Corpse Of The Week

As I approach my eighth decade my thoughts increasingly turn to whether to be buried or cremated. How can we be certain that the ashes presented to our family are really ours and what really happens to us when we are buried six feet under? On the other hand, if I am truly dead, do I really care? Some light might have been shed on one of my burning questions by a discovery that has sent the Catholic world atwitter.     

The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles order, exhumed the body of one of their founders, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, who had died in 2019, in preparation for reinterring it in a brand-new shrine. She had been buried in a plain coffin in her habit and had not been embalmed, but the nunnery was astonished to find that there was barely any sign of decay. Incorruptibility is a sign of holiness amongst those of the Catholic faith.

News of the discovery in Gower, Missouri spread like wildfire, prompting hundreds of pilgrims to visit the site, somewhat mawkishly paw the remains of Sister Wilhelmina, and take away a teaspoon full of earth from the grave. In the new shrine she will be on display in a glass case.

Some scientists have cast doubt on whether the Sister Wilhelmina phenomenon is as rare as all that. Coffins and clothing do help to preserve bodies and corpses are rarely ever exhumed, other than shortly after burial or centuries afterwards, so we never know the rate of decay.