Vatican Congregation of the Causes of Saints accepts work diocesan tribunal
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
The cause for the canonization of Blessed Damien de Veuster took a step forward earlier this month. On Dec. 2, the Vatican Congregation of the Causes of Saints accepted as concluded the work of the Diocese of Honolulu tribunal investigating an alleged miracle attributed to Blessed Damien’s intercession.
This means that the local investigation, which the congregation had judged incomplete in 2004, has now been found acceptable and ready for full examination by the congregation.
The case will face several stages of scrutiny by groups of experts at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, each stage dependent on the approval of the one before it.
The cure in question involved the unexplainable disappearance, without medical treatment, of cancer from the lungs of a Honolulu woman about nine years ago.
The first diocesan tribunal convened to document the case was completed in 2003 and submitted to the Vatican. However, toward the end of 2004, the Vatican congregation informed the postulator, the primary promoter of Father Damien’s cause in Rome, that the 2003 report needed further documentation and clarification.
The postulator, Sacred Hearts Father Emilio Vega Garcia, returned to Hawaii in January 2005 to assist in a new tribunal appointed to fix the deficiencies of the previous one.
The work of the second tribunal was completed on May 11 and sent to Rome.
The first step at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints is for two doctors to examine the case. If they judge that it has merit, they will forward it to a five-member medical commission, which will determine if the cure occurred with no medical explanation.
If the medical commission conclusion is positive, the case goes before a theological commission to decide if the cure was due to Blessed Damien’s intercession.
Finally, it is up to an “ordinary congress” of the Congregation of Saints to approve and recommend a canonization decree by the pope.
According to Father Garcia, hundreds of cases are going through these stages at any given time. However, Damien’s cause could be given preference for pastoral or other reasons, he said.
On June 13, 1992, Pope John Paul II approved the 1895 cure of a Sacred Hearts Sister in France as the miracle needed for Father Damien’s beatification.
The pope beatified Father Damien on June 4, 1995, in Brussels, Belgium.