When Christ was crucified, nails were driven into his limbs to hold him on the cross.
The mark of his passion, their happening on a person, are called stigmata and considered a miracle. They may appear in a other body parts, besides hands and feet, as wounds they often go hand in hand with bleedings.
There have been a few more than 320 reported cases of accepted stigmata; out of these people, 62 have been beatified.
Only 41 of the generally acknowledged reported cases were men.
Those who doubt are led to believe that the phenomenon might be the result of self-mutilation or unconscious emotional stress, the so-called psychogenic purpuras, both associated with many psychological disorders which may become evident through religious manifestations.
The most popular kind of self-mutilation is cutting, though the disorders have also been linked to eating disorders (saints who could survive without eating). Both disorders are much more common in the female gender than male’s, mostly as teenagers (some even carved their skin with religious words and symbols, including the names of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.
It seems like stigmata were not reported until about the XIII century. They mostly appear in people’s palms, when it seems more likely that the wound was in Jesus’ wrists.
Virtually most if not all the stigmatic are Roman Catholic.
Besides there are sides of stigmata that haven’t been scientifically explained as yet such as they don’t smell (or they do, but as perfumes), only bleed on holy festivities and might also have a different blood type from their host. Moreover, physicians can’t cure the wounds. But this is a tricky point: if stigmata are a pure evidence of a psychotic alteration then there is nothing physical to cure.
Stigmata: marks of the good or Devil's seal?
