Paralyzed priest’s ‘miraculous’ cure could lead to canonization

Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos

New Orleans, La., Jan 6, 2012 / 06:18 am (CNA).- A priest who was severely paralyzed from a neck injury believes he was healed through the intercession of 19th century priest Bl. Francis Xavier Seelos. If declared a miracle by the Vatican, the healing could lead to the blessed’s canonization.

Fr. Byron Miller, executive director of the National Seelos Shrine in New Orleans, said “some of the best doctors in the country” told Fr. John Murray there was little chance he would walk again.

“So my reaction to his recovery was astonishment at the wonders of our awesome God through His company of saints, including the powerful prayers of Bl. Seelos in heaven!”

In 2009 Fr. Murray, a Baltimore-based Redemptorist parish priest known for his preaching, was paralyzed from the chest down after he tripped on a walkway and struck his head against a railing, breaking his neck. Doctors said he would never walk again.

“When they said I’d never be able to move, they took away all hope,” he told the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s newspaper the Catholic Review.

He began living and undergoing rehabilitation at a home for retired priests in Timonium, Md. On Nov. 28, 2010, he was able to move his left leg slightly off the ground.

“I was ecstatic,” the priest said. “Here I was about six weeks after they told me I’d never move again and, lo and behold, I could move. Just the foot, but it kept going and going and going.”

Today the priest is completely mobile with the help of a walker.

He attributes his healing to a relic of Bl. Francis Xavier Seelos, a 19th century Redemptorist priest who once served in Maryland before moving to New Orleans.

Fr. Miller told CNA on Jan. 5 that Fr. Murray developed his devotion to the blessed while pastor at St. Mary’s Parish in Annapolis, Md., where Bl. Seelos himself was pastor during the Civil War.

Fr. Murray preached and presided at the National Seelos Shrine in April 2010, about four months before his accident.

“When we heard of his situation, I assured him that a votive candle at the Shrine was lit for him, and that the Seelos Center staff and the Redemptorists of New Orleans were keeping him in our prayers,” Fr. Miller said.

Fr. Miller, who is the vice-postulator of Bl. Seelos’ cause for canonization, said that Fr. Murray’s case has not been formally submitted as a possible miracle. However, Fr. Miller has already brought the case to the Redemptorist postulator general’s attention to make an informal evaluation of whether the healing has the characteristics needed to declare a miracle.

“Bl. Seelos needs one miracle to be declared a saint. The healing in a case has to be immediate, permanent, and complete,” Fr. Miller explained.

Advocates of his canonization are also monitoring the case of a woman from Virginia who injured herself in a fall and was unable to kneel because of the metal plates placed in her leg.

She visited Bl. Seelos’ shrine, prayed with a crucifix and became able to kneel before his remains.

Bl. Seelos was born in Germany in 1819 and later moved to the United States. He was ordained a priest in Baltimore and served in parishes in Baltimore, Annapolis, Pittsburgh and Cumberland. From 1863 to 1866 he was an itinerant missionary and then joined a Redemptorist community in New Orleans. There, he showed special care for the poorest and most abandoned in society.

He cared for victims of yellow fever, dying of the disease in 1867.

Bl. Seelos’ life shows how love of God and neighbor and how tolerance and adaptability can be “brought to perfection in all of us,” Fr. Miller said.

“His remarkable willingness to leave his beloved homeland and come to America to minister to German immigrants in need, and his willingness to come to New Orleans when he knew the dangers of yellow fever, reveal a man who lived a rather ordinary life, but with extraordinary faith and trust in God.”

The saint showed personal charisma and there are many firsthand accounts from people who attributed healings through his prayers and blessings while he was alive. Since his death, many people who have been healed credit his intercessory prayers.

“Knowing Fr. Murray as I do, I give thanks to God that he is one of them!” the priest said.

Pope Benedict: Renew your joy as a child of God

Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany in St. Peter's Basilica

Vatican City, Jan 8, 2012 / 02:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI used his Sunday Angelus address to remind Christians of the joy of being “children of God,” courtesy of baptism.

“God is the origin of the existence of every creature, and the Father in a unique way of every human being: he has a unique, personal relationship with him or her,” said the Pope from the window of his apostolic palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square Jan 8.

Earlier in the morning the Pope had baptized 16 newborn infants in the Sistine Chapel to mark the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord.

Reflecting upon that event, he observed that being a child is “the fundamental condition that binds us together,” for while “not all of us are parents,” we are all children.

“Coming into the world is never a choice; we are not asked first if we want to be born,” he said.  

During life, though, we can develop an attitude toward life itself so that we “welcome it as a gift and, in a sense, ‘become’ what we already are: we become children.”

The development of this attitude marks “a maturity in our souls and our relationships with our parents, which is filled with gratitude.”

It is this attitude that makes people capable of being parents themselves “not biologically, but morally.”

In God “we are all children,” as he is “the origin of the existence of every creature,” who has a “unique, personal relationship with him or her.”

“Each of us is willed, is loved by God,” such that it is appropriate to speak of being ‘born again,” as children of God. 

This happens through faith, explained the Pope, and in our “deep and personal ‘yes’ to God as the source and foundation of our existence.”

“What is the basis of this faith in God the Father?” asked the Pope. “It is based in Jesus Christ,” he answered.

“His person and history has shown us the Father, it has made Him known to us, as far as possible, in this world.” Therefore, believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, allows us to be ‘born again.’” 

Quoting the words of St. John the Pope said that “to all who received him, he gave the power to become children of God.” This is the “new birth,” that occurs in baptism “through the Holy Spirit and in the womb of the Church.”

The Pope urged Christians worldwide to give thanks to God for the “great mystery,” of baptism which “is a source of regeneration for the Church and for the whole world.”

“God became the son of man, because man becomes a child of God,” and so Christians should rejoice for being “born of love of a father and a mother, and born again by God’s love through baptism.”

The Pope concluded his comments by commending all present to “the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ,” before leading the pilgrims in the praying of the Angelus.

Today’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord concludes the Church’s Christmas season. 

Pope names 22 new cardinals

6-January-2012 -- Catholic World News Brief

Pope Benedict XVI has named 22 new cardinals, including two prelates from the US.

At his Angelus audience on January 6, the Pope announced that a consistory will be held on February 18, and named the 22 prelates who will receive red hats.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York will be among the new cardinals, as will Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, the former Archbishop of Baltimore who was named last year as grand master of the Knights of Malta. Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto was also on the Pope's list.

The Pope named two leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches as cardinals: Major Archbishop George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly, the head of India's Syro-Malabar Church; and Major Archbishop Lucian Muresan of Fagaras and Alba Julia, the head of the Romanian Catholic Church.

Among the new cardinals, 10 are currently serving in senior positions on the Roman Curia, while 8 are archbishops of major metropolitan sees. Pope Benedict also announced that he would honor 5 clerics—Major Archbishop Muresan and 4 priests—by raising them to the College of Cardinals in recognition of their outstanding service to the Church, although they are above the age of 80 and therefore ineligible to participate in a papal conclave.

The new members will strengthen the European complexion of the College of Cardinals and the Italian influence. Of the 22 new cardinals, 16 will be European, and 7 Italian. Only one new cardinal is from Latin America, and none from Africa.

With its new members, the College of Cardinals will have 214 members, of whom 125 will be eligible electors. Pope Benedict has exercised his authority to exceed the normal limit of 120 cardinal-electors. Among the electors, a slim majority—64 of the 125—will have been appointed by this Pontiff.

The number of cardinal-electors will drop soon after the consistory, when Cardinal Rodolfo Quezada Toruño, the retired Archbishop of Guatemala, celebrates his 80th birthday on March 8. Ten other cardinal-electors will reach the same age before the end of 2012.

The newly appointed cardinals are:

Archbishop Santos Abril Y Castellò, the Archpriest of the Roman basilica of St. Mary Major; Major Archbishop George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly, the leader of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church; Father Karl Becker, SJ, a former professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University and consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Archbishop Giuseppe Bertelli, President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and President of the Governorate of the same State; Archbishop Giuseppe Betori of Florence; Archbishop João Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Religious; Archbishop Domenico Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See; Archbishop Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts; Archbishop Thomas Christopher Collins of Toronto; Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan of New York; Archbishop Dominik Duka of Prague; Archbishop Willem Jacobus Eijk of Utrecht; Archbishop Fernando Filoni, the prefect of the Congregation for Evangelization; Father Prospero Grech, OSA, a theology professor and to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro, was named only yesterday as head of the Apostolic Penitentiary; Major Archbishop Lucian Muresan of Fagaras and Alba Julia, the leader of the Romanian Catholic Church; Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, Grand Master Knights of Malta; Father Julien Ries, for years a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain; Archbishop John Tong Hon, Bishop of Hong Kong; Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio, the president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants; Archbishop Giuseppe Versaldi, president of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs of the Holy See; and Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelk of Berlin.