As Kate Maloney lay dying in a New York hospital, her family and friends turned to someone in heaven for help — Mother Marianne Cope

By Lisa Dahm | Special to the Herald

If you met Kate Mahoney, she would seem to be like any normal, healthy, beautiful 20-something. And in fact, she is. But 13 years ago, she was anything but healthy.

Diagnosed during the summer of 1992 with germ cell ovarian cancer, the 14-year-old Syracuse, N.Y., teen underwent surgery to remove the tumor and was put on chemotherapy. But her body reacted badly to the drug regimen and began to fill up with fluid. In early December, the only child of Mary and John Mahoney was back in the hospital.

As doctors attempted to drain the fluid, Kate’s body began to shut down. Her organs started failing and she suffered cardiac arrest for more than 25 minutes. Hooked up to life support machines, she was not expected to live.

That was when God’s servant, Mother Marianne Cope, stepped in.

The holy and heroic Franciscan Sister, buried on Molokai seven decades earlier after serving Hawaii’s leprosy patients for 35 years, was once again called to come to the aid of a dying young girl.

Led by fellow Franciscan Sister Mary Laurence Hanley, an army of family, friends and the Franciscan Sisters prayed for her intercession on behalf of Kate. Within two days, Kate’s condition inexplicably began to reverse itself.

Her complete cure, thoroughly examined later by doctors and theologians, became the miracle which led to Mother Marianne’s beatification in Rome last May 14.

In the years between her return to health and the beatification, Kate had kept secret her identity as the recipient of the miraculous cure.

No longer. She is now allowing her story to be told.

A miracle was needed

Sister Mary Laurence first learned of Kate’s condition over Christmas dinner with her cousin Jim Hanley and his wife Rita.

Jim Hanley, now deceased, was a U.S. representative from New York. Kate’s father had been his administrative assistant for 10 years.

The Hanleys told the nun that Kate was dying at a local hospital, and that the doctors had no idea how to save her.

Jim knew that Sister Mary Laurence was the director of the sainthood cause for Mother Marianne. Mother Marianne needed a miracle credited to her intercession to be beatified. It appeared that only a miracle could save Kate. Was this a particular moment of grace?

“My reaction was sorrow for this teenager who had her life ahead of her and for her parents,” Sister Mary Laurence said.

While mulling it over, Sister Mary Laurence got a call from Franciscan Sister Rose Vincent Gleason, then chief executive officer of St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica, N.Y., and also Rita Hanley’s cousin. She was thinking along the same lines as Jim.

On Jan. 3, 1993, Sister Mary Laurence visited Kate in intensive care in CrouseHospital in Syracuse.

The Franciscan sister is no stranger to intensive care units, “yet Kate’s appearance, to say the least, was unusually disturbing,” she said.

“She already looked past the stage of being anyone who ever could be completely well or normal looking again,” she said. “I could not imagine what she really looked like.”

Sister Mary Laurence touched Kate with a relic of Mother Marianne while praying for her intercession. She told Kate’s parents that Jim and Rita Hanley also wished to come to the hospital to pray to Mother Marianne for their daughter.

They agreed. She did not have to tell Mary Mahoney who Mother Marianne was. “She had graduated from the ConventSchool, a Franciscan school in Syracuse,” Sister Mary Laurence explained. “She knew all about Mother Marianne of Molokai from the nuns who taught her.”

There were other connections. Kate’s maternal grandmother, now almost 90, had been president of the auxiliary of St. JosephHospital in Syracuse, a hospital Mother Marianne founded.

These associations strengthened Sister Mary Laurence’s resolve.

Recovery, one organ at a time

With hope for Kate’s recovery fading, Mary and John Mahoney also agreed to pray exclusively to Mother Marianne.

“I didn’t have the luxury of thinking negative thoughts,” Mary said.

Sister Mary Laurence rounded up more spiritual troops. The Franciscan Sisters at her motherhouse in Syracuse, the sisters in the hospital in Utica, the students at Kate’s school, Bishop Ludden Junior/Senior High — they all prayed daily.

There was a “whole army of people praying,” Sister Mary Laurence said. “God was deluged by prayer.”

Keeping a round-the-clock vigil at the hospital, Kate’s parents began seeing changes in their daughter two days after the nun’s initial visit.

“From then on Mary would ask for prayers for one particular organ,” Sister Mary Laurence said, moving on to the next organ after they got the previous one working.

The doctor had a hard time believing what was happening, she said. They had fully expected her to die.

“Every little positive thing was a ray of hope,” Mary said. “She could move her eyes in one direction. She was actually looking at me. She would squeeze my hand. She was moving her head and rotating her ankles.”

By the middle of January, all of Kate’s vital functions had returned completely. Although she required physical and occupational therapy after her hospitalization, today she is fully recovered.

No medical explanation

Kate Mahoney spent the next six years vaguely aware of the extraordinary nature of her healing. She retained no memory of the period between November 1992 and February 1993 when she was most ill. She was anxious to lead a normal life in high school and college.

After she had recovered fully, Kate gave Sister Mary Laurence permission to examine her medical records to make a case for a miracle needed for Mother Marianne’s beatification.

As directed by church regulations regarding sainthood causes, the Diocese of Syracuse on July 9, 1998, established a seven-person tribunal composed of church personnel, attorneys, notaries and others to examine the alleged miracle.

Molokai-born Franciscan Sister Marion Kikukawa, then the head of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, was appointed vice postulator, an advocate for the cause who assists the tribunal in its investigation.

The tribunal sifted through the “volumes and volumes” of medical files, hospital charts, x-rays, ct-scans, biopsy results and records of treatments and medicines, and secured the testimony of impartial doctors and other witnesses.

Its report detailed Kate’s illness and deterioration, the intervening prayer effort to Mother Marianne, and the patient’s subsequent recovery.

The conclusion was that no medical or scientific reason could be found to explain Kate’s cure and recovery.

Sister Marion Kikukawa recalled the moment. “It is really an awesome thing when you realize that this young woman, a girl at the time, could have been saved through the intercession of Mother Marianne.”

Sister Marion was, at one time, a teacher at Kate’s Bishop Ludden Junior/Senior High School.

“It would have been wonderful for anyone to be cured,” she said, “but it is especially so to have someone that was close to home, whose family had ties to the community over the years.”

“The privilege for me is that I happened to be in leadership when the cause came to fruition,” Sister Marion said.

The tribunal’s report was submitted to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints to face the meticulous scrutiny of more doctors, theologians and bishops, a process that can sometimes take years.

More connections

Kate was blessed by the fact that the most severe period of her illness did not remain a conscious memory.

“I really am very fortunate,” she said. “I don’t have to relive those moments.”

That helped her “move forward” in her life, as her connection with Mother Marianne faded into a part of her past.

Kate graduated from high school and enrolled at WashingtonCollege in Chestertown, Maryland, where she earned a degree in drama in 2000. She lived in New York City for a short time, before returning to Syracuse three years ago.

While job hunting in Syracuse, she called a cousin who worked at St. JosephHospital to inquire about positions in advertising and marketing. The only openings were for home healthcare aides. With no experience in patient care — except her own — Kate decided to give it a try.

At the three-week training session, during a presentation on the hospital’s history, a picture of Mother Marianne came on the screen. It triggered in Kate a flood of recognition and emotion. She went to find her cousin who knew the whole story.

“Both of us got a little choked up,” she said. “Here I am going to do the work of the hospital she (Mother Marianne) founded and I am able to do this because she interceded in my recovery.”

Kate enjoyed her one year as a home healthcare aide. Because of her own ordeal, she knew what her patients were going through. During the time she was also able to draw closer to Mother Marianne, she said.

Kate left her job at St. Joseph over a year ago, when both her parents were diagnosed with cancer. She returned to their home to care for them full time, using the skills she learned from her job. Helping her parents was “quite a privilege,” she said.

“In one way, Mother Marianne is the ultimate mentor,” Kate said. “My life seems to have taken a path, and so far things have been falling into place. She is looking out for me and I am seeing that.”

The beatification

Meanwhile, the Mother Marianne beatification cause had surged forward. In the span of one year, from 2004, the Vatican designated her “venerable,” approved Kate’s miracle and set a date for beatification.

Kate’s parents recovered enough to travel to Rome with their daughter to attend the Mother Marianne’s beatification in Rome on May 14, 2005.

Mary said that both she and John are grateful to Kate for having “gotten us through this hurdle this past year.”

“It was very remarkable and extraordinary to have all of this happen, all in our lifetime,” Mary said. “I think now there is a need for it. God had his hand in it to help to acknowledge Mother Marianne. She is such an inspiration to us and to everyone.”

Even while attending the beatification in Rome, Kate held on to her anonymity, keeping her pivotal role in the beatification to herself.

She chose not to reveal her identity so that the focus would remain on the saint and her heroic and faithful life. She did not want to be known as the “miracle girl,” but someone who could “personify for a moment that a fellow Franciscan has been given this honor.”

“That is my biggest challenge,” she said. “I am not miraculous and I am not the miracle. My life is the miracle.”

Kate was one of a select handful of people who greeted Pope Benedict XVI personally during a private audience for all the beatification pilgrims two days after the event. She was a bit nervous before the encounter.

“Then all of the sudden, there he was,” she said. “He hugged me and said that I was very blessed by Mother Marianne. He continued to talk to me for five minutes, but I could not tell you what he said.”

Sister Marion commended Kate’s decision to remain anonymous, until now, six months later.

“It seems to me that the timing was really right and Kate was very selfless about it,” she said. “Her intent was always just to complete the story.”

Sister Marion called Kate a “delightful person” and “a fine young lady.”

“It struck me that there is something that she is called to do in this world,” she said. “For some reason, God gave her lots more time, good health and a chance to make a difference.”