>Might have something to do with the fact they are buried in marble slab crypts.
Bernadette was buried in a pauper's grave -- basically the 1879 equivalent of a shovel and a Hefty bag. lol
BTW, there are eastern mystics whose bodies haven't rotted away either, so it's a religiously neutral phenomenon. That may be one explanation, though ... this may be something that happens all the time, but we only notice it in religious figures because we venerate their bodies.
That said, it still doesn't explain why Bernadette with no modern embalming looks like this:
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/stb06003.jpg
And an infant cadaver from only 90 years ago looks like this:
http://www.local6.com/2006/0424/8956892.jpg
At last, my college major cultural anthropology has some bearing on my actual livelihood.
