PARIS, DEC. 24, 2002 (Zenit.org).- The latest officially
recognized miracle at Lourdes involves a Frenchman who was once paralyzed by
multiple sclerosis, a newspaper reported.
Le Monde dedicated an entire page to the scientifically
inexplicable cure of an illness that began affecting Jean-Pierre B�ly in 1972.
He was classified by the French health system as a total invalid by the time he
went on pilgrimage to Lourdes in October 1987, at age 51.
Those who accompanied B�ly did not think he would survive
the trip. At the end of the pilgrimage he received the anointing of the sick in
the shrine’s esplanade. When he returned home, he was already able to walk.
Today, virtually all traces of the illness have disappeared.
Patrick Fontanaud, an agnostic physician who looked after
B�ly, said there is no scientific explanation for what occurred. It was Lourdes’
66th officially recognized miracle since the 1858 apparitions of the Blessed
Virgin.
The head of the Lourdes Medical Office, Dr. Patrick
Theillier, told Le Monde that there are two other miraculous cures about to be
recognized: a 25-year-old Frenchwoman and a 60-year-old Italian woman, both
cured in 1995.
[Zenit
Story] [Story from the Lourdes website]