The Catholic faith boasts dozens of so-called incorruptibles, according to Pacific Standard. Discover places the number around 100, noting more than half can be found in Italy. Other destinations for Incorruptible sightseeing include Poland, Spain, France, Belgium, Austria, India, Germany, Lebanon, and Peru. The disparity in numbers of incorruptibles isn't surprising when you consider the modern aversion many feel toward them. According to Heather Pringle's "The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead," many incorruptibles "have been sadly forsaken over the years, even by the faithful." So, establishing an official count is impossible.
To the most devout, however, incorruptibility represents a tangible display of divine intervention at work in the lives of God's faithful servants. Incorruptibles also are thought to perform miracles posthumously, especially healings. So, the bodies of the most famed incorruptibles remain on display in churches and chapels worldwide, even as visitor numbers have dwindled over the centuries.
Since the mid-20th century, the Catholic Church has called on science to better understand incorruptibles and aid in the preservation of contemporary figures' cadavers. In so doing, they've blurred the line between the supernatural and the scientific. Perhaps Ezio Fulcheri of the University of Genoa best articulates the Roman Catholic stance on incorruptibles today. In an interview with Discover, he argued, "What is a miracle? It's something unexplainable, a special event that may occur in different ways ... but don't exclude [rare] natural processes that are different from the normal course of things."
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