Diocesan tribunal to examine miracle claim for the canonization of Blessed Damien

By Patrick Downes

Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo initiated a diocesan tribunal that will investigate a cure from cancer of a Hawaii woman to determine if it could be the “miracle” required for the canonization of Blessed Damien DeVeuster.

The bishop on March 12 commissioned eight people who will be involved in the process. Three priests, one sister, three lay church officials and a medical doctor were sworn in during a during a prayer service at St. Stephen Diocesan Center.

The diocese’s judicial vicar Father Joseph Grimaldi, acting as the tribunal’s “promoter of justice,” will direct the process which will include the gathering of medical and other evidence, and the interviewing of witnesses.

The others commissioned for the process were Sacred Hearts Father Emilio Vega Garcia, postulator; Sacred Hearts Sister Helene Wood, vice postulator; Capuchin Franciscan Father Robert Maher, delegate judge; Dr. Philip Jones, expert doctor; John Ringrose, chancellor; and Cathy Sniffen and Netty Peiler, notaries.

According to Father Grimaldi, the purpose of the tribunal is two-fold:

• to determine if the reported cure was extraordinary in nature and occurred without any possible medical or scientific explanation.
• to determine if the person cured had a particular devotion to Blessed Damien that corresponded with the change in medical condition.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia defines miracle as “an extraordinary event, perceptible to the senses, produced by God in a religious context as a sign of the supernatural.”

In the church’s canonization process, the initial investigation of a miracle attributed to a sainthood candidate takes place in the diocese where the alleged miracle occurred.

The cure in question was documented in an article about four cases of “complete spontaneous regression of cancer” published by Dr. Walter Y.M. Chang, in the October 2000 issue of the Hawaii Medical Journal.

In this particular case, three malignant lung tumors, the largest between 3 to 4 cm (about 1 1/2 inches wide), were discovered by x-ray in September 1998. The cancer was a reappearance of a matching malignancy that earlier had been surgically removed from other parts of the body.

Before therapy could be given for the lung cancer, an x-ray a month later showed that the tumors had decreased in size.

Monthly x-rays revealed further shrinkage until scans in May and October 1999 could find no sign of the cancer. The doctor’s comment was that the “lung metastases disappeared with no therapy at all,”

According to Sister Helene, the patient, upon learning of her condition, began prayers to Blessed Damien, including a pilgrimage to Kalaupapa, the place were Damien worked and died among Hawaii’s Hansen’s disease patients.

The tribunal’s investigation takes on the character of a legal case.

The promoter of justice guides the process and interrogates the witnesses.

The “expert doctor” provides the tribunal’s impartial medical expertise. Dr. Jones is a locally based physician who is not a Catholic and has no connection with the patient.

The role of the tribunal’s judge is to act as the bishop’s delegate in the drawing up of the tribunal’s conclusion.

The chancellor is there to verify the authenticity of all the reports and documents. The notaries record the proceedings and co-sign the documents.

The postulator is the person appointed by the sponsors of the cause, in this case the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, to oversee the investigation into the life of the candidate for canonization and to provide evidence needed for the cause for sainthood.

The postulator is based in Rome where he can collaborate closely with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which directs the overall canonization process.

Father Vega Garcia visited Hawaii last year to gather information on the case. He made the formal appeal to bishop in November to open the interrogation of the cure. He left the islands, then returned in February to continue his assistance in the cause.

The vice-postulator represents the postulator at the local or diocesan level.

As advocates for Damien’s cause, outside of assisting in the gathering of evidence, neither the postulator nor vice-postulator may participate in the tribunal’s actual judgment process.

After the diocesan tribunal examines the claim, it recommends a judgment to the bishop.

The bishop accepts, or rejects, the final decision of the tribunal and communicates his decision through a “votum,” a letter to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. Accompanying the votum are all pertinent documents and evidence.

In Rome, medical experts and theologians at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will scrutinize the evidence and come to their own conclusions regarding the claim. If their judgment is positive, the congregation informs the pope who makes the decision to declare the candidate a saint.

Canonizations usually take place within a Pontifical Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

A miracle was also required for Father Damien’s beatification, the step before canonization. On June 13, 1992, Pope John Paul II approved the cure of a Sacred Hearts Sister in 1895 as a miracle attributed to Damien’s intercession,

In that case, Sister Simplicia Hue of France, at age 37, lay dying of a long intestinal illness when she began a novena to Father Damien. The pain and symptoms of the illness disappeared overnight on Sept. 11, 1895. Sister Simplicia lived for 32 more years.

Pope John Paul II beatified Father Damien on June 4, 1995, in Brussels, Belgium.