The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [18]
“The wounds typically appear mystically,” Morelli went on. “There’s usually no evidence of a cause. As I said, over the centuries, the Church has had experience with many people who experience the wounds of Christ on the cross. Only in the most rare of cases does a religious mystic experience all five of the wounds Christ suffered on the cross. And, as I mentioned, we almost never see stigmata from the scourging at the pillar or the crown of thorns.”
“Does the Church consider stigmata to be mystical events? Do you consider them miracles?”
“In some cases, yes,” Morelli noted. “Padre Pio had the stigmata on his wrists and he was canonized just a few years ago.”
“Does Bartholomew have all five wounds?”
“No, he has just the nail wounds in his wrists.”
“So, the story here is that Bartholomew suffered these wounds while saying Mass,” Castle said, making sure he had his facts right. “That’s what Archbishop Duncan told me, it’s what you are saying, and it’s what I saw on the YouTube videos on the Internet.”
“Right. Father Bartholomew was in the middle of consecrating the bread and wine, the most solemn part of the Mass. When he held the host above the altar, the wounds started appearing. He blanked out and collapsed at the altar.”
This evidence caused Castle to suspect his initial diagnostic hunches were correct—that Bartholomew’s neurosis involved a multiple personality disorder and had progressed to the point where Bartholomew was hallucinating conversations with Jesus in the confessional. The additional evidence also suggested to Dr. Castle that Father Bartholomew was engaging in psychosomatically induced self-mutilations, even if it appeared to those not psychiatrically trained that Bartholomew played no role in causing the injuries. Castle understood that to most people, including Archbishop Duncan and Father Morelli, possibly even to the pope, it would appear as if the wounds were manifesting themselves from some mystical cause. Bartholomew’s stigmata, like those of Padre Pio, Castle judged, were most likely caused by Bartholomew’s subconscious being fixated on what he imagined was the physical pain Christ suffered being crucified.
He made notes on Bartholomew’s medical file questioning whether a mass hysteria had begun to develop in which parishioners believed they were being cured in the confessional when Father Bartholomew gave them absolution from their sins. If a mass hysteria was beginning to develop over Father Bartholomew’s supposed power to communicate with Jesus in the confessional and to heal illnesses, it would be accelerated even more if people believed Bartholomew was mystically manifesting the wounds of Christ on the cross.
“You brought with you the medical files on Bartholomew’s wrist injuries?”
“Yes, they’re right here,” Morelli said, pulling the files from his briefcase and handing them over to Castle.
“As I said, I’m not a medical doctor,” Morelli continued. “But from the extensive research I have done in the Vatican on the stigmata, I can tell you that Bartholomew’s case is very much like what the Church has come to expect. For most people experiencing the stigmata, the wounds can bleed profusely and are terribly painful. Still, the bleeding is not constant and wounds are not typically fatal. Many who experience the stigmata live for years and go into and out of a religious ecstasy in which they often see visions and sometimes report they see Christ and can speak with him.”
“From my conversation with the archbishop, I understand Father Bartholomew returned to St. Joseph’s only recently,” Castle noted.
“Yes,” Morelli acknowledged. “It was only two months ago that Archbishop Duncan allowed Father Bartholomew to return to St. Joseph’s. He was in rehabilitation for nearly three years. It was two years after the accident before Bartholomew could walk on his own power again. He still uses a cane and sometimes crutches. Right now, recovering in the hospital from the stigmata, he is confined to bed, able to move around only in a wheelchair. The stigmata took away much of the