. (Stan Griffin; Is Stigmata for Real?; Joe Nickell) Griffin suggests this was because the church of that period ...was being criticized for various abuses and for ignoring the average man and woman... the common people wanted some direct communication with Jesus, but the Church required them to obtain permission for that contact. So to bypass an unyeilding church, individuals began to suffer with Jesus on their own, feeling that body on the cross withing thier own bodies.(Stan Griffin, Workers for Jesus)Many sites also report that there are some stigmatics that still live, many of them are Roman Catholic, from Italy, many are women, many are of particular religious orders: Dominicans and Franciscans, many were fasting or have difficulties in eating, and many of them had difficult childhoods. ( Stan Griffin, Workers for Jesus; Miricles vs. Forteana; Joe Nickell, Skeptical Inquirer) "The miracle of stigmata may be linked to that of miraculous fasting...on an impossible diet, i.e. 'locusts and honey' or eating only the Sacramental Host." (Miracles vs. Forteana) "Many stigmatics seem--also like St. Francis--to have had a early life that might be characterized as notable 'worldly.''(Joe nickell, Skeptical Inquirer) Nickell also reports that St. Francis spent his leisure time in extravagance, Blessed Angela of Folingo bore several children, and lost them all after her husband died, St. Catherine of Genoa married at sixteen and spent ten years finding pleasure, but then devoted her life to helping in a hospital, and Father James Bruse tried to find ways to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, succeded in 1978, but later became a Catholic Priest. Father Bruse then experienced the stigmata and soon after found statues "weeping" in his presense. (Joe Nickell, Skeptical Inquirer) These are some example I have found to support the claims listed above. Some sites suggest that stigmata may be pshocosmatic, not Divine Intervention. They say...
