KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Bishop James V. Johnston of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, released results of the investigation by medical experts into Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster’s incorruptibility in a press release on the diocesan website Aug. 22, the feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “The body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster does not appear to have experienced the decomposition that would have normally been expected under such previous burial conditions,” stated a news release on the official diocesan investigation of incorruptibility into the late Black Catholic nun who founded the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, in Gower, Missouri. According to the release, the bishop commissioned a team of local medical experts in May 2023 to conduct an examination and evaluation of Sister Wilhelmina. In addition to examining and evaluating the body, the team inspected the casket and conducted interviews with eyewitnesses to the events immediately preceding Sister Wilhelmina’s burial in 2019 and the exhumation in April 2023. The diocese’s release noted the Catholic Church does not render an official determination of whether a deceased person’s body is incorrupt, noting that condition is “not considered to be an indication of sainthood.” Bishop Johnston in the press release noted there are no plans to initiate a cause for canonization, but he prayed Sister Wilhelmina’s story “continues to open hearts to love for Our Lord and Our Lady.” (OSV News)
