Bernadette of Lourdes

[Pravoslavnik]

There has been a very lively, informative discussion here at the St. Euphrosynos Cafe recently about the issue of "Cyprianism" and the presence or absence of grace within churches suspected of heresy.

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  My current question may be greeted with a howl of execration, but I ask it out of genuine curiosity:   Is the Roman Catholic saint, Bernadette of Lourdes, a saint?  Or, put differently, did Bernadette of Lourdes have grace?  Did the Holy Spirit abide in her? 

   There is a popular Roman Catholic book, [i][u]The Incorruptibles[/u][/i] by Joan Carroll Cruz, which has brief hagiographical texts and photos of incorrupt Roman Catholic saints.  Of course, many of these saints (those who lived prior to the Great Schism) are Orthodox, but many, like Bernadette, lived during the post-Schism era of Roman Catholic history.  (Conversely, the author obviously knows NOTHING about the many incorrupt Orthodox saints of the past millenium, and even refers to the bodies of the Russian Orthodox saints of the Kiev Caves Lavra as "mummies!") 

  This book (in paperback) has a remarkable photo of the relics of Bernadette of Lourdes on the cover.  I later did a little research and discovered that some skilled craftsmen apparently made a wax "cover" of some sort for Bernadette's face some years ago.  The photo on the cover of this book, may, therefore, be a wax replica of some sort.  Is this all some sort of demonically-inspired illusion?  One might ask a similar question about the Roman Catholic apparitions at Medugorje or Fatima.

Here is a link with a view of the cover:

[jgress]

Well, if her youthful countenance is due to a wax mask, you have your explanation. I don't see the need to call it an illusion, unless you're talking about deluded Catholics who really think her face is like that after over a century of exposure to the air. Even the incorrupt relics of Orthodox saints don't look that fresh.

If she's otherwise incorrupt, in the same way Orthodox saints are incorrupt, that's a different story. There's no reason I can think of, theologically speaking, to consider her a saint. She was a heretic, and her alleged visions of Our Lady did not correct her heresy, as I would have thought a true vision would. The wiki page on "Incorruptibles" does give examples of incorrupt Catholic saints, and even an incorrupt Buddhist "saint"! So I suppose the phenomenon of incorrupt heretics and pagans as a whole can be called a demonic delusion. Remember that Our Lord foretold about the Antichrist, that he would perform "signs and wonders" to deceive "even the elect". We can't substitute miracles for knowledge of the truth.