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March 1, 2011 - Skeptoid
15:52
Skeptoid #247: The Miracle of Calanda

This famous story of God once healing an amputee falls apart under historical scrutiny. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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The Miracle of Kalanda 00:08:06
One of the most famous stories in Catholicism is that of a young Spanish man in the 1600s named Miguel Juan Peissero.
Best known for having injured his leg in a farming accident, having it amputated, then living a new life as a one-legged beggar for a few years, and then, in the story's greatest twist, having the leg miraculously restored.
Today we're going to scrutinize the evidence for this story, which is surprisingly extensive.
The Miracle of Kalanda is coming up next on Skeptoid.
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The Miracle of Kalanda.
A favorite question asked by skeptics when confronted with stories of miraculous religious healings is to ask, why doesn't God heal amputees?
The answer?
He did.
Once.
It happened in Spain in 1640 when a young man's injured leg was amputated.
Two and a half years later, his leg was miraculously restored.
It's become known as the Miracle of Kalanda, and it's perhaps one of the best documented of miracles.
The faithful have hard evidence to back it up, and the skeptics have no answer.
Was the event truly miraculous and unexplainable?
Maybe it was, but this is Skeptoid, and we're going to take a hard look at what's actually known and see if we can uncover the most likely explanation.
Miguel Juan Pegiser, a strapping young fellow about 20 years old, was working at his uncle's farm in the village of Castellón in 1637.
A mule-drawn cart ran over his leg, fracturing the tibia.
Quickly, his uncle drove him to the hospital at Valencia.
The story, as recorded, says that Pey Ser stayed in the Valencia hospital for five days until it was decided that he needed better help than they could provide.
Peycer was sent, on foot, with a broken leg, to the larger hospital in Saragossa, a journey which took him 50 days.
Once he arrived in Saragossa, feverish and ill, doctors found his leg to be gangrenous and in a grievous state.
Peycer's right leg was amputated four fingers below the knee, and he was buried in a special plot at the hospital.
He stayed in the hospital for several months and was provided with a wooden leg and a crutch.
He then applied to the church authorities at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in Saragossa for authorization to make a living as a beggar, which was granted.
Pay Ser lived in Saragossa for two years, attending Mass daily at the basilica and accepting alms from the citizenry.
The pious young amputee was a familiar face in town.
At last, he decided to return home.
He rode a donkey all the way to his parents' home in Calanda, where he'd grown up.
His family was overjoyed to see him, but since he couldn't work, he spent a couple of weeks riding his donkey to neighboring villages begging.
And then, one night, it happened.
A traveling soldier was spending the night in Pegiser's own room, so Paycer took a bedroll on the floor in his parents' bedroom.
In the morning, his parents saw not one, but two, feet protruding from the end of the short blanket.
They excitedly woke their son, who was as surprised as anyone, and the news quickly spread throughout the village that the young amputee had been miraculously healed.
An examination of the leg revealed it was the same leg he'd always had.
It bore a scar from where a cyst had been excised when he was a child, two scars made by thorns, and another from a dog bite on his calf.
Rough life.
Most notable was a scar where the cartwheel had crushed his tibia.
The leg was said to appear thin and atrophied, but within a few days he was using it normally.
As the story spread, it drew in the curious and the official.
A few days after the miraculous restoration, a delegation consisting of a priest, a vicar, and the local royal notary came to Kalanda to see for themselves and to prepare an official record of the event.
They took statements from witnesses and carefully documented Paycer's story.
Two months later, a trial was opened in Saragossa where more than 100 people testified that they had known Paycer with only one leg, whereas now he had two.
Ten months later, the Archbishop rendered a verdict that the restoration of the leg was canonized as a true miracle.
Since that date, skeptics have no longer been able to charge that God does not heal amputees.
The most authoritative work on the miracle of Calanda is the 1998 book, Il Miracolo, by Catholic scholar Vittorio Massori, which identifies and records the pieces of written evidence collected by the delegation and which survives today.
They are the following.
Documentation of Miguel Juan Paycer's baptism confirming that he was a real person.
Registration of Paycer's admittance to the hospital at Valencia.
The delegation's original notarized report of the statements collected in Calanda, including statements by people who saw him come to town with one leg and wake up with two.
A certified and notarized copy of the original minutes of the trial at Saragossa, including many statements of people who knew Paycer as a one-legged beggar.
There are also many other documents that do not necessarily support the miracle claim, but that support other parts of the story.
For example, proof that other people named in the story exist, proof that after the miracle Paycer was invited to the royal court in Madrid, and books and other publications retelling the event.
If we accept that these documents are indeed legitimate, and I think we can, is there any wiggle room left?
Do the documents consist of proof that a miraculous restoration of an amputated limb occurred?
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Missing Evidence and Gangrene 00:06:10
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Medically, Pay Serre's story is improbable but not impossible.
55 days after the injury, he said, his leg was amputated due to advanced gangrene.
In a crushing injury like the one he suffered, gangrene may take from 48 to 72 hours to set in.
And once it does, you're gone from sepsis in as little as a few hours.
Nobody lives 55 days with a gangrenous injury.
If his skin was not broken, or if any brakes healed cleanly, it is still possible that the wound could have developed internal gas gangrene weeks, months, or even years later.
But the appearance of gas gangrene is inconsistent with the condition allegedly reported by the doctors, which was phlegminous and gangrenous, meaning open and wet, and black.
Without an actual examination, we can't say for certain that Peyiser's story is impossible, but the version of the story that's been reported raises a huge medical red flag.
This red flag is sufficient to prompt a closer examination of the documented evidence.
And there is one thing that jumps out.
It's a giant gaping hole.
In case you haven't fallen into it yet or seen any large buildings or 747s get swallowed up in this hole, I'll point it out.
There is no documentation or witness accounts confirming his leg was ever gone.
But what about all those witnesses who knew him with only one leg?
Allow me to offer an alternate version of what might have happened that requires no miraculous intervention and is still consistent with all the documentary evidence we have.
Pey Ser's leg was broken in the accident as witnessed and reported, but like most broken legs, did not develop gangrene.
His uncle took him to the hospital at Valencia, a documented event where he spent five days, during which his uncle presumably went back to his farm, and his broken leg was set.
The next 50 days he spent convalescing as his leg mended.
Unable to work during this time, he was forced to earn a living as a beggar and found that the broken leg did wonders for the collection of alms.
Once his leg was sound, he reasoned that if a broken leg was good, a missing leg would be even better.
He bound his right foreleg up behind his thigh, got a hold of a wooden leg, and traveled to Saragossa, home of the Great Basilica, someplace where he wasn't known.
For two years, the young Pey Ser enjoyed the relative financial success of panhandling among the basilica's devotees as an amputee with a sad story.
Eventually, he made it back home to Kalanda, where his plans were accidentally foiled when the existence of his complete sound leg was revealed when his parents saw his feet sticking out of his blanket.
At that point, the miracle story was a perfect cover.
Many, many people had known him as the man with one leg, and now everyone could quite plainly see that he had two.
There was no way he could lose.
I'm not accusing Miguel Juan Pelliser of being a fraud, but I am pointing out that there is a far more probable, alternate explanation.
Faking blindness, infirmity, poverty, and all manner of ailments is hardly unheard of among beggars.
It is now, and has been for millennia, a pillar of the profession.
Note that no evidence exists that his leg was ever amputated, or that he was even treated at all, at the hospital in Saragossa, other than his own word.
He named three doctors there, but for some reason there is no record of their having been interviewed by either the delegation or the trial.
The trial did find that no leg was buried where he said it was at the hospital, but this is exactly what we'd expect to find if it had never been amputated.
Although this lack of a buried leg is often put forth as evidence that the story is true, it is actually a lack of evidence of anything.
We have evidence that he was admitted to the hospital in Valencia with his uncle.
We have notarized first-hand statements that a scar was visible on his leg where he had been injured by the mule cart.
We have numerous statements that he was well known in Saragossa as a one-legged beggar.
All the evidence supports Paycer being a beggar with a popular and time-honored gimmick who was caught, not with his hand in the cookie jar, but with his feet out of the blanket.
It is only through the introduction of a new assumption, that of the existence of unprecedented supernatural intervention, can the alternate explanation of a miraculous restoration be found consistent with this same evidence.
This is where Occam's razor comes into play.
The most likely explanation is the one that requires the fewest new assumptions.
We can't say that the miracle of Kalanda is not genuine, and we can't prove that Miguel Juan Pelliser's leg was not miraculously restored.
But we can say that the evidence we have falls short and is perfectly consistent with no miracle having taken place.
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