Bishop Sheen Cause Suspended, Call for Prayer

From the Catholic Post:

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a news release from the Diocese of Peoria. It was distributed to the media on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014.

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It is with immense sadness that the Most Reverend Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, Bishop of Peoria and President of the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, announced today that the Cause for Sheen’s beatification and canonization has for the foreseeable future been suspended. The process to verify a possible miracle attributed to Sheen had been going extremely well, and only awaited a vote of the Cardinals and the approval of the Holy Father. There was every indication that a possible date for beatification in Peoria would have been scheduled for as early as the coming year. The Holy See expected that the remains of Venerable Sheen would be moved to Peoria where official inspection would be made and first class relics be taken. Subsequently, the Archdiocese of New York denied Bishop Jenky’s request to move the body to Peoria. After further discussion with Rome, it was decided that the Sheen Cause would now have to be relegated to the Congregation’s historic archive.

Countless supporters especially from the local church in Central Illinois have given their time, treasure and talent for this good work with the clear understanding that the body of Venerable Sheen would return to the Diocese. Bishop Jenky was personally assured on several occasions by the Archdiocese of New York that the transfer of the body would take place at the appropriate time. New York’s change of mind took place as the work on behalf of the Cause had reached a significant stage.

Bishop Jenky is what is technically called the “actor” of the Sheen Cause. The Diocese of Peoria and the Sheen Foundation have prayed and labored for this good work for the last twelve years. The Bishop is heartbroken not only for his flock in Peoria but also for the many supporters of the Sheen Cause from throughout the world who have so generously supported Peoria’s efforts. It should be noted, however, that saints are always made by God not by man. Efforts for many causes have sometimes taken decades or even centuries. Bishop Jenky urges that those who support the Sheen Cause continue their prayers that God’s will be made manifest.

No further comment will be released at this time.

Link:

• Sheen Cause Suspended, Call for Prayer

Deja Vu from November 10, 2010 - Whispers in the Loggia:

Holy Fulton: Amid Dispute Over Resting Place, Peoria Halts Sheen Sainthood We interrupt this hiatus for an intriguing story of particular note....

Arguably the most influential figure in the four-century history of American Catholicism, nearly a year after Fulton Sheen was celebrated anew across the globe on the 30th anniversary of his death, the iconic prelate's boyhood diocese has suddenly pulled out of leading the charge for his beatification.

In a release posted to its website late last week, the Peoria-based Archbishop Sheen Cause announced the surprise move thus: It is with great sadness and disappointment, Bishop [Daniel] Jenky announces that after nine years of effort and sacrifice, the Diocese of Peoria is suspending its efforts on behalf of the Beatification of Fulton J. Sheen. The Archdiocese of New York has made it clear that it is not likely that they will ever transfer the remains of Fulton J. Sheen to his home diocese of Peoria...  (continued)

Related:

• Body Wars: Inside Info about Fulton Sheen Controversy (w/ New York's Response)
• (2010) Holy Fulton: Amid Dispute Over Resting Place, Peoria Halts Sheen Sainthood
• Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
• Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
• Investigation concludes on alleged Fulton Sheen miracle
• New Beginnings: RealCatholicTV Moves Studio, Changes Name
• Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the Faith - The Vortex With Michael Voris From RealCatholicTV
• Diocese Takes Next Step for Sainthood for Sheen
• Militant vs. Nice
• Archbishop Sheen's cause for beatification 'on track'
• Bishop Sheen Quote
• Man and Woman
• Don't forget to make your morning offering to God every day this Holy Week!
• Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Remembrance, and Maybe Sainthood, for Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
• A Dispute between Archbishop Sheen and Francis Cardinal Spellman
• EWTN: Mass to Remember Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
• The Crisis Must Come
• Bishop Anthony Taylor's Claims About the Pre-Vatican II Church not Being "What Jesus Taught" - Michael Voris Responds
• What's my Line? Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
• The Annunciation: When Freedom and Love Were One
• Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on Fatima
• The Mass
• Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Discusses Angels
• Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on Loneliness

Miraculous cure from liver cancer!

From The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer:

Another Miracle!
Thank you
dear
Mother of Perpetual Succour!

On 28 June last we received an urgent e-mail message for prayers:

"The urgent matter is that N. has recently been diagnosed with cancer that has spread to and metastasized in his liver. N. and Z. his wife are battling the disease by every means available, most importantly through prayer. That is my reason for writing to you. ...

Z. came by the house this afternoon with the request that I write and ask for you to offer Masses for N.'s healing. She is a strong believer in the special power of the Traditional Latin Mass. ...
If you can please remember N. when you offer the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ to God Our Father, it will be appreciated in ways that words cannot express. By the way, N. is not Catholic, yet he is a devout Christian and one of the most good and upright men that I know."

Then "out of the Blue"...


On 29 September (just 3 months later)
"I just spoke with our friend Z. N.'s cancer, which was Stage 4 and had spread to his liver, is 99.9% gone. He still has to undergo a few more rounds of chemo, but it's basically a mop-up from here: the enemy has been thoroughly routed. N.'s doctor believes that his recovery is nothing short of miraculous.

Needless to say, the Masses that you offered on N.'s behalf played a significant role in bringing about this miracle. Z. would like to thank you personally, but she is emotionally spent right now. ..."

Miracles do happen!
Even the doctor said so!
Thanks be to God and Mary!

Any petitions to Our Mother of Perpetual Succour
are printed out and placed in the mail box at Her shrine;
Names need not be mentioned.

Write a letter to your Heavenly Mother
She is waiting to hear from you!
Tell Her your needs
Thank Her for the favours She has obtained for you!


Pray the daily Rosary.

Read more...

Posted by Transalpine Redemptorists at 16:39

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Archdiocese investigates possible Seelos miracle

Mary Ellen Heibel, a parishioner of St. Mary in Annapolis, sits next to a statue of Blessed Francis X. Seelos. Heibel believes her cancer was cured through Blessed Seelos’ intercession. (CR Staff/George P. Matysek Jr.)

By George P. Matysek Jr.
gmatysek@catholicreview.org

Go home and prepare to die.

That’s what Mary Ellen Heibel’s doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington told her May 11, 2004, after they discovered that the cancer that had attacked Heibel’s esophagus in 2003 and then a lymph node later that year had spread throughout her body.

Given about six months, the longtime parishioner of St. Mary in Annapolis underwent a new form of chemotherapy at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore as a palliative treatment to extend her life. But doctors warned it would only postpone the inevitable.

At the suggestion of a Pittsburgh priest, Heibel began praying a novena in 2005 to Blessed Francis X. Seelos – a 19th-century Redemptorist pastor of her parish who died of yellow fever in 1867 in New Orleans.

One week after she began the novena at her parish, Heibel’s cancer disappeared. Gone were tumors in both lungs, her liver, back and sternum. When Dr. Michael Gibson, her doctor at Hopkins, called with the news, Heibel couldn’t believe it.

“I was just so excited. I called everyone,” the 71-year-old mother of four remembered. “I never thought in a million years this would happen.”

Told by her doctors that the unexplained healing could not be the result of her chemotherapy, Heibel is convinced that Blessed Seelos interceded on her behalf.

“I know this had to be a miracle,” she said.

Archdiocesan officials are now investigating whether Heibel might just be right.

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien opened an archdiocesan inquiry into the alleged healing with a May 19 Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore. The archbishop also appointed a group to investigate the case and listen to testimony from Heibel, Dr. Gibson and other witnesses.

The commission’s findings will be sent to Father Antonio Marrazzo, Redemptorist postulator general in Rome, who will then take them to the Vatican’s Congregation of the Causes of Saints. If the healing is deemed miraculous, Blessed Seelos could be canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.

“It calls to mind the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into the building of the church of Baltimore,” Archbishop O’Brien said before the May 19 Mass. “Blessed Seelos is typical of many priests and members of the faithful throughout the archdiocese who have taken their faith seriously and lived it faithfully and shared it with others in an inspiring way.”

Cardinal William H. Keeler was also at the Mass.

Father Gilbert Seitz, the archbishop’s episcopal delegate in the inquiry, said members of the investigative group include Dr. Larry Fitzpatrick of Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, who will serve as a medical expert; Capuchin Franciscan Father William Graham, promoter of justice; and Deacon Neil Crisp and Leslie Engle, notaries.

Redemptorist Father John Kingsbury, pastor of St. Mary, said the possible healing is a “major breakthrough” in the canonization effort. Two miracles that occur after death are needed to become a saint in the Catholic Church. The first for Blessed Seelos was recognized when Pope John Paul II beatified the German Redemptorist in 2000. The second miracle needed for canonization could be the Heibel case.

“We’re very happy that the archbishop has opened the investigation,” Father Kingsbury said. “I’m glad Mary Ellen was healed no matter what – and, if it’s Seelos and it helps his cause, it would be wonderful.”

Born in 1819 in Bavaria, Blessed Seelos came to the United States in 1843 to minister to German-speaking immigrants. Ordained at the now-closed St. James parish in Baltimore in 1844, Blessed Seelos ministered in Pittsburgh before being assigned pastor of St. Alphonsus in Baltimore in 1854. While at St. Alphonsus, Blessed Seelos also ministered at St. James and St. Michael in Baltimore. He laid the cornerstone for St. Joseph in Fullerton.

Blessed Seelos became pastor of St. Mary in Annapolis and novice master for Redemptorist seminarians in 1857, and two months later he became pastor of Ss. Peter and Paul in Cumberland and director of the Redemptorist seminary at the parish.

During the Civil War, Blessed Seelos relocated his seminarians to Annapolis in 1862 and again became pastor of St. Mary. He visited President Abraham Lincoln in an effort to exempt seminarians from the draft. Because only priests could be exempt, Blessed Seelos arranged for Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick to ordain all 20 seminarians.

Blessed Seelos worked in Detroit in 1865 and then was reassigned to New Orleans a year later, where he ministered for 13 months before dying at age 48 after ministering to victims of the yellow fever outbreak.

Sitting on a bench next to a seated bronze statue of Blessed Seelos at St. Mary a few days before the archdiocese opened the investigation into her alleged healing, Heibel said she attends Mass, prays the rosary and prays to Blessed Seelos every day. She wears a relic, a chip of Blessed Seelos’ bone, around her neck.

Many parishioners have been praying for her throughout her ordeal with cancer.

“I think people were shocked when I was dying practically and came back to life so fast,” said Heibel, who retired last year as a self-employed antiques appraiser.

Heibel said her strong faith is what’s sustained her through numerous health challenges in her life – including a kidney transplant, poor hearing and a bout with septic shock.

“Every time I got sick, my faith increased,” she said.

Heibel noted that other parishioners and other believers around the country have reported miracles through the intercession of Blessed Seelos.

“I don’t know why they picked me out of the whole bunch to use,” she said with a laugh. “So many people have been helped by Blessed Seelos.”

Click here to hear Heibel in her own words.

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Cleveland, OH: Miracle for John Paul II’s Beatification?

From CNA via Fr. Z:

‘Miraculous’ recovery from ‘non-survivable’ gunshot wound could beatify Pope John Paul II

Cleveland, Ohio, Apr 4, 2009 / 01:55 pm (CNA).- A man who suffered a "non-survivable" execution-style gunshot to the head during a mugging in Cleveland has had a "miraculous" recovery possibly due to the intercession of Pope John Paul II. If the late pontiff is credited for the miracle, it would lead to his beatification. [This from the beginning reminds me of some of the amazing stories I read when I was doing the Studium at the Cong. for Causes of Saints. Amazing and inexplicable things. Amazing.]

Jory Ably, 26, suffered the gunshot would five weeks ago. Doctors at the Metro Health Medical Center declared it to be a "non-survivable" injury, ABC’s Good Morning America reports.

Hospital chaplain Fr. Art Nedeker administered Aebly with the Sacrament of the Sick, asking Pope John Paul II to pray for Jory and to protect him. [This is an important element: There has to be a specific intention to pray for the intercession through that specific person. This usually requires the suggestion and prompting of someone who knows about the cause and then how to report it.]

Fr. Nedeker explained that the Pope had promised him [!] he would always pray for the patients at the hospital and blessed a dozen rosaries with special patients at the hospital.

The priest gave Aebly the last of the rosaries [This is sounding to me more and more to a serious cause for a miracle.] that had been blessed by the Pope, after which Aebly consistently improved.

He was released on Tuesday, two days before the fourth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death.

Dr. Robert Geertman, a neurosurgeon involved in Aebly’s treatment, told Good Morning America his patient’s survival was "one in a million."

"My jaw was on the floor after a day or two of seeing he is hanging on. …I’d say it’s pretty miraculous," he said at a press conference days after the shooting.

At the press conference announcing Aebly’s release, Fr. Snedeker said:

"I stand before you today and can say, to my mind, Jory is a miracle." [At the level of the Congregation all the medical records would be reviewed.]

Aebly himself credited his recovery to "the many prayers from family, friends and co-workers" and others.

His mother Deb Wolfram told the press conference she believes in "the power of prayer" and said she believed people’s prayers helped her son through his ordeal, Good Morning America says.

A Vatican official reported that the investigation into the alleged miracle could take time. [Of course!]

"We cannot predict a precise schedule," Monsignor Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Caucus of Saints told ANSA. "All stages, including the examination of the miracle, have to be conducted in a particularly thorough way."

Approval of the miracle could lead to Pope John Paul II’s beatification, leaving one more miracle before he can be canonized.

"Here is what happens.

When people think there was a verifiable miracle, they start a cause, like a court case.

All the "proofs" must be gathered… documents and testimony gathered according to a procedure.

Once everything is gathered in the place where the alleged miracle occured, it is sent to Rome.

The Congregation verifies that the procedures were followed correctly. Then they look at the theological aspects of the claim: can it be demonstrated that the people prayed to X or asked for a miracle through X, etc. It has to be explicit and not just mixed in with "Jesus, Mary, Joseph and X, Y, Z all the saints and angels!" Often there is an image or relic or project to pray to X.

In the case of a cure (there are other kinds of miracles too!) the healing or change in condition must be sudden, complete and lasting. That must be demonstrated by proofs. The medical records are studied by a panel of doctors and other necessary experts. They look into the diagnosis and prognosis and then what happened in stark scientific terms. They determine if what happened can be explained by the science they know.

With a miracle, the Congregation has to look at the evidence and then determine that what happened. within moral certitude, through the intercession of X, the condition was grave/dire/serious and there was a sudden complete and lasting change that cannot be explained.

What I like about this case is that there was a priest who knew what was going on and there was an object associate with John Paul II and his own remark. The person’s prognoss was very bad and the healing was sudden and complete and seems to be lasting and they can’t explain it."

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2nd Beatified Couple Called a Gift to Spouses

Cardinal Says St. Thérèse's Parents Can Help Families

LISIEUX, France, OCT. 20, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The second married couple to be beatified together can motivate families to live Christian virtue just as they taught their daughter-saint to desire holiness, says a Vatican official.

This was affirmed by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, retired prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, when he presided over the beatification of Louis Martin and Marie-Zélie Guérin, the parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. The couple was beatified Sunday in Lisieux in the presence of some 15,000 people.

The first married couple to be beatified together -- Italians Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who died in 1951 and 1965, respectively -- were beatified in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.

Martin (1823-1894) and Guérin (1831-1877) were the parents of nine children, four of whom died as children. After concluding the beatification rite, Cardinal Saraiva Martins gave "thanks to God for this exemplary testimony of conjugal love."

Their example, the prelate assured, can "motivate Christian families in the integral practice of Christian virtues, just as it stimulated in Thérèse the desire for sanctity."

Cardinal Saraiva Martins said that in the moment of the beatification, "I thought of my father and my mother, and in this moment, I would like you to also think in your fathers and mothers, and that together, we give thanks to God for having created us and made us Christians, thanks to the conjugal love of our parents."

Love and loss

The cardinal presented the Martins as "a gift for spouses of all ages because of the esteem, respect and harmony with which they loved each other for 19 years."

He said the couple is also "a gift for parents" and "for all those who have lost their husband or wife."

"Widowhood is always a difficult condition to accept," the cardinal said. "Louis lived the loss of his wife with faith and generosity, preferring the good of his children over his personal preferences."

And, Cardinal Saraiva Martins said, this couples is "a gift for those who face sickness and death. In our world, which tries to hide death, they teach us to look at it face to face, abandoning ourselves in God."

Among those who participated in the ceremony was Pietro Schiliro, an Italian child whose unexplainable cure in 2002 was attributed to the intercession of Martin and Guérin.

Pietro was born with malformed lungs and his family was told he could not survive. His mother asked God for his healing through the intercession of Thérèse's parents and the child was healed.

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Child Cured of Anencephaly Through Intercession of Virgin of Lujan Completely Normal

Buenos Aires, May 5, 2008 / 02:16 pm (CNA).- The Catholic magazine “Cristo Hoy” in Argentina has published an article on a mother who entrusted her daughter to the intercession of Our Lady of Lujan once she was diagnosed with an incurable disease before she was born. The little girl, Lujan, is now three years-old and living a normal life.

Marcela is an eye doctor and mother of three. During the eighth month of her last pregnancy, doctors found her baby to be suffering from anencephaly, a condition in which the brain does not develop normally. Marcela was told her child would die within days of being born.

“When I was being taken into the delivery room, I prayed to the Virgin of Lujan and decided to name my daughter after her and place her into her hands. The Virgin of Lujan appeared in my mind and my heart during those difficult moments and I fervently prayed for my child to her. Thanks to her, I have my daughter with me today and she is just like any other girl her age, smiling and loving those whom she meets. According to the doctors she has a deficient nervous system, but she is nonetheless a normal girl,” Marcela said.

Little Lujan’s case continues to be inexplicable to the doctors who treated her. “They cannot explain the extraordinary improvement of our daughter. Today she is a normal girl except for hemiparesis on her left side,” her mother said.

She said her daughter’s illness has made her family appreciate life more. “I thank God every day of my life for the miracle He did with my daughter,” she said.

“When faced with the blunt reality of a developing baby with problems, everything around comes crashing down, hope fades, negative thoughts take hold, because of how fragile these little people seem to be. But you need to pray for a lot of strength, have hope and through prayer try to overcome this difficult moment,” Marcela stated.

“My message to everybody is that miracles do exist and that God is always with us,” she added. “I can testify to this because I experienced it. I hope that by telling my story I can help others with their faith,” she said.

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Vatican affirms miraculous healing attributed to Bl. Father Damien

Father Damien was a Roman Catholic missionary who helped lepers on the
Hawaiian island of Molokaʻi and also died of the disease.

Honolulu, May 1, 2008 / 08:02 pm (CNA).- The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints has ruled that a Hawaiian woman’s cure from cancer was a miracle linked to her prayers to Blessed Father Damien De Veuster. The missionary priest, who was renowned for working with leprosy patients, is now one step closer to being declared a saint.

Audrey Toguchi, a 79-year-old retired schoolteacher who lives in Aiea, became ill in 1997 with a lump on her left thigh that was discovered to be cancerous. She asked her sisters to accompany her to Kalaupapa to pray at Father Damien’s grave.

“I prayed that he would ask God to heal me,” Toguchi told the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

After surgery in January 1998, Dr. Walter Chang told her that her rare form of cancer, liposarcoma, had spread to both lungs.

"He said, 'I cannot do anything for you. No surgery is possible.'," she said.

"I went back to Kalaupapa,” Toguchi continued. “I went to Mass and received Communion and then I went to Damien's grave. I said, 'Please, ask God to cure this cancer.'

"Doctor Chang took pictures of my lungs and every month, it was less and less until after four months, the cancer was gone. He was flabbergasted."

According to the Star Bulletin, Toguchi told no one besides her family about her cure. Instead, she wrote to Pope John Paul II about the cancer’s disappearance, thus beginning the investigation into the miracle. Father Damien was credited with his first miracle after the spontaneous recovery of a terminally ill French nun in 1895 was attributed to his intercession. He was beatified in 1995, but one more confirmed miracle was required for his canonization to be considered.

The cure was documented in the Hawaii Medical Journal in October 2000. Toguchi’s life, faith, and medical history were also examined by church authorities. She was interviewed by a local panel and by Monsignor Robert Sarno from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Monsignor Sarno notified Toguchi of the congregation’s decision by e-mail.

Toguchi’s identity had been shielded by her doctor and church officials, but Bishop of Honolulu Larry Silva revealed her name in a statement on Tuesday.

In the statement, Bishop Silva said “I give thanks and praise to God for the news I received this morning!” He said Father Damien’s cause for canonization would now go before the cardinals and bishops who lead the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. If the miracle is approved, Father Damien’s canonization would then need to be approved by Pope Benedict XVI.

Bishop Silva urged Catholics to keep the process in their prayers, so that “it will result in the canonization of our beloved Father Damien.”

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The 2nd Miracle of St. Gianna Molla

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