CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: STIGMATA, MYSTICAL

Mystical Stigmata

To decide merely the facts without deciding whether or not they may be explained by 
supernatural causes, history tells us that many ecstatics bear on hands, feet, side, or 
brow the marks of the Passion of Christ with corresponding and intense sufferings.  
These are called visible stigmata.  Others only have the sufferings, without any 
outward marks, and these phenomena are called invisible stigmata.  Their existence is 
so well established historically that, as a general thing, they are no longer disputed by 
unbelievers, who now seek only to explain them naturally.  Thus a free-thinking 
physician, Dr. Dumas, professor of religious psychology at the Sorbonne, clearly admits 
the facts (Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 May, 1907), as does also Dr. Pierre Janet (Bulletin 
de l'Institut psychologique international, Paris, July, 1901).    St. Catherine of Siena at 
first had visible stigmata but through humility she asked that they might be made 
invisible, and her prayer was heard. This was also the case with St. Catherine de' Ricci, 
a Florentine Dominican of the sixteenth century, and with several other stigmatics.  The 
sufferings may be considered the essential part of visible stigmata; the substance of this 
grace consists of pity for Christ, participation in His sufferings, sorrows, and for the 
same end--the expiation of the sins unceasingly committed in the world.  If the 
sufferings were absent, the wounds would be but an empty symbol, theatrical 
representation, conducing to pride.  If the stigmata really come from God, it would be 
unworthy of His wisdom to participate in such futility, and to do so by a miracle.  But 
this trial is far from being the only one which the saints have to endure: "The life of 
stigmatics," says Dr. Imbert, "is but a long series of sorrows which arise from the Divine 
malady of the stigmata and end only in death: (op. cit. infra, II, x).  It seems historically 
certain that ecstatics alone bear the stigmata; moreover, they have visions which 
correspond to their role of co-sufferers, beholding from time to time the blood-stained 
scenes of the Passion.  With many stigmatics these apparitions were periodical, e. g., St 
Catherine de' Ricci, whose ecstasies of the Passion began when she was twenty (1542), 
and the Bull of her canonization states that for twelve years they recurred with minute 
regularity.  The ecstasy lasted exactly twenty-eight hours, from Thursday noon till 
Friday afternoon at four o'clock, the only interruption being for the saint to receive 
Holy Communion.  Catherine conversed aloud, as if enacting a drama.  This drama was 
divided into about seventeen scenes.  Oncoming out of the ecstasy the saint's limbs 
were covered with wounds produced by whips, cords etc.

     Dr. Imbert has attempted to count the number of stigmatics, with the following 
results:   None are known prior to the thirteenth century. The first mentioned is St. 
Francis of Assisi, in whom the stigmata were of a character never seen subsequently; in 
the wounds of feet and hands were excrescences of flesh representing nails, those on 
one side having round back heads, those on the other having rather long points, which 
bent back and grasped the skin.  The saint's humility could not prevent a great many of 
his brethren beholding with their own eyes the existence of these wonderful wounds 
during his lifetime as well as after his death.  The fact is attested by a number of 
contemporary historians, and the feast of the Stigmata of S. Francis is kept on 17 
September.   Dr. Imbert counts 321 stigmatics in whom there is every reason to believe 
in a Divine action.  He believes that others would be found by consulting the libraries 
of Germany, Spain, and Italy.   In this list there are 41 men.   There are 62 saints or 
blessed of both sexes of whom the best known (numbering twenty-six) were: St. Francis 
of Assisi (1186-1226);  St. Lutgarde (1182-1246), a Cistercian;  St. Margaret of Cortona 
(1247-97);  St. Gertrude (1256-1302), a Benedictine;  St. Clare of Montefalco (1268-1308), 
an Augustinian;  Bl. Angela of Foligno (d. 1309), Franciscan tertiary;  St. Catherine of 
Siena (1347-80), Dominican tertiary;  St. Lidwine (1380-1433); St. Frances of Rome (1384-
1440);  St. Colette (1380-1447), Franciscan;  St. Rita of Cassia (1386-1456), Augustinian;  
Bl. Osanna of Mantua (1499-1505), Dominican tertiary;  St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-
1510), Franciscan tertiary;  Bl. Baptista Varani (1458-1524), Poor Clare;  Bl. Lucy of 
Narni (1476-1547), Dominican tertiary;  Bl. Catherine of Racconigi (1486-1547), 
Dominican;  St. John of God (1495-1550), founder of the Order of Charity; St. Catherine 
de' Ricci (1522-89), Dominican;  St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi (1566-1607), Carmelite;  
Bl. Marie de l'Incarnation (1566-1607), Carmelite; Bl. Mary Anne of Jesus (1557-1620), 
Franciscan tertiary;  Bl. Carlo of Sezze (d. 1670), Franciscan;  Blessed Margaret Mary 
Alacoque (1647-90), Visitandine (who had only the crown of thorns);  St. Veronica 
Giuliani (1600-1727), Capuchiness;  St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds (1715-91), 
Franciscan tertiary.

     There were 20 stigmatics in the nineteenth century.  The most famous were: <ul> 
Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), Augustinian;  Elizabeth Canori Mora (1774-1825), 
Trinitarian tertiary;  Anna Maria Taigi (1769-1837);  Maria Dominica Lazzari (1815-48);  
Marie de Moerl (1812-68) and Louise Lateau (1850-83), Franciscan tertiaries. Of these, 
Marie de Moerl spent her life at Kaltern, Tyrol (1812-68).  At the age of twenty she 
became an ecstatic, and ecstasy was her habitual condition for the remaining thirty-five 
years of her life.  She emerged from it only at the command, sometimes only mental, of 
the Franciscan who was her director, and to attend to the affairs of her house, which 
sheltered a large family.  Her ordinary attitude was kneeling on her bed with hands 
crossed on her breast, and an expression of countenance which deeply impressed 
spectators.  At twenty-two she received the stigmata.  On Thursday evening and Friday 
these stigmata shed very clear blood, drop by drop, becoming dry on the other days. 
Thousands of persons saw Marie de Moerl, among them Gorres (who describes his visit 
in his "Mystik", II, xx), Wiseman, and Lord Shrewsbury, who wrote a defence of the 
ecstatic in his letters published by "The Morning Herald" and "The Tablet" (cf. Bore, op. 
cit. infra).  Louise Lateau spent her life in the village of Bois d'Haine, Belgium (1850-
83).  The graces she received were disputed even by some Catholics, who as a general 
thing relied on incomplete or erroneous information, as has been established by Canon 
Thiery ("Examen de ce qui concerne Bois d'Haine", Louvain, 1907).  At sixteen she 
devoted herself to nursing the cholera victims of her parish, who were abandoned by 
most of the inhabitants.  Within a month she nursed ten, buried them, and in more than 
one instance bore them to the cemetery. At eighteen she became an ecstatic and 
stigmatic, which did not prevent her supporting her family by working as a seamstress.  
Numerous physicians witnessed her painful Friday ecstasies and established the fact 
that for twelve years she took no nourishment save weekly communion.  For drink she 
was satisfied with three or four glasses of water a week.  She never slept, but passed 
her nights in contemplation and prayer, kneeling at the foot of her bed.

    II.  The facts having been set forth, it remains to state the explanations that have been 
offered.  Some physiologists, both Catholics and Free-thinkers, have maintained that 
the wounds might be produced in a purely natural manner by the sole action of the 
imagination coupled with lively emotions.  The person being keenly impressed by the 
sufferings of the Saviour and penetrated by a great love, this preoccupation acts on her 
or him physically, reproducing the wounds of Christ.  This would in no wise diminish 
his or her merit in accepting the trial, but the immediate cause of the phenomena would 
not be supernatural.  We shall not attempt to solve this question.  Physiological science 
does not appear to be far enough advanced to admit a definite solution, and the writer 
of this article adopts the intermediate position, which seems to him unassailable, that of 
showing that the arguments in favour of natural explanations are illusory. They are 
sometimes arbitrary hypotheses, being equivalent to mere assertions, sometimes 
arguments based exaggerated or misinterpreted facts. But if the progress of medical 
sciences and psycho-physiology should present serious objections, it must be 
remembered that neither religion or mysticism is dependent on the solution of these 
questions, and that in processes of canonization stigmata do not count as incontestable 
miracles.

     No one has ever claimed that imagination could produce wounds in a normal 
subject; it is true that this faculty can act slightly on the body, as Benedict XIV said, it 
may accelerate or retard the nerve-currents, but there is no instance of its action on the 
tissues (De canoniz., III, xxxiii, n. 31).  But with regard to persons in an abnormal 
condition, such as ecstasy or hypnosis, the question is more difficult; and, despite 
numerous attempts, hypnotism has not produced very clear results.  At most, and in 
exceedingly rare cases, it has induced exudations or a sweat more or less coloured, but 
this is a very imperfect imitation.  Moreover, no explanation has been offered of three 
circumstances presented by the stigmata of the saints:  Physicians do not succeed in 
curing these wounds with remedies.   On the other hand, unlike natural wounds of a 
certain duration, those of stigmatics do not give forth a fetid odour.  To this there is 
known but one exception: St. Rita of Cassia had received on her brow a supernatural 
wound produced by a thorn detached from the crown of the crucifix.  Though this 
emitted an unbearable odour, there was never any suppuration or morbid alteration of 
the tissues.   Sometimes these wounds give forth perfumes, for example those of Juana 
of the Cross, Franciscan prioress of Toledo, and Bl. Lucy of Narni.  To sum up, there is 
only one means of proving scientifically that the imagination, that is auto-suggestion, 
may produce stigmata: instead of hypothesis, analogous facts in the natural order must 
be produced, namely wounds produced apart from a religious idea.  This had not been 
done.

 With regard to the flow of blood it has been objected that there have been bloody 
sweats, but Dr. Lefebvre, professor of medicine at Louvain, has replied that such cases 
as have been examined by physicians were not due to a moral cause, but to a specific 
malady.  Moreover, it has often been proved by the microscope that the red liquid 
which oozes forth is not blood; its colour is due to a particular substance, and it does 
not proceed from a wound, but is due, like sweat, to a dilatation of the pores of the 
skin.  But it may be objected that we unduly minimize the power of the imagination, 
since, joined to an emotion, it can produce sweat; and as the mere idea of having an 
acid bon-bon in the mouth produces abundant saliva, so, too, the nerves acted upon by 
the imagination might produce the emission of a liquid and this liquid might be blood.  
The answer is that in the instances mentioned there are glands (sudoriparous and 
salivary) which in the normal state emit a special liquid, and it is easy to understand 
that the imagination may bring about this secretion; but the nerves adjacent to the skin 
do not terminate in a gland emitting blood, and without such an organ they are 
powerless to produce the effects in question.  What has been said of the stigmatic 
wounds applies also to the sufferings.  There is not a single experimental proof that 
imagination could produce them, especially in violent forms.

     Another explanation of these phenomena is that the patients produce the wounds 
either fraudulently or during attacks of somnambulism, unconsciously.  But physicians 
have always taken measures to avoid these sources of error, proceeding with great 
strictness, particularly in modern times.  Sometimes the patient has been watched night 
and day, sometimes the limbs have been enveloped in sealed bandages.  Mr. Pierre 
Janet placed on one foot of a stigmatic a copper shoe with a window in it through 
which the development of the wound might be watched, while it was impossible for 
anyone to touch it (op. cit. supra).

 AUG. POULAIN

Transcribed by William G. Bilton, Ph.D.

<In memory of the Most Rev. Leo T. Maher 
Bishop of Santa Rosa and San Diego, California>

Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an effort aimed at placing the 
entire Catholic Encyclopedia on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight, 
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to contribute to this 
worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-mail at (knight@knight.org). For 
more information please download the file cathen.txt/.zip.

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