----- Original Message -----
From: "Mario Goveia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!"
<goanet@goanet.org>
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 8:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Goanet] RE: Shroud of Turin
Is St. Francis Xavier's undecomposed body a fake?
......................................................
Hi Mario,
You will know about taxidermy. Could this be the explanation for the state
of the body?
Book Review by Cal McCrystal of The Jesuits. By Jonathan Wright
Source: Independent On Sunday (UK)
Publication date: 15 February 2004
Excerpt:
...Unaccountably, the most intriguing episode of cerebral penetration and
removal is not given in this otherwise admirable account. It concerns
Francis Xavier, a tall, spare, well-born recruit to the new Society of
Jesus, founded in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola. Wright describes the
circumstances of Xavier's death in 1552 on the island of Sancian, off the
Chinese mainland, which he had reached on a ship loaded with a cargo of
pepper and other spices. In his sacerdotal robes he was placed in a tomb
much too small for his size (mallets were used to force him in). Many months
later, the body was exhumed and taken to Goa where witnesses testified to,
instead of decomposition, the "clothes entire, and the colour as that of a
living man, and exhaling a pleasant odour". This was hailed as a miracle.
Sainthood was bestowed. The inspiring tale uplifts Roman Catholics to this
day.
I now introduce a sceptical note. In the 1880s a more prosaic version, based
on documentary and scientific evidence, was published in the Quarterly
Review and then generally ignored. It suggested that Father Xavier's
entrails and brain had been removed on the instructions of the Portuguese
shipowner, James Pereira, who further ordered that the corpse be stuffed
with part of his cargo to preserve it. If true, this would explain the
suspension of decay and the agreeable odour. Pereira's motive in faking the
"miracle" was to retain influence at Court by claiming the protection of a
glorified saint.
......................................................
After reading the article, I tracked down, emailed and then phoned Cal
McCrystal who was a senior journalist on the staff of The Observer and who
happens to live quite near to me. I asked him for the source of his claims.
He told me that they were:
1. Quarterly Review Vol. 260, 1871. The hundred years of Christianity in
Japan
2. William W Ireland: The Blot upon the Brain, p. 165-188. 1843, 2nd ed.
Edinburgh, Bell.
I was given to understand that the Church suppressed these publications.
Check them out!
Cheers,
Eddie Fernandes
