Is Strangeness Next To Holiness?
A chunk of flesh floating in a glass of water: This was the discovery made by Father Alejandro Pezet on Aug. 26, 1996, when he opened the tabernacle at his church in Buenos Aires.
A week earlier, Pezet had, in this same glass of water, placed a damaged piece of sacramental bread, in order to respectfully dissolve the eucharist.
But instead of dissolving, the bread had transformed into bloody muscle tissue. Three years later, the flesh had still not deteriorated. Given the shocking preservation, Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, who would eventually become Pope Francis, ordered that the specimen be sent away to New York for testing.
The scientists, who were not told the origin of the tissue, concluded that it was a fragment of heart muscle from the wall of the left ventricle. They also said that the heart had undergone great stress — as if its owner had been beaten in the chest — and tortured.
Most astonishingly, they found a great deal of white blood cells in the heart (which is significant because white blood cells die outside of a living organism) meaning, that, at the time the sample was taken, the flesh was still alive.
The scientists were shocked when they found out the mysterious origins of the fragment, with one of them saying, “This will remain an inexplicable mystery to science.”
That story is one of many collected in writer and podcaster W. Tyler Allen’s new book “A Catechism of the Strange.” Allen’s book celebrates God’s ability to use the miraculous, the bizarre and even the downright creepy to connect with his people.
On this week’s podcast, I spoke with Allen about his book, his faith journey and what it would look like if Christians were more willing to embrace the strangeness of God’s presence.
Matthew Peterson is Religion Unplugged’s podcast editor and audience development coordinator. He took part in the 2025 European Journalism Institute held in Prague, an annual program co-sponsored by The Media Project.