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Last updateFri, 05 Feb 2016 2pm

‘Incorrupt’ Inocencia & her love of the Eucharist

Devout Catholics visiting the Guadalajara Cathedral often take a few minutes to linger and pray in front of a shrine supposedly showcasing the preserved corpse of Santa Inocencia, a young girl to whom many miracles have been attributed.

Inocencia belongs to the world of the “incorrupt” – a Roman Catholic belief that Divine Intervention allows some humans to avoid decomposition after death as a sign of their holiness.

Although the Catholic church says it does not recognize embalmed bodies as incoruptibles, most investigators believe the 250 or so incorrupt saints displayed in churches around the world have undergone some kind of post-death processing, perhaps encasement with adipocere, or mortuary wax, and then painted.

Nonetheless, such rationalizing does not concern the faithful unduly and many Catholics gain solace and comfort from their adoration of “incorrupt” saints.  

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