On August 15, 1996, a discarded consecrated Host was placed in water according to standard protocol. Instead of dissolving, it developed reddish tissue and grew.

• The Archbishop who ordered the investigation was Jorge Bergoglio — now Pope Francis
• Dr. Ricardo Castañón Gómez, a former atheist, coordinated the scientific analysis
• A tissue sample was sent to New York for blind testing
• The primary examiner was Dr. Frederick Zugibe, a secular forensic pathologist and cardiologist at Columbia University
• He was not told where the sample came from or what it had been

The Witness

Zugibe analyzed the tissue and identified it as human heart muscle — specifically from the myocardium of the left ventricle near the heart valves.

• He found intact, active white blood cells — cells that typically disintegrate within 15 minutes outside a living body
• Professor John Walker (University of Sydney) later confirmed intact white blood cells in the same tissue six years after the event
• The blood type was AB, matching the Lanciano relic and the Shroud of Turin

When Zugibe was finally told the sample came from a communion wafer that had been sitting in water for three years, he stated: “How and why a piece of a human heart is still alive, sitting in distilled water, is totally beyond my comprehension.”

https://nacn-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/Zugibe-scanned-reports-26-3-05-and-15-3-05-RON-ack.pdf