VATICAN CORNER

… continued Mrs. Audrey Toguchi’s recovery from cancer was found by the Vatican’s medical investigation to be quick, complete, lasting and inexplicable. Miracle tribunals are perhaps the only form of investigation whose goal is to end with no explanation. For 500 years the Church has used the latest understandings in science in its determination of miracles. The theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in 1944, warned that connecting miracles determination with the incompleteness of our scientific knowledge was wrong. That as scientific knowledge advances God is being pushed back. Pope John Paul II admitted in 1983 that it appears “cases of physical healing are becoming more rare.” Nevertheless, Mrs. Toguchi’s cure was deemed a miracle, but the Church still needed to know, had the miracle really been caused by Father Damien in heaven or by someone else? A commission of theologians led by Monsignor Sarno was tasked with “explaining and clarifying the miraculous healing by using, questioning, investigation and doubt. The simple story that was originally presented, that Mrs. Toguchi had a biopsy, was handed a death sentence, went to Father Damien’s Molokai grave site in desperation, and then her cancer suddenly began shrinking, that story did not hold up under investigation. Mrs.Toguchi had made two trips to Molokai, one in 1997 before she was diagnosed with cancer, and the other in 1999 after the cancer had already disappeared. To complicate matters further, Mrs. Toguchi had sent a letter to the Pope in 1999 in which she wrote that she had prayed not only to Father Damien, but to ten other potential saints, including Mother Marianne Cope and Mother Theresa. Mrs. Toguchi explained that what she meant by saying that she went to Father Damien after her terrible cancer news, was not physically going to him, but rather going to him through prayer. The two trips to Molokai were found not to be directly connected to her cure. Weighing all the evidence, Monsignor Sarno concluded the Damien’s intercession did cause the miracle, proving he was in heaven and a true saint. On October 11, 2009, tens of thousands of people came from all over the world to the Vatican to celebrate the canonization of Father Damien and 4 other men and women. Audrey Toguchi was there at the celebration, but her sudden fame had not been welcomed, nor had it been easy for her to bear the burden of the hopes of so many ill. At the tribunal, when asked why she thought she had been chosen, she said she was “not an important person.” She tried to emphasize that she wasn’t the one who was holy, and that the one who had a direct line to God was Father Damien. Her simple explanation of the whole thing is ”You gotta have faith.”

Sources: Atlasobsura.com, catholic.org, starbulletin.com