The Exorcist Files - Eucharistic Miracles: Part 1

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

We begin our journey into the world of Eucharistic Miracles with a strange set of events in Buenos Aires. Father Robert Spitzer of the Magis center joins us as well as Dr. Stacy Trasankos. A Special Shoutout to Our Sponsors this episodeFireStarter Series-    A dramatic and epic adventure recounting the legend of George and the Dragon. A fun narrative podcast that is great for the family, starring Wizards of Waverly Place Star David Henrie.  Click here to listenExodus90- Ultimate men's spiritual formation curriculum. Co-hosted by Father Martins. Join the St. Michael's Lent with a group of likeminded warriors.  THE MAGIS CENTER- See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm your co-host, Ryan Bethay, And today we bring you another one of our superbly handcrafted, organic, amazing, bonus episodes destined to enlighten and entertain, to delight, and dazzle. We do hope you've been enjoying these while we take a pause from our regularly scheduled chilling exorcism content. While some of these perhaps diverge from what you might expect in a show that started about exorcism, trust me, it's all connected, man. First things first.

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It helps tremendously. Thank you very much. Now, today we are going to step into something strange. And I know that's saying a lot, considering we've had a talking Ouija board, a possessed firefighter, and a haunted house in previous episodes. Now, if you've ever been to a Catholic or Orthodox Church, you will have encountered what they refer to as Holy Communion, or the Blessed Sacrament, or the Holy Eucharist, which they believe is the actual physical presence of Jesus Christ himself. While this may not appear to be connected to exorcism, trust us. It is. The Catholic rite of exorcism states in Rule 11 of the Preonotanda, and no, that's not the rival nation to Wakanda,

the rules governing the use of the ritual that it should occur in a church. Why? Because of the presence of the Lord himself, who resides in the Blessed Sacrament, which is held in the tabernacle. That is why you want to have an exorcism in a church. in a church. Now, what if I told you there are stories of miracles accompanying the Eucharist throughout history, accounts of levitation, healings, demons fleeing at the very moment the bread and wine are transformed at mass through the words of the priest, and stories of the bread wafer

appearing to exhibit the strangest of all properties that under scientific investigation seem to be human biological tissue? Sounds bizarre and ludicrous, right? Is it just another edition? of miracle stories gone wild, or is there something else to it? As always, dear listener, we invite you to decide. So enjoy our first foray into the wide, wide world of Eucharistic miracles. Eucharistic miracles, fun to say, right? For those outside the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, this may come as a bit of a surprise, but throughout history, and even in the last decade, there have been purported cases of miraculous occurrences, specifically related to the Eucharist, which is the Christian sacrament par excellence. In fact, the catechism of the Catholic Church

calls it the source and summit of the Christian life. While the non-essentials of mass differs in various traditions, in its essentials, it is the highest and most sacred act of the church, where bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The body and blood are then consumed by believers. The word Eucharist comes from the Greek word for Thanksgiving and honors Jesus' final night with his disciples, known as the Last Supper, when he ate with his disciples and gave himself in the transformed bread and wine, telling them to repeat the act in remembrance of him to cement the covenant of the forgiveness of sins. Given its importance, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that there are reports of miracles accompanying the Eucharist, and while all sorts of phenomena have been reported,

none perhaps are as interesting or carry as much significance as the reports of the consecrated bread turning into actual biological tissue. Yes, I know. It's weird. There are reports of human, heart tissue, blood, and other substances appearing in the consecrated host. The first time I heard this, I thought, surely they can't be serious. And yet? While there are many accounts to dive into, today we're going to explore just one case and hear from two members of the faith who absolutely believe in the miraculous, but arrive at respectfully different views of the evidence to date. So without any more delays, we want to welcome Father Robert Spitzer, former president of Gonzaga University and host of the hit show, Father

Spitzer's universe, to introduce to us one alleged miracle and a little bit more about what might be going on. Father Robert Spencer, I'm the president of the Majas Center of Reason and Faith. I am former university president at Gonzag University in Spokane, Washington, and I have made a very extensive study on a variety of different things from near-death experiences to cosmological evidence for an intelligent creator, as well as Eucharistic Miracles, and certainly the shroud of Turin and a variety of other areas, which most people would say are very difficult to explain from any naturalistic or scientific point of view.

Father Spitzer has extensive degrees, having masters in philosophy and theology, as well as a PhD in philosophy, which he humbly failed to mention when I introduced him. Now, to set the proverbial communion table for this discussion, we are referring to Jesus' teachings at the Last Subur, the accounts of which are found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke's Gospels. While John's Gospel does not include a description of the bread and wine ritual during the last supper, the sixth chapter of the gospel not only talks about the Eucharist, but also about its radical necessity. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. John 6.53.

What Jesus is intending when he says, this is my body which is being given for you in, Luke's Gospel, when he's saying that, that present passive part of civil means really being given, like now being given for you. So when he's at the last supper there, and he is saying this, he's giving this bread to his apostles, and then later he says, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is being poured out for you. Acunomenon, again, that present passive participle, is being done now, being poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. We believe, and I think there's credible scholarly evidence to believe,

that what Jesus is doing is taking his body that's hanging on that cross at Calvary, and he's literally bringing it into the bread that he is handing to his disciples. And literally, the graces of the sacred moment would move right into the present where they were celebrating that. Well, the same thing is true today for us.

We believe that if a priest holds up the host and says, this is my body being given for you, when the priest is saying that, the time between the past event where Jesus is giving that to his disciples at the last supper is collapsing. into the present moment, Jesus really did promise his real body of blood. This idea that the bread and wine actually becomes Jesus' flesh and blood during the

Eucharist while still retaining the physical appearance of the elements is a central theological concept in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, known as trans substantiation, who had that one on their X-Files bingo card. In John's Gospel, Chapter 6, Jesus shares a controversial, to say the least, teaching. The text literally has Jesus' state. that unless his followers gnaw on his flesh and slurp his blood, they'd have no life in them. But for those that do, they would have eternal life. So controversial was this, in fact, that many left Jesus after he said these sobering words.

I mean, if your mentor said that to you, you'd probably raise an eyebrow as well, right? Now, there exists a theological debate outside the Catholic and Orthodox churches that revolves around whether this change is literal or symbolic. While Catholics hold that the change is literal, meaning it actually turns into flesh and blood while still looking like bread and wine, some Protestant denominations view it as symbolic, interpreting the text differently. The idea of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was present in the earliest days of the church. For example, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, while instructing new converts on the Eucharist, writes, quote, having learned these things, we are fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the body of Christ. Even during the Protestant Reformation, it seems a majority of the Reformation leaders held a very high view of the Eucharist

and believed in Christ's literal presence being, in some former fashion, present at the Lord's Supper. Okay, so why the lecture here? Well, understanding this historic claim is actually quite important for our discussion today, as the Catholic perspective on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist forms the basis for believing that such miracles, the kind that Father Spitzer is sharing are in fact divinely sanctioned. What we see in these Eucharistic miracles is we can actually see

there's three of them where I have seen the labs myself. I've actually seen the results of the labs. I've read the pathological reports. I've read the histopathological analysis, etc., you know, that's happening here. So what's going on is that literally heart tissue is growing out of a consecrated host. And consecrated just means that the priest has relived these Eucharistic words

and where Jesus's actual body and blood from Calvary is coming into that host. Yeah, he said heart tissue. I know. Stay with us. So how do you know that this is the real body and blood of Christ? Why wouldn't it just be signified? Well, we've got many of these hosts. I'll talk about Buenos Aires today because of the good scientific evidence that's available.

But what you see is heart tissue that's growing out of the host. It is so finely integrated with the tissue of the host that it's on the level of the thin filaments of the myofibrils. That's like so refined that it's a few microns of separation. It's like cellular distances. of separation. There is no human technology in the world today, not NASA technology, not any human technology that can possibly produce, you know, such a remarkable complex integration between two different substances, the substance of the host and the substance of the heart tissue that is within just a few microns of separation on the level of the thin filaments of

the myofibrils. We don't have a technology. to produce it. So I don't think forgery is a possible explanation. And we've got transmission electron might shows it very definitively. So a good electron microscope can show this very clearly. And certainly in the case of Sikolka, it does show it very clearly. For context, the Buenos Aires miracle that Father Spitzer is referring to occurred on August 18, 1996. During a mass, a consecrated host was found discarded. Given the sacred nature of the host, The Catholic practice is to place the host in water to dissolve. Now, here's where things start to get interesting.

Surprisingly, just over a week later, on August 26th, this host seemingly had manifested a bloody substance, prompting Father Alejandro the priest present to inform Archbishop Jorge Bergolio, now Pope Francis, who then ordered professional photographs of the altered host. This host, showing signs of some strange bloody substance, was kept confidentially in the time. tabernacle for several years. As the years went by, shockingly, it apparently demonstrated no signs of any decomposition, leading the Archbishop to formally authorize a scientific investigation,

and his first choice was actually an atheist. Regular Exorcist Files listeners, remember, from our previous discussion about the Catholic Church's process for exorcisms and miracles, that in an attempt to dismiss bias, the Catholic Church often calls on skeptical experts to help authenticate miracles and reported demonic possession. As you know, Archbishop Burgolio is Pope Francis today, but he was the one who had custody over this particular host. So he says, well, you know, let's get a scientific expert. So they intentionally picked an atheist, Dr. Ricardo Castagnan Gomez.

Now, very much self-proclaimed atheist, very much was vocal about. his atheism, so it was a safe bet. He wouldn't be favorable to the host initially or trying to make it work out so that, you know, this would be tested favorably. He went right at it. And of course, he said, well, the first thing we're going to have to, he saw the digital overlay analysis, and he was shocked because, of course, right away he knew there's something very strange going on here. So basically then he's, you know, there's a machine where he can take a very, very thin, thin sliver, right, of this tissue. And then you can put it between two very heavy pieces of glass. And then you can send that over, you know, for example, to a pathology lab or histopathological examination.

So the main thing is they didn't want to pick a place in Blydesiris or in Latin America. So he picked, Kessignon Gomez did, he picked Dr. Frederick Zugabe because of his reputation in New York City. This scientific analysis was conducted by Dr. Frederick Zugabe, a renowned cardiologist and forensic pathologist, who also did research on the Shrout of Turin. At the time, Dr. Zugabe was reportedly given no known knowledge of the specimen's origins. His findings revealed it to be real human flesh and blood from a heart, specifically the left ventricle, showing signs of immense stress and inflammation. His conclusion based on what he saw was that the heart was alive at the time of sample collection.

This discovery was astonishing to Dr. Zugabe as a defied scientific explanation, especially considering the sample's prolonged exposure to water. Dr. Zugabe, upon learning of the sample's origin from a consecrated host, acknowledged the phenomenon as a mystery beyond the scope of his scientific understanding. This, you'd think, well, gosh, isn't that enough? There's two other really mysterious dimensions to these hosts. The first is, is that's just not cardiac tissue.

It's living cardiac tissue. In other words, the tissue that's growing out of the host has white blood cells, macrophages, leukocytes. And by the way, you know, white blood cells and leukocytes, they die within a couple of hours after being disconnected from an embodied circulatory system. Now, how in the world are you going to explain how you can have white blood cells literally alive, not just alive, but in the case of the texelhoast in Mexico, these macrophages are phagocytocytes.

Lipids are fat cells, and fagocytocizing is like an engulfing process where it's taking that unhealthy fat cell in the blood or in the tissue, and it ingests that fat cell to cure the wound, right? The lipid is a bad guy. And basically, the white blood cell is coming in there to eliminate the bad guy, to heal the tissue. Now, all I can tell you is one of the finest pathologists in the United States, Dr. Frederick Zugabe, formerly of Columbia, NYU, the New York Path path pathology lab, This guy basically makes this examination and makes the observation. This is naturalistically impossible. You cannot have living white blood cells.

You cannot have leukocytes and macrophages that are sitting there performing healing activities in tissue that's been disconnected from an embodied circulatory system for more than a couple of hours. Now, the tissue he was examining had been disconnected for over eight years. years and still had remnants of white blood cells. That's a lot to process. How can you have living tissue on a wafer that has been placed underwater and soaking? None of this made any sense to me. But it gets weirder. The second thing he says is this is heart tissue.

It's striated. Heart tissue is very evident from the morphological considerations. And he basically says, look, he says, it comes from the upper left ventricle. But what's weird about this upper left ventricle, oh, that's the ventricle, by the way, that pumps blood to the rest of the body. He says, what's weird about this is the white blood cells are embedded in the ventricle wall. Now, the only time that happens is when a person is undergoing something akin to high stress or a polytrum. In other words, somebody beating them around the chest or doing something like that. So the idea is you basically have the heart tissue, not only what appears to be living heart tissue,

that's growing out of this host, but you have the heart tissue of a beaten man, of a wounded man that's growing out of the host with, by the way, a human blood type, A.B. blood type and also human immunoglobulins and human hemoglobin and other. kinds of significant human blood features. But Zugabe finds us, okay, you got to tell me, you know, where did you get this host? I mean, this tissue. And they said, well, it comes from a consecrated Eucharistic host. Now, it so happened that Zugabe was a Catholic, but that was not a known factor.

I mean, I don't think, you know, Cassidyon Gomez, having been an atheist, I don't think he was wanting to get a Catholic pathologist, but he wasn't Catholic. So we knew what a Eucharistic host was. And he just sat there and he went, oh, well, that's naturalistically impossible. And he says, this is not explicable. He said, you know, this is like a miracle.

And that's where the testing, you know, stop. Here is Zugabe's quote from the Maja Center. 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. For those of you with a keen ear, you might suspect that Dr. Zugabe's description seems to align with our understanding of the torture of crucifixion in the Roman world. Beating from whips and blunt objects were common actions done to those in the process of crucifixion. Also, historical accounts validate the immense cardiological strain that would take place due to the posture in which people were positioned during crucifixion. This posture causes great strain on the lungs and chest as these upper muscles were required to lift yourself up in order to breathe. And morbidly, the final nail in the barbaric torture was the failure to breathe due to the muscles failing to lift yourself up to get air.

But the main thing to remember is Zugabe identifies three features that really cannot be naturalistically explained. Number one, the tissue seems to be growing out of a completely different substance, substance of a host instead of a heart. But it's heart tissue that's growing out of that host. Number two, it's alive. It's cardiac tissue and it's wounded cardiac tissue, but it's non-necros. It's still alive. but it looks like it's either in the state of dying or it's very stressed. He gives his report and, of course, he was completely flummoxed by the result,

and I will just leave it at that. So Zugabe was Catholic. He was flummoxed, but what about Gomez, the atheist who appointed Zougat. Turns out he had a change of heart. Let's just call that the Buenos Aires host, but you can see how this whole thing developed. It so profoundly impacted Cassignon Gomez. He converted, became a Catholic, and to this day, he's going around talking about Eucharistic miracles. That's right. Dr. Gomez now travels and speaks extensively on the topic of Eucharistic Miracles. Now, one thing I had to ask, being fairly unfamiliar with this entire phenomenon,

I was curious if you could actually go visit these things for yourself. Turns out you can. Oh yeah, they're in the place where they began. So we have a thing called a monstrance, you know, and that just means that there's a place where you can display the host through some glass. And it's like a fancy display case, if I can put it that way, for that host. The three I'll be discussing, Buenos Aires Tixla and Sikolka. Those hosts are in a monstrance in the exact church where they were.

discovered. So the Buena Cyrus is still in St. Mary's Church in Buenos Aires, Argentina. So if you fancy a field trip, turns out you can just go see this for yourself. So where does it all stand? Is this a legitimate miracle? Well, for context, the Catholic Church has recognized many Eucharistic miracles throughout history, but to date, the church has no official stance on this one. Why is that? Well, we're going to find out just why potentially in a minute. Father Martin's here. I want to do a quick plug for one of the most powerful tools I've seen for breaking free and growing closer to Christ. Exodus 90. The Exodus 90 challenge begins this year on January 20th. But this isn't just a 90-day program. Exodus 90 is a spirituality for modern men that is built on three ancient pillars, prayer, self-sacrifice, and fraternity. We all long for something more. We long to be the men God created us to be, sons of a loving father.

It's time to turn away from our idols. It's time to break free from the pharaohs that hold us in bondage. If you're ready to make a fresh start and embark on a journey to uncommon freedom in Jesus Christ, then download the Exodus 90 app today. This is your chance to break free, refocus, and rediscover who God is calling you to be in the new year. It starts January 20th. So go to Exodus 90.com slash X-Files to learn more about Exodus 90. That's Exodus 90.com slash X-Files to join tens of thousands of men from all over the world for Exodus 90. Again, it begins Monday, January, January.

20th. God bless you. Welcome back to our deistic digression into Eucharistic miracles as we take part in our own miracle investigation. Now, as is clear from Father Spitzer, he believes this to be a genuine miracle with some science to back it up. But I found myself wondering, why is the church not formally recognized it? I knew we needed to ask another good scientist to help us sort through all this. Turns out, we were connected with one already. A brilliant scientist and thinker, Dr. Stacey Trisankos has actually written extensively on this topic. She was more than happy to shine some light and share some thoughts on the investigation. My name is Stacey Trusankos. I do a lot of work in the science and theology field and lately I've added philosophy to that lineup. I got my PhD in chemistry

from Penn State University and I got my master's degree in dogmatic theology and systematic philosophy at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. Adams were my first love. I became Catholic in my 30s, and I'm very interested in my writing and speaking on how those things all fit together, how we can more seek the truth through science, theology, and philosophy. You don't need an electron microscope to see that Dr. Tresankos is one sharp cookie, and she dwells in one of the most fascinating intersections in academia, atoms and theology. Given her impressive credentials, I thought we should start by just getting her thoughts on miracles in general. and if we have any reason to believe in them in our science-centered world.

Yes, there is. There's always in every day, every minute, every second of the faithful person's life, there is an opportunity for miracles to occur. God is not just some wily character out there who's going to trick us and work miracles to stump us up. If there's a miracle, not only does it need to be confirmed scientifically, there also needs to be a reason for the miracle. What is God trying to tell us? How is he trying to communicate his love to us?

So we have to believe that miracles can occur. We have to be on the lookout for them. The Christian faith is founded upon a belief in naturalistic miracles. By that we mean that miracles that have to do with the material world, acting in ways it typically does not. As Dr. Trasankos notes, God's actions in the world and throughout history are purposeful. And for Christians, they are in fact a big deal. Miracles like the resurrection of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit are important to our understanding of God's plan in and for the world. Even Paul acknowledges this in 1 Corinthians 15,

saying, if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then the Christian faith is futile, and Christians are to be pitied. So miracles are a part of the Christian story. I wanted to drill down a bit more on just what a miracle is, though. According to Dr. Trusankos, this can help us when we take a critical look at them. Things that happen that can't be explained by coincidence in our life in a way that only we really understand because God knows us so well. But when you get to the question of bigger miracles, then there is a greater burden of evidence to prove that this miracle occurred because the last thing we ever want to do is act like we're depending on science to prove what we ought to hold in faith. Dr. Trusankos touched on attention that I find very interesting. Christians are to live by faith,

and she believes science can certainly encourage people in that direction, the two are not mutually exclusive. It's a beautiful thing when the science points towards faith. But I appreciated her caution that the believer does not require science to prove their faith, for doing so would make science a god in of itself. Has science become a god today? Well, that's a topic for another show. Now, it's not every day that I get to speak with a scientist on matters of faith, so I had to ask her how she began researching miracles in the first place. And given today's topic, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she has her own history with this investigation. Yeah, I've looked into Eucharistic miracles because, honestly, my bishop asked me to.

And my first response was, no. I actually told my bishop no when he first asked me to look into him. And I did obey my bishop. And I had to just read the stories about Eucharistic miracles. There's a book from the Vatican International Exhibition on Eucharistic Miracles. It's a compilation of over 200 reports and investigations. of Eucharistic miracles, not just the host turning into muscle or blood or the wine turning into blood, but even other kinds of miracles that happened related to the Eucharist.

I was curious to learn from Dr. Trusankos how many different accounts of Eucharistic miracles there were. I asked her if she would share a brief overview of some of these accounts. There are reports of Eucharistic miracles dating back to the earliest one was in the eighth century, some say around 750 AD. there was the Lanciano miracle, which is the most popular Eucharistic miracle. If you say Eucharistic miracle, that's the one most people think about. For those of you not familiar with the Lanciano miracle, here is a quick summary. In the year 750, there was an Italian priest wrestling with his faith.

In the midst of these doubts and questions, the priests continued with his duties, including celebrating Mass, where he consecrated the bread and wine. In front of him and a crowd of witnesses, the host transformed into what appeared to be human flesh with five distinct bloody wounds, and the wine changed into blood, which coagulated into five globules of different shapes and sizes. Although this was declared a Eucharistic miracle shortly after its occurrence, Pope Paul VI issued a formula study on the preserved host in 1970. The study found, you guessed it, heart tissue from a recently alive person along with human blood that shared the chemical composition of fresh blood rather than the 1,200-year-old preserved blood.

we may have to do an episode and dive into this one. You can still go and see the consecrated host that's partially muscle tissue. You can still see it displayed in the monstrous. You can get actually very close to it. And the wine that turned into blood, actual human blood, you can see the dried up pellets of blood. So that was one of the earliest ones. But then over the years and what the Vatican International Exhibition book chronicles is in different countries around the world, there are different reports. Whenever someone thinks there's a Eucharistic miracle or any kind of miracle,

you report it to your bishop. And the bishop has the decision to investigate or not. The bishop may also go all the way up to the Vatican and say, I need help with this investigation. So usually with the Eucharistic miracles, the bishop will convene an investigative team. And that team will conduct the investigation and then give a report to the bishop, and it's guarded by the curia in that diocese. And that's kind of where I come in with my complaint. Those reports are not made available. So when I started looking into the Eucharistic miracles,

I became very frustrated as a scientist with what I was finding in the investigations. The data wasn't good. The test methods were not explained. The decisions were not explained. and it didn't allow me to make a decision as a scientist to be able to say whether I think the miracle occurred or not. So I'm kind of in this position now where I don't have access to the data and yet I'm asked

to make a judgment and all I can say is that the tests I've seen so far are inconclusive. Even though there was scientific testing done, Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Sankos found herself frustrated with certain elements of the testing process. I asked her to elaborate on why she found these investigations frustrating by looking at the case of the Buenos Aires miracle. With the Buenocidas miracle, there are four reports, actually, of miraculous occurrences at the same parish, Santa Maria Parish in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first two are in 1992, the second one's in 1994, and the last one's in 1996. And they were all reports of a red substance appearing. So they were all reports of a host being mishandled. And the protocol for the church is the

norms of the church for proper reverent treatment of the Eucharist is that if one falls to the floor, first of all, the priest is supposed to consume it. But if it's too dirty for the priest to consume, the priest then puts it in water because water is going to dissolve it. It's going to break up. And so once the host, the consecrated host, which is Christ, once it dissolves and breaks up, they're thinking is Christ is no longer present. So they put it in water and they put it in the tabernacle. So reverent treatment all around. And then once it dissolves, they pour it down the special sink in the sacristy, the sacrarium. They pour it down there because it bypasses the sewer and it just goes right back to the ground. So there's no mistreatment of any of the material along the way. And so what

they found was when they put it in the tabernacle to dissolve in the water, it didn't dissolve. And this red substance appeared. Only the last one was investigated. The host appearing to turn into human flesh and the presence of a red blood-like substance seems to be the common way that Eucharistic miracles manifest. As both Father Spitzer and Dr. Trusankos notes, of the reported 200-plus Eucharistic miracles, most fall within this purview. Yet there have been some other interesting reports that Dr. Trusankos made me aware of. There are different stories. There's a story where two robbers, two evil men, were not in a state of grace. They were in a state of mortal sin, and they tried to receive the Eucharist,

and when it touched their tongue, it burned their tongue so bad that they had to spit it out. And the host fell onto the rock beneath them. And to this day, you can still see where seared into the stone is the imprint of this host that fell out of their mouth.

There was a woman who wanted to win the affections of her husband, and she went to what we would call a witch. she went to try to work some witchcraft to get her husband to show affection to her. And she was told, go and steal a consecrated host, take it home, burn it up in the fire. Well, when she tried to, she stole it, she took it home, she tried to burn it and it wouldn't burn. And so it scared her. And she took it out of the fire and put it in a bottle as the story goes.

And she went out into the stable or the barn. and she buried it underneath the pile of hay for the donkeys. And the story goes that it stayed there for years. It said that the donkeys started genuflecting toward the pile of hay where the host was buried. And that scared her too. So she finally confesses to the priest what she has done and asks for absolution of her sins.

Since it has been said, God does miracles with the priest. purpose. These accounts seem to reiterate the idea, Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 32, that the Lord's Supper is a power force for those who believe, yet Paul also writes of the importance of rightly partaking in the meal and warns that judgment befalls those who eat and drink in an unworthy manner. So what is an unworthy manner? While in Protestant circles, there are some different interpretations of this passage, the Catholic Church teaches that unworthiness refers to moral and spiritual deficit. Put simply, those who partake in the Eucharist must believe they are receiving the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ and must receive in a state of purity free from any sin.

Regardless of how one feels about the text, the truth from Scripture is clear. The Eucharistic meal is a powerful and serious matter. Through Christ's promise to be with us in this moment, his power is also present. Whether this is through the conviction of sin, the supernatural power of his presence and holiness, or even in a miraculous material manifestation. Dr. Trusenko stresses that these eucharistic events are meant to build up and encourage faith and to call us towards reverence. Okay. Well, let's take a pause on all the theology and get to Science Corner, shall we? I asked Dr. Trusankos to give us her take on the Buenos Aires miracle, starting with the samples of the host that were sent to the lab. They sent the samples to this lab. What these are are forensic labs. It's kind of, in my

opinion way too casual a lab for something this awesome. It's just a forensic laboratory. It's the kind of test you do if you have a crime scene and you find blood on the wall or blood on the knife. And you want to find out if the blood on the knife is the same as the blood from the suspect or the victim. And so what you do is there's an orthotoluing test that you do to begin with that even determines whether it's a biological sample or not. When they did that test on the red sample from the 1996 miracle, it was not a biological sample. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not a biological sample. That means that the chemical they were looking for in fresh biological samples had since decomposed. Then they submitted it for the DNA test. It's a PCR test that amplifies a certain

segment of the human DNA. Most of our DNA is in a sequence where it codes for proteins that make up our bodies. But we also have these sequences that don't code for anything. And the nucleic acids are in a certain sequence. Your sequence is different from my sequence and it varies among people. And so they ramp up those little sequences. They manufacture a whole bunch of those little pieces. They copy it with the RNA and they grow it. They amplify it. And then they look at that sequence. And if that sequence in one sample matches the sequence in another sample, then that's how you can genetically confirm the blood on the knife is the same as the blood in the suspect. They did this kind of blood test with the Buenos Aires 1996 sample.

And again, it was the lab report says NR. It stands for no result. I would conclude as a chemist, if somebody tasked me with that investigation, I would say this very basic lab test is indicating that we have no biological sample here at all. I would not conclude that it's miraculous DNA with no paternal origin. That is way of a big stretch. So Dr. Trusankos views the data differently. She looked at the results and said that the evidence does not conclude that there was any biological sample. Now, proponents of the miracle could try and argue that science's failure to conclusively identify a sample does not disprove the miracle.

but rather indicates the presence of something that can't be subjected to normal scientific methods. An interesting twist on our science versus faith discussion. But her skepticism doesn't end there. They get to Zugabe's lab in New York, and he is a very well-known and accomplished forensic pathologist who specialized in the heart and cardiac issues. By this time, it's nine years later. And so, again, they do a blind test, and I am criticizing this, just because it's not what I would do.

I wish that it had been done differently. They say it's a blind test, yet there are cameras set up. You've got these two reporters who have been at this point doing a many years long documentary series for a major network on miracles. They're in the room. They've got their cameras set up and they give you a sample to look at. Now, why did it have to be Zugabe? Why did they need him as an expert?

They really didn't need him as an expert on that. You don't need an expert to notice heart tissue. But also, Zookabee was not necessarily a blind party. Zookabee had written, he had done some work with the Stroud of Turin, and he had written books on the Shrout of Turin in the 80s. So he was a known part, and I don't think that it's necessarily a blind test by the time you get there with the cameras and you're asking Zububi to look at it. Now, Zougabee does say that he saw cardiac tissue from the left ventures.

of the heart, which is the part of the heart that pumps oxygen to the whole body. And he does say that he saw white blood cells. So white blood cells decomposed within hours after being taken out of a living body. They decompose. They're bigger. But the white blood cells have the DNA in them. So if you see the white blood cells still intact, alive, moving around, doing their thing, it does look like that would be consistent with living tissue or tissue from someone who

recently died. So here's the question I have. If Zougabee nine years later saw living tissue and saw white blood cells, and we all know that white blood cells, that's what contains DNA, why didn't somebody take those samples and do a better test on the DNA besides the forensic test for crime scenes? Those methods are not rare. Why today is there still not some better analysis done of the DNA. So admittedly, this took a bit of the miraculous wind out of my sales, a nine-year gap in time and inconclusive DNA results. She also raised an interesting point. They call you into a room, say, look at this, and there's cameras everywhere. You have to think something might be up at this point, right? How could you not know what you're looking at?

Like, it's not just some normal lab result you're examining. These are the main reasons for Dr. Trisanko's hesitance. Without knowing, the chain of command and without conclusive scientific testing. Dr. Trusankos is unable to make a certain claim about this miracle's authenticity. That being said, she did want to stress that this does not disprove that a miracle occurred. Rather, it should give pause to anyone making a claim of certainty on this event. She is in fact open to whatever decision the church ultimately renders on this. Yeah, and I'm fine with whatever that diocese decides to do. I'm fine with whatever the Vatican and decides to do. Here's what I'm not fine with. That 2019 Pew Research poll showed that seven out of

10 Catholics do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We live in a time as evangelist where we're trying to convince people to believe that Christ is really present in the Eucharist. I'm a convert. I'm a chemist. I know what it's like to kneel at mass and go, there's Christ. Christ is truly present now. It's a pure act of faith. There is no science that can prove that. It's a pure, it's the simplest and purest act of our Catholic faith. And what I don't want to be any part of in this age of science, I don't want to use science to try to convince nonbelievers or hesitant believers that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. I don't want to use that. And I think that's the wrong thing to do. I think in this age of scientism where science is moving away from theology. and philosophy. The last thing we should be doing to convince people about the real presence of

Christ is using inconclusive, poorly done scientific research to try to prove a tenet of faith. That's what I don't want any part of. Whoa, someone took us to church, convicting words from a convincing mind. For Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Sankos, lab tests don't make her a Christian. Faith does. Now, in future episodes, we will get into other accounts that have different levels of evidence, so fear not. This is just the beginning. Now our listeners know I like to wind down on ecumenical notes. Father Spitzer and Dr. Trusankos not only respect each other deeply. They're good friends. They agree on many things.

Father Spitzer and I agree on this point. There should be a more consistent protocol for Eucharistic miracles. There have been so many now reported that the Vatican should convene a team of people who writes out a basic framework protocol, if a parishioner reports a Eucharistic miracle, here's what you do. Because what we have right now are just, the tests are all over the place,

and they're often decisions are made by people who aren't scientists. And so the rigor that you would expect for any scientific paper among the thousands published out there in the world every day is not even met when it comes to these amazing miracles in the Catholic Church. So Father Spitzer and I agree on that very much. There should be some kind of protocol, just a minimum framework of check boxes of things you do if you're going to report a Eucharistic miracle.

Well, folks, that is all for our first course on Eucharistic miracles. Thanks for sticking with us. I know that was a lot. We hope you learned something, or at the least, walk away with a deeper reverence and appreciation for the Lord's Supper. We wanted to touch on miracles because, well, let's be honest, all of us could use a little encouraging. in the world today. And I want to stress that there's still a lot of wonder and mystery out there. So, with so much negative press that we hear every day, I wanted to end with one of my favorite quotes from the great Lord of the Rings author, Tolkien. The world is indeed full of peril,

and in it there are many dark places. But still, there is much that is fair. And though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. Thanks for listening, folks. to keep in touch with us and get some of our anointed merchandise, you can visit our website at exorcistfiles.tv. You can also email us absurd and overly specific criticism at exorcist files at gmail.com. All cases in the Exorcist Files are recounted by Father Carlos Martens from his personal archives. While this episode didn't have any 3D binaural drama, it still takes a ton of work and research. The series is hosted by myself and Father Martins. Today, we want to give a very big shout out and thank you to Dr.

Stacey Drsankos and Father Robert Spitzer. We're both sharing their incredible wisdom with us. It takes a legion of people to make the show possible. So we want to thank you to our sound designer, editor, and mixer, Dan Blessinger, and Michelle Martinez, and music and scoring by Jim Cavell. Executive producers are Father Carlos Martins and Ryan Bethay. And please, go sign up for her Kickstarter at exorcistfiles.tv. Thank you.