third session, Elisabeth showed a few haemorrhagic points on her forehead, but 48 hours later every trace of the so-called stigmata had disappeared." — Prof. Jean Lhermitte, cited by Ennemond Boniface, 1979, p. 336^[119]

And Lhermitte draws the decisive criterion:

"Even if one had reproduced skin bruises by pure suggestion, one would still have to produce symmetrical bruises resulting in lasting wounds, resistant to infection as long as they persist and slow to heal." — Prof. Jean Lhermitte, Études carmélitaines, October 1936, p. 71^[120]

Lhermitte's argument bears on the whole set of observed characteristics: reproducing a redness or a bruise is not enough, in his eyes, to explain a figurative arrangement of persistent wounds. He thus distinguishes a one-off cutaneous effect from the combination of phenomena described in the files he examines^[121].

The experimental argument of Augustin Poulain (1912)

In the Catholic Encyclopedia, Augustin Poulain challenges the proponents of suggestion to produce comparable lesions outside the religious context. He maintains that the experiments known to him do not reproduce the characteristics he identifies in the great cases; his reasoning demands a comparison of facts, rather than the mere invocation of a possible mechanism^[122].

Poulain also distinguishes the reality of the marks from their explanation. He leaves the physiological discussion open and recalls that stigmata do not constitute, in canonization processes, indisputable miracles. This distinction makes it possible to examine a natural hypothesis without conflating that discussion with a judgment on the person's holiness^[123].

Positive observations from witnesses of differing convictions

One and the same material finding can be received by witnesses who diverge over its explanation. Warlomont and Ewald maintain a natural reading; Gerlich becomes a defender of the Konnersreuth case; Urban emphasizes the psychiatric examination of the person. Their observations must be distinguished from their conclusions.

Évariste Warlomont (1820-1891), rapporteur of the commission of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, encloses Louise Lateau's right hand in a ventilated, sealed crystal globe from 21 January 1875 at 2 p.m. until 10:30 a.m. the following day. Dr Crocq notes intact seals and wrappings, clots on the wounds, and a small quantity of liquid blood, not exceeding five grams, at the bottom of the container. The observation establishes bleeding under these protective conditions; Warlomont nevertheless maintains a physiological explanation, under the name of "stigmatic neuropathy"^[124].

Fritz Gerlich (1883-1934), German historian and journalist of Protestant upbringing, meets Thérèse Neumann as early as 1927. On the night of 5 to 6 April 1928, he observes the onset of the tears of blood at about twenty-five centimetres, by the light of an electric lamp. He then describes the bleedings of the hands on Friday morning. Professors Merkel and Walcher examine on 31 October 1928 the handkerchief used to dab the tears and conclude it is human blood^[125]. Gerlich publishes in 1929 his investigation Die stigmatisierte Therese Neumann von Konnersreuth. He would be murdered by the SS in 1934 for his opposition to Nazism.

Pr Gottfried Ewald, of the University of Erlangen, remains opposed to the supernatural interpretation. In his 1927 article, from which Boniface reproduces the following passage, he nevertheless acknowledges the reality of the bleedings:

"The spontaneous onset of the bleedings has been observed by several doctors in an incontrovertible manner, even with a magnifying glass. The quantity of blood could hardly derive from artificial intervention. The bloody and serous fluid flowing from the wound of the heart could hardly be produced by an artificially inflicted injury." — Pr Ewald, Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, no. 46, 1927^[126]

Pr Hubert Urban, former director of the neuro-psychiatric clinic of the University of Innsbruck, grants Boniface an interview in June 1958. Boniface states that he filed the manuscript, corrected by Urban, in Thérèse Neumann's informational dossier. His judgement rests on examinations and conversations conducted within Thérèse's family setting:

"From the psychological point of view, one can boldly say that Thérèse Neumann is the opposite of a hysteric. She is indeed, above all, direct, open, frank. Even if her horror of lying were not legendary, one would notice it very quickly, simply by conversing with her, as well as by questioning those close to her. Nothing artificial about her: no posing, no attitudinizing, no affectation. Not a trace of vanity or even of simple feminine coquetry. No boastfulness. Not the slightest symptom of pride, or even of self-satisfaction. Above all, nothing sexualized, either in her words, or in her attitudes, or in her behaviour. Nor any trace of infantilism, real or affected. If Thérèse Neumann were hysteric, she would be exactly the opposite of what I have just said." — Pr Hubert Urban, neuro-psychiatric clinic of Innsbruck^[127]

Urban's argument rests on prolonged observation of Thérèse in her ordinary life, beyond the mere spectacle of the wounds. He considers her frankness, her relationships, and her behaviour incompatible with the diagnosis proposed by her opponents; this clinical judgement on a person does not constitute an automatic criterion for all stigmatics^[128].

What the experimental comparisons establish

Lhermitte and Urban dispute the assimilation of the cases they examine to a production of lesions by suggestion. Their argument combines the physical characteristics described and the examination of the person. In the case of Elisabeth K., the scope of the experiment also depends on the monitoring of the subject and on the direct observation of the appearance of the lesions, two points at the heart of the objections reported by Boniface and Michel^[129][130].

The rhythm of the manifestations also comes into play in the comparison. In their 1988 investigation, Laurentin and Mahéo summarize the objection published by Imbert-Gourbeyre in 1894: they emphasize the return of the stigmata on Fridays and their rapid repair. This restatement is given "in substance"; it concerns an argument prior to Lechler's 1933 experiment, and not a survey of current research.^[131]

This obviously does not prove that every stigmatic is a saint. But it suggests that some cases exceed the ordinary explanatory resources of medicine — and that is exactly the point where the canonical investigation takes over, by posing the real question: do these marks accompany a life of heroic virtues or not?

The Church is not naive about the stigmata. It knows that any extraordinary phenomenon attracts both popular devotion and imposture. Pope Benedict XIV, in his great treatise De canonizatione (1734–1738), III, xxxiii, had already laid down the criteria of discernment applicable to stigmatists^[132]. Today, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith keeps, under the heading Santità affettata ("affected sanctity"), an archival dossier gathering reports from local religious authorities concerning alleged visionaries or stigmatists^[133]. The dossier is old and has been partly opened to scholarly consultation since the twenty-first century.

Forgers Exposed

The word fraud presupposes an established fabrication; a psychiatric condition, a misdiagnosis, and a deliberate deception are not synonyms. Bouflet documents several verification methods.

Vilar Chão: Fabrication Discovered in Hospital

The case of Amelia Rodrigues Fontes, in Portugal, provides a material counter-test. In April 1951, an investigation carried out at Coimbra hospital under the direction of Professor João Porto uncovered concealed objects and the method used to produce the marks. Bouflet reports the use of a metal crucifix and a corrosive liquid, with the complicity of Amelia's sister. The bloody crosses are therefore not dismissed because they seem extraordinary: their fabrication is discovered^[134].

The same file reveals a second difficulty: a favourable statement about supposedly miraculous flowers had been attributed to Professor Alfredo Gouveia, of Coimbra. Bouflet specifies that he never made it. The prestigious identity of an expert does not amount to expertise when the statement attributed to him is denied^[135].

Bouflet also reports an episode from June 1945: Amelia tells her father that an angel is throwing flowers onto her bed. Her father sees the flowers falling from the ceiling, but no angel; the neighbours, called to witness the prodigy, each leave with a flower. The author specifies the method: one of Amelia's sisters was throwing the flowers from the attic.^[136]

Imitation in a Devout Circle

In Helena Charithaya's circle, a fellow sister attempts to reproduce ecstasies and stigmata in order to attract attention in turn. Bouflet describes a hoax quickly spotted by the community^[137]. This counter-example does not automatically invalidate Helena's case: it shows why each subject must be the object of its own investigation, even in a circle already familiar with such phenomena.

The Role of Bishops and Medical Examinations

Modern bishops are on the front line. Faced with a case arising in their diocese, they have three levers to use: isolate the person to limit the crowd effect and social pressure, request a serious medical examination by competent and impartial practitioners (whose methods and conclusions must be made explicit), and verify the doctrinal coherence of any messages allegedly received by the stigmatist.

The Bishop of Jaffna, Mgr Bonjean, forbade access to Helena Charithaya as early as 18 January 1872. The Bishop of Mileto, Mgr Albera and then Mgr Nicodemo, forbade access to Natuzza Evolo for years. Pope Pius XII authorised the examination of Maria Cotoi under the roof of the nunciature in Bucharest, to remove her from both the crowds and the communist authorities. The doctrine is constant: protect the person, examine seriously, endorse only what withstands examination.

The Conditions of Observation That Make Fraud Difficult

The probative force of the major files rests on the quality of the conditions of observation. Warlomont's sealed globe protects Louise Lateau's right hand for some twenty hours; the integrity of the seals and envelopes is examined at removal^[138]. With Thérèse Neumann, Gerlich precisely describes the distance, the lighting, and the onset of the bleeding^[139]. The Czech surgeon R. W. Hynek sets against the hypothesis of artificially introduced blood the flow he says he observed:

"One cannot give an experienced surgeon the illusion of a bleeding. The blood clots shortly after leaving the vessels and, when one has observed the uninterrupted flow of blood for a few minutes, it is impossible to think that it comes from a hoax." — Dr R. W. Hynek, cited by Ennemond Boniface, 1979, p. 403^[140]

Hynek is answering here the hypothesis of a reserve of blood poured onto the face or hands. His argument concerns what a witness observes during a bleeding: the origin of the flow, its continuity, access to the wounds. It does not provide a rule whereby the duration of a bleeding would by itself suffice to exclude an injury or a manipulation.

The debate over the exact location of the nails in the historical Crucifixion of Christ bears directly on the stigmatics' case, since the vast majority of Western cases bear their wounds on the palms rather than the wrists. Yet Dr Pierre Barbet (1884–1961), a surgeon at the Saint-Joseph Hospital in Paris, argued in his Un médecin au Calvaire (Dillen, 1950) that palms cannot mechanically bear the weight of a suspended body and that the nails must necessarily have passed through the wrists (space of Destot).

The American forensic pathologist Frederic Zugibe refuted Barbet in The Cross and the Shroud (1988), showing that a nail can perfectly well pass through the deep palm, between the second and third metacarpals, without breaking any bone, while bearing the body's weight. The thesis is therefore not binary, as is sometimes presented.

The question, technical in itself, is dealt with thoroughly in the dedicated article Was Jesus nailed through the palms or the wrists?. There one finds the competing Barbet, Zugibe, and Blinzler hypotheses, as well as the reading of the visions of Anne-Catherine Emmerich, which opens a path of synthesis (right hand nailed through the palm, left arm pulled until dislocation). One remark suffices here: even if Barbet were historically right, this would not refute the saints' stigmata. The stigmata are, in Catholic doctrine, a symbolic spiritual sign of configuration to Christ — and God can make use of the representations under which the faithful imagine the Passion. It is the same logic by which the Virgin appears at Guadalupe with the features of a young Nahua girl, or at Kibeho with those of a young African woman: divine condescension takes on cultural images without being confined by them.

The golden rule: a phenomenon is not holiness

A stigmatist is not, as such, a saint. Faith, hope, charity, and concrete conduct remain decisive; the absence of canonization no more allows one to conclude the absence of holiness. The stigmata are not a necessary condition for being proposed as a Christian model. They can also be invisible: the testimony of Faustina, cited above, forbids ranking her among the saints who knew no stigmatic pain.

Bouflet writes with insight:

"As with all the saints, it is first and foremost through the exemplariness of their natural and theological virtues that they are proposed to the faithful as models to follow. It is not at all a matter of endorsing the phenomenology that accompanies their experience, but [...] of presenting the faithful with models to follow for the conformity of their lives to the precepts of the Gospel." — Joachim Bouflet, Enquête sur les stigmatisés, Artège, 2024, p. 1^[141]

The causes for beatification and canonization distinguish heroic virtue, martyrdom, and, since the motu proprio Maiorem hac dilectionem of 2017, the offering of life. The latter path requires a free offering out of charity, a link with a premature death, and the exercise of the Christian virtues at least in an ordinary way. None of these paths reduces to the presence of stigmata^[142]. The discernment is expressed by Pierre Adnès in this formula:

"One does not judge the holiness of a subject by their stigmatization, but rather their stigmatization by their holiness, or their works of holiness." — Pierre Adnès, cited by Joachim Bouflet, Une histoire des miracles, p. 105^[143]

The case of Giorgio Bongiovanni illustrates this distinction. François Brune, cited by Bouflet, reports a clotting of the blood of the wounds in about thirty seconds, compared with five to seven minutes for blood drawn from the veins. The passage provides neither an identified laboratory nor a protocol allowing these figures to be verified. Brune nonetheless considers that the stigmata and the messages do not come from God. Bouflet reports an erroneous announcement of the date of the end of the world and cites Brune on the evolution of Bongiovanni's discourse: Christ becomes in it, along with Krishna and Buddha, a being come from the stars whom men would have deified. The alleged uniqueness of the bleeding thus does not validate the religious message associated with it.^[144]

At Manduria, Joachim Bouflet reports the testimony of Dr Gino De Blasi on the wounds of Debora Moscogiuri, transmitted by a work anonymous but favorable to the apparitions: the blood and the skin gave off an intense and "fresh" fragrance, and bloodstains formed a sign of the cross on the handkerchiefs pressed against the wounds. Bouflet considers the stigmatization real, unless one calls this testimony into question. He reports, however, the negative judgment of the Bishop of Oria, made public by a pastoral letter read on 14 December 1997, which describes the events as a work of the Evil One. The historian also notes messages which, in his view, would suffice to justify condemning the apparitions, the ceasing of the reception of the sacraments, and serious suspicions of trickery regarding certain phenomena. The reported observation of the wounds, the fragrance, and the bloodstains thus remains distinct from the judgment on their divine origin.^[145]

A framework for discernment: the five questions of Laurentin and Mahéo (1988)

Well before the Roman norms of 2024, René Laurentin and Dr Patrick Mahéo had formulated, concerning the case of Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit, an operational framework for discernment that remains relevant for any case of stigmatization:

After René Laurentin and Dr Patrick Mahéo, Les stigmates d'Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit dans le sillage de François d'Assise, O.E.I.L., 1988, p. 25-26.^[146]

These five questions concern no medical examination: they interrogate exclusively the spiritual life of the subject. These questions make it possible to read the spiritual testimonies; the Roman norms add a framework of procedure and expertise.

The norms of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (17 May 2024)

On 17 May 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith published new Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena, replacing those of 1978^[147]. These norms govern the discernment of alleged supernatural phenomena; their presentation expressly cites the case of Gemma Galgani's stigmata to distinguish between judgment on virtues and judgment on charisms. Six conclusions are now possible: Nihil obstat, Prae oculis habeatur, Curatur, Sub mandato, Prohibetur et obstruatur, and Declaratio de non supernaturalitate. The ordinary procedure may authorise devotion through a Nihil obstat, without declaring the phenomenon of supernatural origin or requiring the faithful to adhere to it. An exceptional procedure for recognising a supernatural character remains possible with the pope's authorisation (I, n. 23).

The document insists on five points, which are so many practical criteria for the discernment of stigmata:

1. Credibility and conduct of the person: psychological balance, honesty, humility, docility to ecclesiastical authority and willingness to cooperate (art. 14).
2. Lasting spiritual fruits around the person: sincere conversions, vocations, return to the sacraments.
3. Doctrinal conformity of any messages — no pseudo-revelations contradicting the deposit of faith.
4. Absence of abuses linked to the phenomenon: no financial profit, no psychological manipulation, no division of the Church.
5. Acceptance of examination by the competent authorities — the person refuses neither medical examinations nor obedience to their ordinary.

Serious medical investigations

The medical examination must clarify what was observed and with what means: presence of a lesion, the course of the bleeding, the initial state of the skin, protection against manipulation and evolution over time. The arrangements presented here differ: Warlomont's sealed globe at home, Natuzza's hospital monitoring, the Campinas medical commission, eyewitness testimony in the Yvonne-Aimée case. The Roman norms provide for a commission and the use of a medical specialist for bodily manifestations; they also prescribe respect for the person and their dignity^[148].

Conformity to the crucified Christ

The Catholic doctrine of the stigmata is rooted in a word of Saint Paul:

"I make up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the Church." — Saint Paul, Letter to the Colossians 1:24^[149]

The sentence is famous and difficult. It cannot be a matter of "making up" in the sense of adding to the objective redemption accomplished by Christ, which is perfect and complete. Classical theology understands it thus: Christ accomplished the redemption once and for all, but he willed that his mystical body — the Church — should share in the application of that redemption to the world through the suffering and prayer of Christians. The stigmatist adds nothing to the merit of Christ: he applies its fruits, in his very body, to whatever in the history of the Church and the world still calls for conversion.

This doctrine is expressed in Catholic spirituality under the name of victim souls or reparative souls. Anna Schaffer hears Christ say to her:

"I have adopted you as a victim of expiation to make reparation for the offences against my Holy Sacrament. From now on you will experience at every communion the sufferings of my holy Passion." — Vision reported by Saint Anne Schaffer, 4 October 1910^[150]

This reparatory vocation is an ancient one: it is found already in Saint Catherine of Siena, who offers herself as a victim for the conversion of sinners and the reform of the Church, then in Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (oblation to Merciful Love, 9 June 1895), Saint Faustina Kowalska, and so many other mystics. The stigmata are its visible inscription.

The word of Charles Journet

Cardinal Charles Journet expresses the spiritual meaning of the stigmata in a formula taken up by the Padre Pio entry on the portal of the Congregation for the Clergy:

"The stigmata are a bloody preaching, at once tragic and splendid." — Charles Journet, cited in "Saint Padre Pio, OFMcap"^[151]

The image refers to the witness borne by a life: union with the Passion is not measured by the fascination exerted by the wounds, but by love of God and neighbour.

Spiritual fruits in discernment

A theological objection sometimes raised: what if these phenomena actually came from the devil, imitating the Passion of Christ to deceive the faithful? Christ himself answered this hypothesis in advance in the Gospel of Matthew, in reply to the Pharisees who accused him of casting out demons by Beelzebul:

"Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?" — Saint Matthew, Gospel 12:25-26^[152]

Authentically Christian fruits — charity, conversions, sacramental life, communion with the Church — are positive elements of discernment. They do not dispense with examining the material phenomenon and the other circumstances: the Roman norms ask that the facts, the doctrine, the conduct and the fruits be considered together^[153].

A pious appearance can be imitated; which is why discernment bears on duration and on the whole of a life. The account of an impressive phenomenon must never be used to justify manipulation, a lie or disobedience. The investigation thus protects both the person and the faithful.

Pope Francis's final word (5 April 2024)

In his address of 5 April 2024, Francis relates the saint's wounds to the service of people wounded by life: care for the poor, forgiveness and fraternity give devotion its concrete expression^[154]. The stigmata are not an end in themselves; their Christian meaning is union with the risen Crucified and love of neighbour.

• The Stigmata of Padre Pio — the most famous case of the twentieth century, examined in detail.
• The Stigmata of Therese Neumann — the German case, studied by dozens of physicians.
• The Stigmata of Louise Lateau — Warlomont's sealed crystal globe experiment.
• Was Jesus nailed through the palms or the wrists? — the anatomical debate and its implications for the stigmata.
• Can collective hallucinations or hysteria explain miracles? — a detailed examination of the psychogenic objection applied to all mystical phenomena.
• Criteria for discerning supernatural phenomena — the norms of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (17 May 2024).
• Other mystical phenomena — ecstasies, locutions, weeping images, reading of hearts.
• Inedia — a related phenomenon attested in several stigmatists (Therese Neumann, Helena Charithaya, Maria Cotoi).
• Bilocations — reported presence in two places, attested in Yvonne-Aimée, Maria Luisa Zancajo, Natuzza Evolo.
• Incorruptible bodies — a post-mortem phenomenon observed in several stigmatists.