Doctors Stumped: Nun’s Body Defies Decay Five Years Post-Death

Yesterday a team of doctors and more admitted they had no answers concerning the lack of decomposition of the former nun.

Sister Wilhelmina of the Most Holy Rosary, who founded the “Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles” passed in May of 2019 at the age of 95. She was exhumed almost a year and a half ago (April 2023) to be re-interred into a new alter for a St. Joseph shrine that was being constructed. At that time it was discovered that Sister Wilhelmina was in astounding shape for being four years gone.

A month later when word spread, people by the thousands were heading just north of Gower, Mo. in the northwest part of the Show-me state to venerate and see Sister Wilhelmina’s body that hadn’t been embalmed and had just been laying beneath the earth in an unsealed wood coffin.

The team of experts, including three doctors and a coroner over the last year plus examined Sister Wilhelmina’s body, the coffin itself, the composition of the soil she was buried in and the people that were involved in preparing her for burial and her exhumation.

Catholics refer to this occurrence as “Incorruptibility”. There have been rare instances of this happening before (over 300 times) through the centuries.

Usually within the Catholic Church a person has to be deceased for at least five years before the process of canonization can begin. As of now, there is no plan to initiate a cause for canonization for Sister Wilhelmina.

The “Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles” say they “look forward to beginning the process of canonization when the time is right.”