The Blood of San Gennaro

Today at 10:12AM, a small vial of dried blood in Naples turned to liquid, as it has done several times a year since at least the 1380s. A great crowd had gathered to witness this event. The man holding up the vial is Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples.

The announcement is traditionally greeted by a 21-gun salute from the nearby castle. President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy was among the politicians who kissed the vial.

The vial contains the blood of the city’s patron saint, Gennaro, whose feast day is today.

Saint Gennaro (or Januarius on the Roman calendar) was Bishop of Benevento near Naples.

He, together with his lector Desiderius and three deacons, were beheaded during the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian on 19 September of 305. Legend has it that a woman named Eusebia took away the bodies for burial and saved a small amount of Gennaro’s blood as a relic of the saint.

The blood is kept in two vials. The smaller now contains only a few black spatters, but the larger is four inches tall and is usually about half full of a dark coagulated lump. The vials are hermetically sealed and solidly fixed inside a reliquary built for them in the 17th century.

The reliquary is normally kept in a vault whose keys are held by a commission including the Mayor and the Archbishop of Naples.

Several times a year, the reliquary is taken to the Monastery of Santa Chiara, where the archbishop holds it up for inspection and tilts it to show that the contents are solid.

He places it on the high altar next to the saint’s other relics. After a series of prayers by the faithful, the contents of the larger vial usually liquefy. The archbishop then holds up the vial and tilts it again to demonstrate that the liquefaction has taken place.

Sometimes, no miracle occurs. This is generally held to portend disaster for the city. The blood failed to liquefy in 1527, and tens of thousands of people died of the plague. In 1980, the blood failed to liquefy again and a 6.9 earthquake shook Naples. More than 2,700 people died.

In all, five disasters have struck Naples in years where the saint’s blood remained solid. It could be a coincidence; it could be a result of selective memory… or it could be a miraculous oracle.

The Church has studiously avoided making any official statement on the veracity of Saint Gennaro’s blood, even though thousands witness the event each year. In fact, the Vatican tried to remove Gennaro’s feast day from the Calendar during the reform, but the people of Naples howled in protest. The faithful certainly can believe that this is a miraculous occurrence, but no one is required to believe it.

As for me, I don’t know. I certainly believe in miracles – they happen all the time. But is this one?

The Church is pretty rigorous in its investigation of reported miracles when called to do so, but given the expense of this sort of investigation, local bishops are loathe to send a request unless there are compelling reasons to do so. Usually this involves the cause of the saint, where these sorts of things are critical.

Since Gennaro has already been raised to the altars, nobody’s going to foot the bill for much more than a cursory look. That’s happened twice in Genaro’s case. Spectroscopic analysis undertaken in 1902 and repeated in 1989 only proves that the contents are “consistent with hemoglobin”.

Maybe that’s enough.

O God,
who grant us to venerate
the memory of the Martyr Saint Januarius,
give us, we pray, the joy of his company
in blessed happiness for all eternity.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.