Is stigmata a thing?

Ask a church receptionist #13

Padre Pio, showing his stigmata

Welcome to another installment of Ask a church receptionist, a monthly column where I answer your questions about the Bible, Christianity, and whether a hot dog is a sandwich (it obviously is).

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Dear church receptionist,

What’s the deal with stigmata? Is it a real thing, or something made up for horror movies? Is it mentioned in the Bible? Is it important? Is there a way I can get it (since it seems like it would be a cool thing to bust out at parties)?

—I’m joking (mostly)

Dear I-hope-it’s-mostly,

I’m comfortable saying that the phenomenon of stigmata is one of the weirder footnotes in the annals of Christian history. In brief, it’s an alleged miracle in which an individual is stricken semi-permanently with wounds corresponding to Christ’s suffering and death: holes (almost always superficial) in the hands (or wrists) and feet (from the crucifixion nails), plus one in the side (from a spear), and often some around the crown of the head and on the back (from the crown of thorns and a whip) as well. It’s also an almost exclusively Catholic phenomenon—to my knowledge, only a handful of Protestants¹ and zero Orthodox Christians have ever claimed to experience it—and it seems to mainly afflict ascetic and mystic types, like monks and nuns. Interestingly, something like ninety percent of stigmatics are estimated to be women.

The earliest known stigmatic was, of course, St. Francis of Assisi, who lived from 1181 to 1226, so already that raises a big red flag: why did God wait more than 1,000 years after the crucifixion to start passing its marks around to saints? I don’t have an answer for that, but there is good reason to think that Francis’s stigmata were real, partially because they were attested to by many of his contemporaries, and in part because—unlike subsequent stigmatics—Francis appeared to have real nails going through his hands and feet. So, if he was faking it, he was dedicated as hell to the bit.

A more contemporary, and in some ways more typical, example of a stigmatic would be St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887–1968), who—in addition to having numerous other miracles attributed to him—spent most of his life with wounds in his hands, feet, and side, all of which bled freely and never spread, scabbed over, or putrefied (and in fact were said to emit a pleasant odor). Multiple doctors examined the wounds and declined to offer naturalistic explanations, but it should be noted that Pio was once caught purchasing large amounts of carbolic acid, which his detractors alleged he used to keep the wounds open and sterile (he maintained the acid was for sterilizing needles at the hospital he’d founded). If Pio was faking, though, one has to wonder why he bothered, since he always seemed deeply embarrassed by the marks and spent most of his life trying to keep them hidden with fingerless gloves.

For every Francis or Pio, though, there are plenty of confirmed hoaxes. A good example is the nun Magdalena de la Cruz (1487–1560), who spent a decent chunk of her life bleeding from her appendages and performing miracles, only to admit she had faked the whole thing on her apparent deathbed. (She actually didn’t die, and was imprisoned by the Inquisition for her fakery. So, whoops.) And even in the cases where it wasn’t deliberately faked, there are plenty of other possibilities as well: accidental self-harm, disease, various mental disorders, even the good-old-fashioned power of suggestion (though whether the mind is actually capable of spontaneously generating holes in the body is still very much up for debate).

As to your other question—“Is [stigmata] mentioned in the Bible?”—well, as I’ve said, stigmata evidently wasn’t a thing until the thirteenth century, and the Bible was completed by the second century, so, no. That said, I did come across the fringe opinion that St. Paul himself had stigmata, based on what he writes in Galatians 6:17:

From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

…which, sure, Paul literally, technically says he has “stigmata” here, since he’s writing in Greek, and “stigmata” is just the Greek word for “marks,” but it’s a huge leap to take that to mean he had Padre Pio–style holes in his hands and feet. Most commentators on the passage seem to agree that Paul is talking about something much more mundane—specifically the (non-miraculous) scars Paul had on his body thanks to the Romans’ penchant for beating Christian proselytizers. But I guess if you want to believe that Paul had stigmata, I can’t stop you. I’m not your dad.

Now—is stigmata important? While I’ll admit to finding it interesting, I’d have to say, that, theologically, no, it’s not. If Francis and Pio were here, I’m guessing they’d back me up on this, because even if stigmata is a legit miracle, it’s, of course, just a sign—and a sign is only useful to the extent that it points you to the right thing. I think it’s reasonable to say that a whole lot of people were blessed through their interactions (direct or indirect) with people like Francis and Pio, but only to the extent that those interactions pointed them back to Jesus. If a guy with holes in his hands reminds you of the importance of Jesus’s sacrifice and your need to follow him, great; if it doesn’t, I wouldn’t worry about it. And if it’s distracting you from the importance of Jesus…well, maybe stop thinking about it so much.

As to how you can get stigmata…I think the traditional way is to be a really pious, devout (and preferably Catholic and Italian) Christian ascetic who really, really doesn’t want stigmata. That usually does the trick. The alternative route, of course, involves a cordless drill.

Still thinking about that one time that I had a huge zit that exploded and squirted blood everywhere on Good Friday (draw your own conclusions!),

—the church receptionist 🕹🌙🧸

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Got a question about the Bible, Christianity, or anything else for a real, honest-to-God church receptionist who literally wrote the book on the Bible? Send it to luke.t.harrington@gmail.com, or just click the button below:

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1. One of the more interesting stigmatics—though I can’t find a ton of information about her—is Cloretta Robinson, a ten-year-old Baptist girl from Oakland, California, who started spontaneously bleeding from her hands and feet toward the end of Lent in 1972. Her pastor apparently trotted her out for Holy Week for a few years thereafter, but she disappears from the public record before reaching adulthood. I hope she’s doing okay.