Honduras · 21th Century
San Juan
On the afternoon of June 9, 2022 — the feast of Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest — about fifteen people gathered for the Liturgy of the Word at the chapel of El Espinal, a rural community of roughly sixty families near San Juan in the department of Intibucá, Honduras. The chapel, dedicated to the Apostle James, had no resident priest; José Elmer Benítez Machado, an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion appointed two years earlier, led the service.
About this miracle
At approximately 5 p.m., Benítez Machado opened the tabernacle to distribute previously consecrated hosts. He found the corporal — the white linen cloth folded over a wooden ciborium — stained with what appeared to be human blood. No one present could account for the stains.
Two Sacred Heart missionaries, Father Marvin Sotelo and Father Oscar Rodriguez, secured the corporal and notified Bishop Walter Guillén Soto, the first bishop of the Diocese of Gracias (erected April 27, 2021). The bishop was skeptical. "I'm not that prone to naively believing in things," he told EWTN Noticias. "Logic makes us prudent, in terms of believing things without sifting through them and without analyzing them."
Nearly three months later, in late October 2022, the bishop ordered scientific testing. The corporal was first examined at the Santa Rosa de Copán Medical Center, about 30 miles from Gracias, and then sent to the DISA Test toxicological center in Tegucigalpa for comprehensive analysis. Tests revealed that the stains were human blood, type AB with a positive Rh factor (AB+) — a blood type estimated at roughly 2.5% of the Honduran population. Analysts ruled out wood resin, animal blood, pigments, and artificial application; the cloth showed no fungus, mold, or contamination.
Bishop Guillén Soto subsequently recognized the event as a Eucharistic miracle. At the request of Archbishop Gábor Pintér, the apostolic nuncio in Honduras, the scientific evidence and notarized witness oaths were sent to the Vatican for further investigation. The corporal remains sealed and in the bishop's custody pending the Vatican's review.