Nice investigative reporting exposes another religious charlatan exploiting the gullible.

Canadian Lilian Bernas claims to exhibit-"in a supernatural state"-the wounds of Christ. On March 1, 2002, I observed one of a series of Bernas's bleedings. It was the eleventh such event that "the Lord allows me to experience on the first Friday of the month," she told the audience, "with one more to come" (Bernas 2002). But was the event really supernatural or only a magic show?

Stigmata
Popularly associated with saintliness, stigmata refers to the wounds of Christ's crucifixion supposedly reproduced spontaneously on the body of a Christian. Following the death of Jesus, about a.d. 29 or 30, the phenomenon waited nearly twelve centuries to appear (putting aside a cryptic Biblical reference to St. Paul [Galatians 6:17]). St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) is credited with being the first "true" stigmatist (after a man with the crucifixion wounds was arrested for imposture two years earlier).

Following St. Francis, a few hundred people have exhibited stigmata, including several saints-most recent Padre Pio (1887-1968). He was canonized in 2002, although not for his stigmata, the Catholic Church never having declared the alleged phenomenon miraculous (D'Emilio 2002; Tokasz 2003).

Indeed, in addition to its copycat aspect, stigmata is suspect on other grounds. It appeared in mostly Roman Catholic countries, notably Italy, until the twentieth century. Also, the form and placement of the wounds has evolved. For example, those of St. Francis (except for his side wound) "were not wounds which bled but impressions of the heads of the nails, round and black and standing clear from the flesh" (Harrison 1994, 25).

Subsequently, stigmata have typically been bleeding wounds, albeit with "no consistency even remotely suggesting them as replications of one single, original pattern" (Wilson 1988, 63).

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http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-03/i-files.html

Fred,

When I was a young sailor stigmata was big, really big, in places like the Phillipine Islands. They loved it there, and you could count on new variations every year when Good Friday rolled around.

It was around this time they started the rusty knife surgeon scam, where untrained religious freaks would perform miraculous "surgery" on people in trances. One even had a book deal in the states (nirvana of the gullible) but it's all died out since the 80s.

I understand that Mexico is into this also, but they give it far less publicity. Living in Los Angeles around Easter of 1984, there was news of a mechanic who was walking with a cross on a pilgramige to somewhere or another and his hands and feet bled everyday at sundown like clockwork.

A recent film, The Butterfly Effect, uses a case of jailhouse stigmata as a plot device.

Every one of these cases (including the movie) seem to demonstrate that stigmata in our times has been relegated to the lower classes, and perhaps from that standpoint it might really have its roots in hysteria or psychosis, in which case it is "real" in the sense it is a mental condition with physical symptoms.

Then again it might only be a form of self-hypnosis in a religious setting.

There are certain things that are unique to the faithful among Catholics. Stigmata and sightings of the Virgin Mary are the two most publicized. There are also holy relics such as the tilma on display at the Basilica in Mexico City.

Who knows if they have been scientifically looked at or if they had been what conclusions may have been made.

There is probably some credence to it as a psychosomatic phenomenon, like glossalalia or St. Vitus Dance. I think the real thing is just mild capillary bleeding though; not crucifixion-type wounds.

I have read that George Foreman converted to Christianity and became a preacher after removing his gloves and shoes from a boxing match and seeing blood on his hands and feet.