Indianapolis Archdiocese probes parish's alleged Eucharistic miracle

(OSV News) -- The Archdiocese of Indianapolis said an investigation of an alleged Eucharistic miracle is underway at a southeast Indiana church where it reportedly took place in late February.

The archdiocesan Department of Communications confirmed to OSV News March 3 the inquiry originated in St. Anthony of Padua Church in Morris, Indiana.

"A careful investigation, with assistance from a professional laboratory, is in progress," said Sally Krause, director of communications, in a statement provided to OSV News.

The office did not provide further comment citing the ongoing investigation.

In Facebook and X posts, Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace, or CUP, a Carmel, Indiana-based Catholic advocacy group, said that a "young woman" -- whom a member of the group knows well -- described seeing "drops of blood" on two consecrated hosts. The hosts had apparently fallen on the floor Feb. 21 and were placed in water and kept in the tabernacle to dissolve. A day later, what the woman saw instead, she claimed, "looked like a very very thin piece of skin with blood on it."

A CUP founder confirmed in an email to OSV News that the same woman, who wished to remain anonymous, took the photos of the apparently blood-stained hosts that were posted on social media.

Father Terry Donahue, a Companion of the Cross priest, who has given talks on well-known Eucharistic and healing miracles, said that in recent months the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released updated guidelines for miraculous investigations. Among further detailed stipulations, because of international interest from the faithful, the local bishop now has to alert the national bishops' conference as well as the Holy See from the beginning, informing them that an inquiry will be undertaken.

Father Donahue said according to the new document in investigations of purported Eucharistic miracles, the bishop has to personally ensure the consecrated specimen is kept in a "confidential place and in an appropriate manner." He has to form a commission made up of at least one theologian, one canonist and one expert, usually a medical doctor who specializes in hematology (blood study) or histology (microscopic tissue study) and various other scientists.

"Maybe you're going to have people who are familiar with detecting whether something is in fact blood or not," he said. "Because you can have various natural phenomena that to the untrained eye look like something bleeding, but actually it's a certain type of mold spores that are very red."

The priest told OSV News he gives talks as a former techie from Silicon Valley with a science background, usually to lay young adults or seminarians.

"This is a place where I think the Catholic Church shines by having this integration of faith and reason in the investigation of these phenomena," he said. "In other words, we have an open, but cautious approach to these type of phenomena that involves theologians, but also experts in the field of the scientific disciplines."

Father Donahue said scientific investigations of possible miracles such as the Eucharist -- which Catholics believe to be the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ -- manifesting as truly blood and human tissue resonate with the faithful and particularly the doubtful.

"This is evidence that the God that you believe exists, is interacting in the world in a way that we can measure to some degree," he said. "But he's interacting in the world in a very specific way, like pointing to the reality of Jesus ... in making (himself) present upon the altars of all Catholic churches, Orthodox churches too, that the body and blood for the salvation of the world (exists) to feed us."

"So that can become evidence for Christianity and evidence for the reality of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and the Catholic faith," added the priest, meaning this would move the bar for people who are sincerely seeking and open to investigating these miracles.

Father Donahue lauded Blessed Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager deeply devoted to the Eucharist, who died of leukemia. He documented all church-approved Eucharistic miracles, with an extensive website listing more than 135 phenomena since the 700s. When he is canonized April 27, Blessed Carlo will become the first millennial canonized a saint.