The embalming of Pope Pius Xii was so botched that his chest exploded because of the built-up gas.
The Swiss guards who stood vigil also had to be rotated every 15 minutes because of the stench the Pope’s body emitted as he lay in state in 1958.
In the past century, whenever a Pope died, he was disemboweled and the internal organs preserved in a jar. The body was buried separately.
This tradition was stopped by Pope Pius X just before his death in 1914 because he considered it to be too gruesome.
Taking cue, in 1958, just before his death, Pope Pius xii expressed his desire for his body to be buried as ‘God had made him’ without the removal of internal organs.
For this reason, when he died, his physician Dr Galeazi Lissi was tasked with preparing the body for viewing with the internal organs intact.
However, according to experts of that time, Dr. Galeazi botched the process and demonstrated his incompetency when he failed to treat the internal organs while embalming the Pope.
He treated the body using an ancient method of soaking the body with oils, then wrapping it tightly in cellophane sheets just the way Jesus’s body was treated.
Galeazi himself claimed that he used the same type of oil and resins that were used to preserve the body of Jesus. But in doing so, he never bothered to treat the internal organs.
This backfired when putrefaction caused by gut bacteria in the internal organs caused a build-up of gas, which led to the Pope’s chest exploding.
His body also turned greenish, and some of his fingers fell off. The stench was so strong that one Swiss guard fainted.
Dr. Galeazi was also accused of making money out of the Pope’s agony and death.
He took the photos of a very sick Pope and shared them with tabloids, and immediately after the Pope died he connived with journalists by secretly opening the window to allow them to take photos.
Because of this, Dr. Galeazi was fired and banned from ever setting foot in the Vatican.
Pope Paul VI ‘s body was equally not in a good state after he died in 1978.
The mortician lightly embalmed his body without taking into consideration Rome’s summertime weather. After only two days in public view, the Pope’s body began to decompose, and fans were installed in the Basilica to disperse the smell.
Even though Pope John Paul II’s body was not embalmed after he died in 2005, it underwent treatment to preserve it during public viewing.
In a procedure that was led by Dr. Giovanni Arcudi, the head of forensic medicine at Rome’s Tor Vergata University, the Pope’s body was injected with a formaldehyde-based fluid.
However, Dr Giovanni refused to disclose further details, revealing that he had been sworn to the oath of secrecy.