As it happens with everything that does not directly concern the deposit of faith (like, for example, the events of Lourdès, Fatima or the question of the Shroud), the Church has never officially pronounced itself on the “miraculousness”, the “supernatural nature” of what happens in Naples. And it usually happens on three occasions: first of all on September 19th but also on the first Sunday of May and on December 16th (on this last date, the phenomenon is often missing, while it has occurred on the occasion of particular events or visits by illustrious people).
There is therefore the possibility that even a Catholic who intends to remain such denies the “supernatural nature” of what happens around that mysterious blood. But this denial should first of all take into account the impressive moral consensus constituted by favorable declarations of a long series of Popes, cardinals, bishops as well as by the sense of faith of those “little ones” and “poor” privileged by the Gospel. Furthermore, the denier would have the obligation – as in any other complex case open to mystery – to document himself with respect and seriousness. He should then personally realize the development of the “prodigal”: it is a possibility given to anyone. Indeed, even recently Cardinal Ursi has urged scholars to every possible investigation, as long as the integrity of the very delicate relic is guaranteed.
Scientific tests have so far been blocked by the fact that the two vials are sealed with a very hard mastic that prevents them from being opened without breaking them. Some scholars hypothesize the opening of a very small hole with a diamond-tipped drill (or with a laser) to extract a drop of the substance when it is dissolved and thus subject it to analysis. However, there remains the risk of causing the breakage of containers that, according to recent investigations, are about fifteen centuries old. That the content is undoubtedly blood, however, has been demonstrated by the spectrographic analysis performed by professors of the University of Naples.
But even without further investigation, it is certain that the “miracle” of San Gennaro constitutes a unique (there is news of other bloods with anomalous behavior – in Naples itself, for example, that of Saint Patricia – but they present different characteristics) that challenges the fundamental laws of physics.
“We are faced,” writes a biologist, “with a solid, sealed, age-old substance that irrefutably liquefies, changes color, volume, weight, viscosity before our eyes, in winter or summer, in cold or heat, with a crowd or a few people, on fixed or variable dates, for eight days in a row, remaining now liquid, now semi-liquid, now pasty, now semi-solid. Or it does not liquefy at all.”
All the “natural” explanations proposed over the centuries have not been able to give any convincing interpretation. And all attempts to reproduce the phenomenon artificially have failed. The change in volume is impressive (sometimes the blood seems to “swell” filling the entire container, other times it takes up much less space) and inexplicable: no substance can assume ever-changing conditions when passing from a solid to a liquid state. The color also changes from time to time, from bright red to dark to yellowish: here too we are faced with an enigma. The weight also seems to vary, but an exact measurement is difficult because we are forced to weigh the ampoule with the case to which it adheres in a way that has so far been inseparable.
Another aspect that completely escapes the laws of physics is the very notable variation in the time taken to pass from the solid to the fluid state.: now instantaneously, now after a few minutes or hours or days. Sometimes the solidification is so sudden that the blood remains diagonal.
The many who would like to get away with the “San Gennaro” phenomenon by simply saying that it obeys some natural cause that we do not know now but that we will discover in the future, must deal with a precise reality: the phenomenon clashes with all the fundamental laws of physics that are already well known to us. Rather than referring, therefore, to a hypothetical future, we must deal with a present that contradicts all our knowledge.
“No natural cause can be valid here”
Among the various explanations, temperature has been used, also based on the fact that until recently a candle was held close to the vials to see if the melting had already occurred. But for years candles have been abolished and a battery is used. Furthermore (and this is a decisive observation), as every cook in the kitchen can see, with heat the blood does not melt but on the contrary it hardens! The phenomenon, however, occurs both in summer and winter, while in the chapel the temperature varies from 5-6 degrees to 30-52.
Another attempt at explanation (often degenerated into parapsychological, mediumistic or spiritualistic hypotheses) is the one that refers to the psychic tension of the crowd that would channel energy onto the blood. Here too, however, one must deal with reality: the blood often melted even in the presence of a few people or was found already fluid when the safe was opened. On the contrary, the blood remained stubbornly solid even after days and days of invocations, of maximum psychic tension on the part of the crowd that filled the Cathedral.: it happened, for example, in May 1976 for all eight days of exposure to the faithful, despite the multiplication of fervor.
Others have hypothesized that a substance was placed in the vials, the formula of which has been lost, perhaps of alchemical origin, which would ensure the repetition of the phenomenon. But, as was said, spectrographic analysis has shown that it is blood and nothing else. And the hypothesis of the possible “addition” (which would have occurred in the Middle Ages) of some substance to the blood must deal with the fact that archaeological research has demonstrated the antiquity of both the vials and their impenetrable closing system.
In any case, the very existence of this blood is inexplicable: if the law of nature were respected, the blood should have putrefied and then become dust a very long time ago. As a recent scholar, Professor Gastone Lambertini, summarized after years of research: «One fact is certain: nothing holds, everything falls in the face of this phenomenon that only the believer in the impetus of his faith can explain. The law of conservation of energy, the principles that govern the gelation and solution of colloids, the theories of the aging of organic colloids themselves, the biological experiments on blood coagulation: all this shows us how the substance venerated for so many centuries defies every law of nature and every explanation that does not refer to the supernatural. This, adds the scholar, “is a clot that lives and breathes»: not therefore some “alienating devotion” but a sign of eternal life and resurrection.
While the phenomena involving the blood vials not only seem to stand up to any modern criticism (indeed, the enigma increases as our knowledge grows), what is said to have happened in Pozzuoli, in the church dedicated to San Gennaro and now officiated by the Capuchins, does pose problems of authenticity. Here, in a space in the wall, there is a block of marble that tradition indicates as the “stone” on which San Gennaro was beheaded.. On the block you can see some rust-red stains, along with many wax encrustations, produced by the dripping of the candles of the devotees. It has been said that these are (but only starting from the 18th century) blood stains that revive at the same time as the liquefaction of the blood that occurs in the cathedral of Naples.
Accurate historical and archaeological studies carried out by Ennio Moscarella have however demonstrated that the “stone” is an early Christian altar dating back perhaps two centuries to the martyrdom of the saint and that the alleged traces of blood are nothing but the remains of a painted figure. The “revival” of the stains would therefore be an optical illusion also aided by the layer of wax. However, fraud would be excluded: Whoever wanted to defraud would have painted bloodstains, handprints, drops.
Furthermore, Moscarella’s studies, while casting doubt on the authenticity of the late tradition of the “revival”, have allowed us to reconfirm the antiquity of the cult of Gennaro. A reconfirmation that has come, in a suggestive and sensational way, also from the passionate and competent work of Don Nicola Ciavolino who, under the direction of Father Umberto Fasola, has been working for over ten years to reopen and study (with exceptional results) the catacomb that took its name from Gennaro.