Medically verified Marian Miracles

Scientific verification processes · XIX-XXI centuries

The Catholic Church is the only institution in the world to submit miracles to a process of rigorous scientific verification before recognizing them. This process, especially developed in Lourdes, involves committees of non-believers, objective criteria and years of follow-up. These are some of the cures that overtook that scrutiny.

The Lourdes verification process: seven stages before recognition

Desde 1858, cuando Bernadette Soubirous tuvo sus visiones en la cueva de Massabielle, más de 7.000 curaciones han sido declaradas como «no explicables» por sus propios protagonistas. El proceso de reconocimiento oficial es el más riguroso del mundo para evaluar fenómenos de este tipo.

It all starts in the Office of Medical Findings (Office of Medical Constations), established in 1905 by the sanctuary. Any doctor in the world, whether a believer or not, can examine pilgrims and access their records. The cases that seem exceptional are high Comité Médico Internacional de Lourdes (CMIL), a panel of about thirty specialist doctors - surgeons, neurologists, oncologists, psychiatrists - from different countries and creeds.

The CMIL applies the calls Lambertini criteria - formulated in the 18th century by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, future Pope Benedict XIV - to determine whether a healing is medically inexplicable:

• The disease should be severe, with confirmed diagnosis and severe prognosis.
• There should be no medical treatment that can explain recovery.
• The healing must be instant or very fast.
• The healing must be complete and permanent.
• In the debe haber later relapse.

Si el CMIL vota que la curación es «inexplicable en el estado actual de nuestros conocimientos», el caso pasa al obispo de la diócesis del curado, quien —en consulta con sus expertos y con el Vaticano— puede declararlo oficialmente «milagroso». De las más de 7.000 curaciones declaradas inexplicables por sus protagonistas, el CMIL ha reconocido como «médicamente inexplicables» unas 70. De ellas, la Iglesia ha declarado oficialmente milagrosas 70 hasta la fecha. La prudencia del proceso es parte de su credibilidad.

The Healing of Fatima: Almeida Garrett (1918) and the First Recognized

On May 13, 1918, exactly one year after the first apparition, a man named João Inácio de Almeida Garrett went to the Cova da Iria in crutches. He had a bone tuberculosis that prevented him from walking. When he came to the place of the apparitions, he suddenly felt that the pain was disappearing. He stood up and walked without crutches. The doctors who examined him later found no explanation for the recovery.

The Bishop of Leiria, in instructing the process of canonization of the apparitions of Fatima, examined several similar cases. The healing of Almeida Garrett was one of the ones taken into account for the official declaration of the apparitions as worthy of faith, on October 13, 1930.

El atentado a Juan Pablo II (1981): «Una mano materna guió la bala»

On May 13, 1981 - the feast of Our Lady of Fatima - at 17: 17, Pope John Paul II received four shots in St. Peter's Square as he greeted the crowd from his discovered papamovil. The attacker was the Turkish Ali Agca, who fired from a distance of just five metres.

The bullets reached the Pope's abdomen, damaging the small intestine and colon. One of them passed to millimetres of the abdominal aorta. The doctors who operated on him at the Gemelli Police recognized that, given the trajectory, it was medically inexplicable that the Pope had survived. The chief surgeon himself, Professor Francesco Crucitti, publicly stated that survival exceeded any statistical calculation.

El Papa, que conocía el mensaje de Fátima y el «tercer secreto» que la Virgen había revelado a los pastorcitos, vio de inmediato la conexión: el atentado había ocurrido el 13 de mayo, aniversario exacto de la primera aparición de Fátima. En 1984, donó al santuario de Fátima la bala que le habían extraído del cuerpo; hoy está engarzada en la corona de la imagen de Nuestra Señora de Fátima.

The miracles of canonization with Marian intercession: Teresa de Calcutta and Maria MacKillop

The canonization process requires two scientifically verified miracles, produced after beatification, attributed to the intercession of the candidate. In the case of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the first recognized miracle was the healing of Monica Besra (India, 1998), a woman who had an abdominal tumor. His doctors certified that the tumor disappeared instantaneously and inexplicably after applying on his abdomen a medal with the image of Mother Teresa. The second recognized miracle was the healing of Marcilio Haddad Andrino (Brazil, 2008), with multiple bacterial infections and in a coma, which was completely cured.

In the case of the Australian Maria MacKillop - the first Australian saint, canonized in 2010 - the two recognized miracles were cancer cures considered medically inexplicable in women who had prayed for the intercession of the Blessed.

Both saints had had a very concrete Marian devotion: Mother Teresa prayed the Rosary several times a day and attributed all her work to the Virgin Mary; Mary MacKillop was co-founder of the Society of the Holy Cross with a very developed mariology.

The case of Vittorio Micheli: Lourdes's only miracle with bone sarcoma

The case of Vittorio Micheli is one of the most studied in Lourdes. In 1962, this young Italian soldier was diagnosed with a pelvis sarcoma - a very aggressive bone cancer - that had almost completely destroyed his pelvis. X-rays showed that the bone was so damaged that the femur was floating freely, without support. The doctors ruled out any possibility of recovery.

En junio de 1963, Micheli fue llevado a Lourdes. Cuando salió de la piscina de las aguas, sintió un calor intenso recorrer su cuerpo. En los meses siguientes, las radiografías mostraron un fenómeno que sus médicos calificaron de «sin precedentes en la historia de la medicina»: el hueso de la pelvis se había regenerado completamente. En 1976, el CMIL reconoció formalmente que la curación era «médicamente inexplicable»; en 1977 fue declarada milagrosa por la Iglesia.

O Virgin of Lourdes and Fatima, you who manifest the power of God in the sick bodies, intercede for all who suffer today without hope. May his illness become a way to meet you. Amen.