Exploring the Science of Miracles

PAVIA, Italy

Such is the supply of miracles in Italy that if a month goes by without one, it's, well, a miracle.

Weeping Madonnas, sacred blood that goes from solid to liquid and back again, lottery numbers divined by gazing on a photo of a deceased pope, sudden cures after contact with a holy relic: Miracles are old, old phenomena in Italy, the land where Saint Francis tamed a wolf and wild doves and a veil taken from Saint Agatha's tomb stopped lava in its tracks.

But this is also the land of science par excellence, the home ground of Galileo, da Vinci, Fermi and Marconi. So there are also voices that say, "Hold on a minute."

Luigi Garlaschelli is a chemist who from his perch at Pavia University skeptically eyes Italy's parade of miracles. He belongs to a group called the Italian Committee to Investigate Claims of the Paranormal, made up of Italian scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners, who use science to try to explain the inexplicable.

"Miracles are just paranormal events in religious clothing," he says. "I'm a chemist. I look for the substance behind things." He's not trying to undermine people's religious beliefs, he says, explaining: "We're just trying to study phenomena. If there's a non-miraculous answer, we say so."

These days, he contends, it is more and more important to champion scientific methods in the face of assaults from religious authorities and fundamentalist believers. The attack on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in the United States by promoters of a rival explanation known as intelligent design is a symptom of the danger, he said. "Science should not be lethargic."

In his work he does not often tangle with the Vatican. Officials there generally take a benign, arms-length stance toward the many events traditionally celebrated as miracles in its churches, neither questioning nor embracing them. "Some of these things are medieval in origin. I stay away from them," said the Rev. Peter Gumpel, an official at the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, which investigates reports of miracles by candidates for sainthood.

"Our belief, however, is that there is a personal God who intervenes in history," he said.

Garlaschelli is a bearded man in a white lab coat who smokes a pipe. He studies not only religious phenomena, but also plain trickery. He has written a book about sorcerers and levitation and one about an ancient Italian sword stuck in a stone that may be the precursor of the King Arthur legend.

It's a far cry from his usual research, which produces academic papers with titles such as "Recent Progress in the Field of N-acylalanines as Systemic Fungicides." Garlaschelli recently completed a periodic imitation of the miracle of San Gennaro, an event that has been celebrated in Naples since the 14th century. The city's archbishop pulls out a vial containing a maroon-colored solid substance from a case, then rotates and shakes the container until the contents liquefy.