The manager of Knock Shrine, Mr Pat Lavelle, has said he is optimistic that the case for having an unexplained improvement in the medical condition of Marion Carroll following a visit to Knock, could soon be formally declared a miracle.Mr Lavelle said that while the process of having the Church authenticate a miracle was slower than many might like, “all the paperwork on [the story of Ms Carroll] has been put together at this stage.”
Ms Carroll, who has consistently claimed a miraculous dimension to a visit she made to Knock in September 1989, and attributes it to a cure for her Multiple Sclerosis.
The Athlone woman has repeatedly told the story of how she was paralysed with the illness before the visit and had to be carried to the shrine on a stretcher.
Ms Carroll’s condition improved inexplicably following her receiving Holy Communion in Knock and she has insisted she received a miraculous cure there. Her story has been the subject of considerable media attention and for the past two years, evidence has been gathered on her case for the Church authorities.
Last week, Mr Lavelle said a lot of effort had been devoted to researching the case, “including interviewing nurses in Athlone who knew her before and after her cure and the nurses and handmaids who were with her when she was in Knock.”
“Things like this tend to take time and maybe it hasn’t moved as quickly as a lay person might like, but we’re almost there,” he added, saying he was hopeful of further developments over the coming months.
An issue that complicates the effort to prove that Ms Carroll’s Multiple Sclerosis was reversed following her pilgrimage to Knock, is the fact that back then, she did not have access to modern scans and her condition was not formally diagnosed.
She herself has said that it only became apparent that Multiple Sclerosis was the condition from which she was suffering when her symptoms got worse.
Commenting on the news that Knock Shrine has made progress on her case, she said she was not unduly concerned about having her medical history officially declared a miracle.
“It’s not something I worry about, to be honest,” she remarked.