The body of a Catholic sister, who was dug up four years after her death to be transported to her final resting place in Missouri, surprised her companions, who found her without any signs of decomposition.
Cemetery staff told us to only expect bones to be found in these circumstances, since Sister Wilhelmina [Lancaster] She was buried without embalming and in a simple wooden coffin,” one of the sisters reportedly told the media. newsweek, According to what was stated Watchman Saturday.
Hundreds of believers had traveled to Missouri to see with their own eyes the body of Sister, former founder of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary Queen of the Apostles, a convent in Gower.
Because behind a layer of mold on the body, possibly due to condensation in the cracked coffin, the corpse showed very little sign of decomposition more than four years after his death in 2019, according to the Catholic News Agency, by sharing photos.
But according to Nicholas Passalaqua, associate professor and director of forensic anthropology at Western Carolina University, it’s not uncommon to find well-preserved corpses in the first few years after death.
“Normally when we bury a body in a human decomposition facility we would expect it to take about five years for it to be reconstituted,” he reportedly told Reuters. Newsweek. This is without a coffin […] So for this body, I personally don’t find it very surprising that the remains are so well preserved after only four years.”
However, the sister may be the first African-American woman to be found in this “incorruptible” country, a sign of holiness in the Catholic faith, Mother Cecilia, the abbess of the monastery, reportedly told the Catholic News Agency.
