usatoday24
Throughout his almost two decades as Pope, Pius XII had to deal with the complex scenario of World War II and The Holocaustwhich has made it A controversial figure. His critics accuse him of having silent before the Nazi extermination. His supporters see in him a strategist who maneuvered to save lives and prevent Hitler’s wrath from being on Christians and Jews. Curiously and After the death of Francisco Ithese days his name is playing for a very different reason: His caulitous funeralthat probably make the burial of Pius XII the most macabre and commented of the long history of the Vatican.
After all There are few chronicles that they argue that during their funeral one of the worst things occurred that can happen in such circumstances: his body exploded for the past of the curia and the doctors. Literally.
A goodbye with controversy
Pius XII had a pontificate convulsive. And very much in spite of (and that of the church) their last days were fogged by the same feeling. Although his agony was not especially long (he felt bad October 6 of 1958 and died only a few days later, on Thursday 9) everything related to his health status became an obsession for the press. So much interested and such was the fight to publish in first the death of the Pope that some media decided to use a first level source: the doctor Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisiwho for decades had been a friend, confidant and personal doctor (Pontifical file) of Pius XII.
“In those days the Vatican was extremely hermetic and it would not have occurred to him He remembered in 2005 The journalist Alexander Chancellor. When in 1968 he put himself at the head of the Reuters delegation in Italy, he himself met an old red phone in the office that, as his colleagues explained, had been installed there ten years before to be able to contact Galeazzi-Lisi.
The problem is that the doctor turned out to be a source as influential as unreliable and lack of scruples. Over time Galeazzi-Lisi It would end up expelled of the Vatican for allegedly wanting to take advantage of his position at the Holy See while the Pope agonized. To be precise, They accused him to strain a camera in their room to photograph the dying and then sell the material. The reward was juicy. ABC remember that there were magazines and editorials that offered him $ 3,200 for the snapshots and another 20,000 for his story.
It was not the only thing that the doctor was accused.
From Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, it is also said that he promised to give a journalist’s death exclusively. The pact was allegedly that when Pius XII had gone to better life, the doctor would open a window of the papal residence. With what they did not tell, neither the doctor nor the press was that the heat of the Roman October took a nun to open that same window to ventilate the building, which led the reporter to misunderstand the signal.
Other sources They assure that what Galeazzi-Lisi had committed was to stir a handkerchief and that the journalist confused him with a curtain moved by the wind. Whatever the right version, the truth is that on Wednesday, October 8, when the Pope was Agonizing but still aliveseveral media went out with a news as resounding as false: “Il Papà è Morto”. There were still several hours for Pius XII to die due to a “circulatory disorder.” The news was made public another better doctor, Antonio Gasbarrini.
The most curious thing is that the main (and infamous) participation of Galeazzi-Lisi in the last goodbye of Pius XII began just then, after the death of the Pope.
A frustrated embalming
Although Francisco I simplified Papal funeral In order for the ceremony to look more like that of “a shepherd” than to “a powerful man of this world”, his funeral has made clear once again that the burial of a high pontiff is an unusual event. It is estimated that in just a few days about 250,000 people They passed before the coffin, in the Basilica of San Pedro del Vaticano, to say goodbye to him. In times of Pius XII something similar happened. The body used to stay Exposed for days so that the faithful could transmit their goodbye.
And that, of course, required trying to remain preserved in the best possible conditions as much time as possible. The usual thing was that they retired part of the body of the body, but that idea did not seem like Pius XII too much, determined to be buried “As God created it”. In His memoirs Galeazzi-Lisi recounts how to these misgivings he decided to speak to the Pope of a new conservation technique that he had developed with a colleague of Naples, a simple, little invasive method of a mixture of herbs and essential oils.
The technique was known as “Aromatic osmosis”it had been prepared by Galeazzi-Lisi with the help of a embalder called Oreste Nuzzi and one of its great advantages was that it barely required to manipulate (or eviscerate) the body of the deceased. It arrived with submerge it in the oil and aromatic herbs preparation and then wrapped it in layers. The doctor assured that the method was similar to that used by the Egyptians in their rites or the one that had been used with Jesus Christ.
In his galeazzi-lisi memories even He recounts How he showed Pius XII a hand treated with his mixture. “He was amazed to see his appearance”.
Did the Pope accepted that new technique to his body? It is not clear. What seems to be that Galeazzi-Lisi managed to achieve the approval of the Church. The works started on October 10 and priori followed the doctor’s guidelines: the body of the Holy Father was treated with the preparation of herbs and oils and then covered with a kind of cellophane to “conserve volatile aromas and ensure the best possible reservoir,” remember The Italian newspaper Il post.
But things did not go as the doctor expected.
First because, although it was autumn, it was hot in Rome.
Second, because the first leg of the cellophane was not very brilliant either. The layers obstructed the passage of air, facilitating the accumulation of gases.
To top it off the body had to move for its wake from the Castel Gandolfo’s papal residence to Rome, where it would be buried in the Vatican caves.
The result was very much, very much, from what they probably had in mind Galeazzi-Lisi and of course Pius XII and the cardinals gathered in the Vatican. It is not easy to know what happened exactly because, They clarify in Il postwith the passing of the decades, multiple versions have circulated; But it seems clear that the result left a lot to be desired: the body began to emit such a smell that the members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard that veiled it should be revealed every few minutes.
And that was the least of Vatican’s problems. Since 1958 they have been written A good number of chronicles that relate how during the transfer of Pius XII body to the Basilica of San Pedro the accumulation of gases caused its thoracic cavity to exploit. Literally. With the scare and rumble corresponding.
“When the funeral float was high in the Lateran basilica for the first funeral rite, a disconcerting noise like a small firecracker was heard inside the coffin and caused it to open,” Martín Careaga recounts In ‘Pontifex Maximus’, a work cited by ABC in his story about what happened in 1958.
He is not the only one that gives that version for good. Recently, after Francisco’s death, the Reverend Ronald Vierling He reported For its almost 95,000 followers of X what happened on that unfortunate day of the autumn of 1958. “The hot weather in Castel Gandolfo, added to the lack of refrigeration and the hermetic cellophane, caused an anaerobic decomposition and the accumulation of gases,” Remember the priest.
The result, he continues, was that the body acquired a “greenish-black” tone, swelled and began to detach a strong stench that forced the Swiss guard to relieve its custodians every 15 minutes. “It is said that the chest sank or exploded due to gas pressure and parts such as nose and fingers emerged.”
Even the Museum of the Surgeon Salon, of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, cites the case of Pius XII in An article Four years ago dedicated precisely to the preservation of bodies. “Autolysis, added to rot caused by intestinal bacteria, soon generated large amounts of gas in the body. This was aggravated by the lack of cooling due to unusually high heat,” explains Professor Ken Donaldson about the technique chosen by Galezzi-Lisi. The result? “During the days that the wake and the funeral ceremony lasted, the Pope’s chest exploded by gas accumulation In the thoracic cavity. “
Like the reverend vierling, Donaldson remembers that the conservation method devised by Galezzi-Lisi gave such bad results that the battered body was detached as the nose and fingers and acquired a greenish hue. So critical was the situation that it is said that the Vatican authorities had to resort to experts to try to amend the mess and treat the body with products capable of stopping the decomposition.
“To control the situation it is said that it was tied with silk strips to cup in the coffin and some stories suggest that a wax mask was used to cover the face during the last stages of the wake, ” He recounts Father Vierling.
A sadly controversial (and macabre) funeral to say goodbye to one of the most relevant potatoes in the recent history of the Catholic Church.
Images | Wikipedia 1, 2, 3 and 4
In Xataka | The death of the Pope has caused everyone to see ‘conclave’ again. Visions have multiplied 283%
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings