Feast 21 August
Pope. First Communion for children. The Oath against modernism. Incorrupt.
Sacred art
The portrait kept with St. Pius X is the image this library has of Pius. The honour goes to the person, and through the person to God. It is not a machine, and it is not a substitute for the life written below.
Died 1914. Giuseppe Sarto of Riese. The last pope buried in St. Peter’s who is also in the incorruptibles’ file.
If it belongs to Pius, it is here, with a door back into the story.
Basilica of St. Anthony, PaduaDied 1231; tomb opened 1263
Thirty-two years after Anthony’s death, St. Bonaventure opens the tomb. The body is dust. The tongue is intact, red, as if still speaking. It is kept in a reliquary in the basilica, with the jaw and vocal apparatus.
LoretoTradition: arrived 1294
A small stone house, now inside a basilica, claimed to be the house of the Holy Family, carried from Nazareth by angels — or, as later historians prefer, by the princely family of Angeli. Popes have piled privileges on it. Archaeologists argue.
Church of St. Alphonsus, RomeCretan icon, 15th c.; in Rome from 1499
A Cretan icon of Mother and Child, the Child’s sandal falling as he sees the instruments of the Passion. Entrusted by Pius IX to the Redemptorists to be made known everywhere.
BresciaDied 1540; found intact
Foundress of the Ursulines, the first great teaching sisterhood of the modern West. The body was found preserved and is kept in Brescia, in the church of St. Angela.
Basilica of Bom Jesus, Old GoaDied 1552; body in Goa
The Jesuit missionary dies on Shangchuan Island. Lime is poured in the coffin to speed decay for a later transfer. Months later the body is found fresh. It has lain in Goa for centuries, reduced by relic-taking, still exposed on feast days.
Pibrac, near ToulouseDied 1601; found intact 1644
A shepherd girl, scrofulous, neglected, sleeping in the barn. Forty-three years after her death, a workman opens the church floor and finds her intact, a young body in a poor dress. She is the Zita of the fields.
Jesuit church, WarsawMartyred 1657; found intact 1730
A Jesuit missionary, tortured and killed in Janów. Seventy-three years later the body is found incorrupt, the wounds still visible. The relic has been kidnapped by history — Pinsk, Polotsk, Moscow, Rome, Warsaw — and is home again.
Rue du Bac, ParisDied 1660
Co-founder of the Daughters of Charity with Vincent. Her body, found well preserved, lies in the chapel of Rue du Bac, across from Catherine Labouré and the chair of the apparitions.
St. Peter’s Basilica, VaticanDied 1689; body in St. Peter’s
The pope of the relief of Vienna, an ascetic in a baroque court. When the tomb was opened the body was found unusually preserved. He is beatified, and rests in St. Peter’s.
San Severino MarcheDied 1721
A Franciscan, deaf, blind, and lame in his last years. After the beatification the relics were covered with a wax figure and laid in a glass coffin in San Severino. Healings at the tomb began at once. What you see is the wax over the relics.
Città di CastelloDied 1727; heart examined
Capuchin Poor Clare and stigmatic. After death the bishop had the heart opened and the sisters reported the instruments of the Passion in the tissue, matching notes sealed while she lived. A flood later destroyed the body. The monastery now shows a lifelike figure holding the relics.
Montefiascone CathedralDied 1732; body at Montefiascone
Foundress, with Cardinal Barbarigo, of the Religious Teachers Filippini. The body, preserved, is in the cathedral of Montefiascone — a woman of schools for the poor of the Papal States.
Florence, Discalced CarmelDied 1770; found intact
A Florentine Carmelite who died at twenty-two. The body remained flexible and incorrupt, the face beautiful in death, and has been shown in the Carmel of Florence.
Pagani, CampaniaDied 1787; shrine at Pagani
Doctor of the Church, founder of the Redemptorists, moral theologian of mercy. His remains are in the basilica at Pagani, a founder’s body in the house of his congregation.
San Crisogono, Trastevere, RomeDied 1837; body in San Crisogono
A housewife, mother of seven, tertiary, whose mystical sun — a luminous globe in which she saw the world — was examined by popes. The body, found intact, lies in a glass coffin in Trastevere.
Sacred Heart, Jette (Brussels)Died 1865; found intact 1893
Foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart. Exhumed twenty-eight years after death, the body was flexible, the eyes intact. She is still shown in the chapel at Jette.
Pellevoisin, Indre1876
Estelle Faguette, dying of tuberculosis, sees Mary fifteen times. She is healed. The lady shows a scapular of the Sacred Heart and asks for mercy to be believed. Rome approved the scapular; the archbishop approved the devotion.
St. Onofrio, RomeDied 1882; found intact 1906
Foundress of the Sisters of St. Dorothy. Exhumed in 1906, the body was intact, the habit fresh. She lies in the chapel of St. Onofrio on the Janiculum.
Lisieux, Normandydied 1897; canonized 1925
A Carmelite who died at twenty-four, promised a shower of roses, and was named a Doctor of the Church for a little way of trust that has sent more people to holiness — and to Lisieux — than any treatise.
St. Peter’s Basilica, VaticanDied 1914; exhumed 1944
The pope of frequent Communion and of Pascendi. Exhumed in 1944, the body was found in a remarkable state of preservation. He lies under an altar in the Presentation chapel, the face a silver mask.
Cova da Iria, Fátima1917
In 1917, in a hollow of pasture called the Cova da Iria, near the village of Fátima in Portugal, three shepherd children — Lúcia dos Santos, ten, and her cousins Francisco Marto, nine, and Jacinta Marto, seven — saw a lady brighter than the sun, six times, on the 13th of the month from May to October. She asked for the rosary every day, for the conversion of sinners, for devotion to her Immaculate Heart, and that a chapel be built. On 13 July she showed them hell and spoke of war and of Russia. On 13 October, before a crowd of tens of thousands standing in the rain, including reporters who had come to mock, the sun appeared to dance. Francisco and Jacinta died in the influenza. Lúcia lived until 2005 as a nun. The bishop of Leiria declared the apparitions worthy of belief on 13 October 1930.
Tre Fontane, Rome1947
A Protestant, anti-Catholic tram driver, Bruno Cornacchiola, takes his children to a grove to prepare a speech against Mary. She comes. He converts. The grotto at the Three Fountains is a Roman pilgrimage with papal visits and a cautious local reception.
Syracuse, Sicily29 August – 1 September 1953
A cheap plaster plaque in a worker’s apartment sheds human tears for four days. A commission, scientists, and the bishops of Sicily take depositions. Pius XII spoke of it. A vast basilica now stands over the site.
