Reconvening of Damien tribunal does not mean that miracle is in question
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
The reconvening of the diocesan tribunal for the cause for canonization for Blessed Damien DeVeuster does not mean that the miracle it investigated a year and a half ago is in question, said Sacred Hearts Sister Helene Wood, the vice-postulator for the cause.
“The conclusion that the healing was a valid miracle has not changed,” she said. The miracle — the unexplained cancer cure of an Oahu woman six years ago — was submitted to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes for Saints as one attributed to the intercession of Blessed Damien, fulfilling the requirement to declare him a saint.
However, the Vatican temporarily “suspended” the process of approving the miracle until the tribunal clarifies parts of its original report, which was delivered to the congregation on April 24, 2003.
Sister Helene characterized the problem as a “technicality” that is being addressed primarily through interviews with past and new witnesses.
The Vatican is seeking “clarity” regarding the intercession sought of Blessed Damien. The Vatican also wants to see x-rays and other documentation described, but not included, in the original report.
Diocesan administrator Father Thomas Gross appointed the diocesan tribunal on Feb. 15. Its members are Father Joseph A. Grimaldi as “judge,” Capuchin Franciscan Father Robert Maher as “promoter of justice,” and diocesan chancellor John Ringrose as the “ecclesiastical notary.”
The tribunal process should take a few weeks, according to Sister Helene.
Assisting the tribunal, but not a part of it, is the postulator for Blessed Damien’s cause, Sacred Hearts Father Emilio Vega Garcia. He arrived in Hawaii last week from the Vatican. He helped the original tribunal with the process of gathering information and arranging interviews.
The first tribunal examined the disappearance of cancer, without treatment, from the lungs of a Honolulu woman. The case was first documented in an article written by Dr. Walter Y.M. Chang, the woman’s doctor, in the October 2000 issue of the Hawaii Medical Journal.
The physician, who is not a Catholic, wrote that the “lung metastases disappeared with no therapy at all,” over several months following prayers to Blessed Damien and pilgrimages to Kalaupapa by the patient.
The tribunal completed its findings on April 16, 2003. Father Garcia hand-delivered the documents eight days later to Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which filed the evidence as case number 218-78/03.
The Congregation formally opened the file for examination on Sept. 11, 2003.
Miracle cases are examined with rigorous scrutiny by Vatican committees of doctors, theologians and bishops. The alleged miracle, usually a healing, must be dramatic and defy medical explanation, and should occur within the context of prayers offered exclusively to the candidate for sainthood.
The Spanish-born Father Garcia, an experienced postulator, has said all along that he believed that, with the healing in question, the tribunal had a very good case. Father Garcia is also the postulator for the cause of fellow Sacred Hearts priest, Father Eustáquio Lieshout of Peru.
A previous miracle had also been required for Father Damien’s beatification, the step before canonization. On June 13, 1992, Pope John Paul II approved the 1895 cure of a Sacred Hearts Sister as a miracle attributed to Damien’s intercession.
In that case, Sister Simplicia Hue of France began a novena to Father Damien as she lay dying at age 37 of a lingering intestinal illness. The pain and symptoms of the illness disappeared overnight on Sept. 11, 1895, and Sister Simplicia lived for another 32 years.
Pope John Paul II beatified Father Damien on June 4, 1995, in Brussels, Belgium.