This really belongs in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread but I want to make sure it's not missed, because it is somewhat of a shocker, if it turns out to be true.....
John Paul II's cause reportedly
snagged by medical panel's rejection
of the 'miracle' presented
Rome, March 4 (dpa) - The process to make Pope John Paul II a saint has been delayed by the decision of a Vatican medical commission not to recognize an alleged miracle attributed to the late pontiff, an Italian newspaper reported Thursday.
John Paul, who died in 2005, is currently a candidate for beatification, the last step before being canonised, or recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church.
But before a person is beatified and given the title "blessed," by the Pope, the Vatican's saint-making department must obtain proof that a miracle has taken place with the candidate's intercession.
According to the website of the Rome-based daily,
La Repubblica, the Vatican medical commission has rejected the case involving a French nun who was apparently cured from Parkinson's disease after she prayed to him to ask for God's help.
The commission found that the nun's Parkinson's diagnosis was not certain, and that in any case, patients with certain forms of the disease - a degenerative nervous system disorder which afflicted John Paul himself -have been known to make a full recovery, La
Repubblica said.
The commission will now ask to review
one of the other 271 possible miracles that have been attributed to the Polish-born Pontiff,
La Repubblica said.
Chants of "Santo subito! (Saint immediately) and banners bearing the same slogan rose amongst the hundreds of thousands who attended the funeral of John Paul, whose death ended one of the longest and most eventful pontificates in modern history.
A month after John Paul's death, his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, put him on the fast track by waiving Church rules that normally impose a five-year waiting period after a candidate's death before the procedure that leads to sainthood can start.
Repubblica has been guilty - even chronically so - of any number of journalistic boo-boos, but I don't think they would have gone out on a limb with this unless they had an uinmpeachable source. So while I pray that they are once again wrong, let us pray, too, that in the event this report is true, that John Paul's postulators will find the strongest case to present out of those 271 other possible miracles. Might they have been too hasty with betting everything on the case they did present?
P.S. Big sigh of relief for now!
False alarm?
Definitely false reporting -
by dpa, not 'Repubblica'
I had to do something earlier, so I could not immediately check out Repubblica's report, but now that I have, the dpa report above turns out to be guilty of not faithfully passing on what Repubblica did say.
First of all,
Repubblica was merely passing on a story in a Polish newspaper (not named) today about the 'rejection' of the miracle and thus, a snag in the late Pope's beatification, etc.
However, the second line of
Repubblica's story is that Vatican sources contacted by the Italian news agency ANSA denied the report.
It adds that 'an eminent Vatican source' consulted by the agency Apcom reacted with surprise, saying, "It cannot be so simply because the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood has not yet officially analyzed it [the miracle]". He said a meeting of the medical commission is scheduled to be held next week.
See what happens when one does not try to track down primary souces???? And how could the editors at dpa have passed on such a misleading account?
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/03/2010 21:18]