Is This the Miracle Needed for Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha to be Declared St Kateri?

With the upcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II this Sunday, most people are aware that it will take a 2nd miracle for him to be declared a saint. & while God does sometimes speed things along, at other times He seems to let things drag out for decades or even centuries.

In the case of Blessed Kateri, it has been somewhere in between. She was declared Venerable by Pope Pius XII in 1943. Pope John Paul beatified her in 1980 after the 1st miracle was approved. This may or may not be the needed miracle for her to be declared a saint. The Vatican is clearly taking the possibility it is seriously. But it will also take the investigation serously to ensure it is a real miracle before they send it on to the Pope for final approval. & that will only be if it is a real miracle that can be credited to Bl. Kateri's intercession. The fact that the investigation has gone on in this case for over 3 years shows they don't rush in. If it is declared real then in a few years we may see America's 1st Native American saint.

The fact that the investigation has gone on in this case for over 3 years shows they don't rush in. During this time a team of priests has collected documents & interviewed witnesses. There are a lawyer, a priest with medical training & a skeptic who goes by the title of "promoter of justice." In this case it is Eusebio Elizondo, the auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Seattle.

As he puts it, his job is to try & find the holes in the case. "In old times it used to be called the devil's advocate," says Elizondo. "I'm trying to really push every single witness [and asking], 'Really, are you sure? Are you positive that there's no other way to explain this, a logical explanation or a scientific explanation or it was a pure coincidence?' "

After all this work is done & they decide it could be a miracle, then everything from the investigation will be forwarded to Rome. There, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will study the report & make a decision to approve the miracle & send it on to the Pope who will make the final decision. That process won't be rushed either. So, if & when it is finally approved, you can be sure the Vatican will have done its best to discern under the guidence of the Holy Spirit & that they are sure. & when that final miracle is approved & she is declared a saint, we have the assurance that the declaration she is one was infallibly made.

Vatican investigating possible miracle in Wash. state

FERNDALE, Wash. - The Vatican is investigating a possible miracle right here in Washington state.
Doctors at Children's Hospital worked miracles five years ago to save a young boy's life. But now the pope wants to know if more than medicine played a role.
To look at him today, nobody would guess Jake Finkbonner nearly died.
"He was as sick as any case ever seen," says Dr. Craig Rubens.
In the last minute of the last game of his 2006 season, Jake cut his lip.
"I fell down and hit my lip on the base of the basketball hoop," he says.
A flesh-eating bacteria raced through his lip and devoured his face. Now 11 years old, Jake recalls the day he died.
"I went and saw God up in heaven, and it was so beautiful I asked if I could stay. And he refused to let me stay - said my family needed me here on earth," Jake remembers.
His mother, Elsa Finkbonner, says, "That was his day in heaven, our day in hell."
Surgeons couldn't stay ahead of the fast-spreading infection.
"It got to the point where we called in a priest to give his last rites," says Jake's mother.
Father Tim Sauer urged the Finkbonner family to pray for the intercession of Blessed Kateri, a Native American who converted to Catholicism. Smallpox scarred her face, and legend claims the scars disappeared when she died.
Kateri is now in the early stages of sainthood.
The day a friend named Kateri visited the Finkbonners, they gave them a relic of the blessed Kateri that the family placed on their son's hospital bed. It's the same day Jake's school prayed for him, and it's the same day his disease stopped.
"If it's a coincidence - wow," says Jake's mother.
"I think it's a matter of a miracle," says Jake.
The Vatican is investigating whether Kateri should become a saint and sent an investigative team from Rome to question Jake's family.
"We've given them everything," says Elsa. "They've spoken with all of our family friends and priests."
The Finkbonners say Children's Hospital doctors worked miracles, too.
"They did everything humanly possible," says Elsa.
Now the fifth-grader from Ferndale is impressing pals with the powerful people in his court.
Jake recently had his 29th surgery, but they're all cosmetic, not life-saving, procedures now.

See also: A Boy, An Injury, A Recovery, A Miracle? (NPR actually does a good job of explaining the rigorous process for approving a miracle, & in particular this 1. Of course they do have to bring in the other side, those who deny miracles, to get their say in as well. You will notice how the self-called "skeptic" doesn't explain how what the doctors did cured the boy. He can't because they didn't. He totally ignores the fact that even they expected the boy to die, even with the "best medical care."Also, he totally closes the door to anything miraculous in the 1st place. Therefore it is really him who is arguing from ignorance.)