Bishop Emmanuel Delmas of Angers, France confirmed the healing of a man at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes.
“This healing can be considered as a personal gift of God for this
man, as a fact of grace, as a sign of Christ the Savior,” the bishop
said March 27.
Serge Francois, 56, had lost almost all mobility in his left leg
after complications from two operations left him with a herniated disc.
He made a pilgrimage to the shrine on April 13, 2002 to pray for
healing.
Bishop Delmas noted that the healing took place after Francois “had
finished praying at the grotto and went to the miraculous spring to
drink the water and wash his face. A unique gesture of the Virgin Mary
can be seen in the healing of this man,” he said.
The Spanish daily La Razon said that after Francois' recovery, he
returned to Lourdes in 2003 and reported his case to the medical
commission, which began its investigation.
The Lourdes Medical Commission later verified that “the rapid
functional healing, unrelated to any form of treatment" was "still
present, eight years later.”
Francois made a 975-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain in thanksgiving for his recovery.
Bishop Jacques Perrier of Tarbes and Lourdes explained that doctors
are “hesitant today to use the term ‘inexplicable,’ unless they qualify
it with ‘scientifically'.”
“They prefer to limit themselves to one fact: the healing is
inexplicable today. They consider this qualification to be essential so
they are not discredited later by colleagues who reject the
inexplicable,” he said in a statement published on the Shrine of
Lourdes’ website.
“Moreover,” he added, “the doctors at Lourdes always strive to be
medically irreproachable. The Church herself encourages them in this.”
To commemorate the latest healing, Bishop Delmas has invited
Catholics to a special Mass in Lourdes during a pilgrimage to the shrine
May 3-8.