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January 9, 2002
Juan Diego, Padre Pio, Opus Dei founder headed for sainthood
Vatican decrees recognize healings attributed to intercesssory prayers to five people
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope John Paul II ordered the publication of decrees clearing the way for the canonization of Blessed Juan Diego, Blessed Padre Pio and the founder of Opus Dei.
The decrees issued Dec. 20 recognize scientifically unexplainable healings related to intercessory prayers to the three men.
Acceptance of a miracle is the last step needed for canonization; dates for the ceremonies will be set only after Pope John Paul discusses the causes in late January or early February with cardinals living in Rome.
The three decrees were among 13 read at the Dec. 20 ceremony.
The miracle in the case of Blessed Juan Diego, the peasant who saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, involved a 20-year-old man who suffered a crushed skull in a suicide attempt; his mother's prayers for her son's life were answered over the course of a week in 1990.
Blessed Padre Pio, an Italian Capuchin, was invoked by an 8-year-old Italian boy's parents, doctors and staff members at the hospital Padre Pio founded in San Giovanni Rotondo in January 2000. The boy was in a coma in intensive care suffering severe organ damage as a result of meningitis.
The boy, Matteo Pio Colella, attended the Dec. 20 ceremony with his parents and leaders of the Capuchin community of San Giovanni Rotondo.
Colella carried with him a statue of the Baby Jesus from the monastery's Nativity scene, a statue the friars said was particularly dear to Padre Pio.
Pope John Paul kissed the hand of the statue before kissing Colella on the head and blessing him.
Prayers for the intercession of Blessed Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the Opus Dei founder, were credited with saving the life of a Spanish physician suffering from end-stage skin cancer as a result of years of exposure to X-ray radiation. The doctor was not a member of Opus Dei and although he had been given a holy card with Msgr. Escriva's image on it, he did not begin praying for healing until finding similar holy cards in a church in Vienna, Austria.
Just as Msgr. Escriva's beatification in 1992 — only 17 years after his death — created a stir because of its speed, newspapers were claiming Pope John Paul personally pushed the canonization cause of Blessed Padre Pio, who was beatified in 1999.
But Joaquin Navarro-Valls, papal spokesman, told the Italian news agency ANSA that Blessed Padre Pio's cause "followed the ordinary procedures; nothing was accelerated and no one put pressure on anyone."
Father Flavio Cappuci, postulator of Blessed Escriva's cause, said the then-record time between the Opus Dei founder's death and his beatification was due simply to the fact that the entire process took place under the new beatification procedures promulgated by Pope John Paul in 1983.
Introducing the decrees, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, described Blessed Escriva as an "eminent figure of the church in the 20th century."
"He promoted with untiring fervor the holiness of the laity and, with many initiatives, brought the leaven of the Gospel to modern society," the cardinal said.
Referring to Blessed Padre Pio, the cardinal read from Pope John Paul's homily at his beatification: "This humble Capuchin friar surprised the world with his life totally dedicated to prayer and to listening to his brothers and sisters. ... His body, marked by the stigmata, demonstrated the intimate connection between death and resurrection."
The cardinal said Blessed Juan Diego, an indigenous Mexican who converted to Christianity in adulthood, devoted the rest of his life to bringing others to the faith after having the vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531.
Father Eduardo Chavez Gonzalez, postulator of Blessed Juan Diego's cause, said the Vatican decree brings with it the implicit recognition that Juan Diego truly existed and that Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to him in 1531.
His sainthood cause was stalled for several years in the midst of debate over whether Juan Diego was a historic figure or merely a legend.
Father Chavez said the miracle in Blessed Juan Diego's case involved a young Mexican man who attempted suicide in May 1990 after traveling to the United States to see his father and being rebuffed by him.
The young man went to the balcony of his mother's second-floor apartment in Mexico City, planning to throw himself off, the priest said. The mother grabbed her son's leg as he went over, and shouting, "Juan Diego help me, Juan Diego help me," she tried to hold him.
He slipped from his mother's hands and landed directly on his head, Father Chavez said. At the hospital, "the X-ray was clear, his head was crushed. They could not understand why he was still alive."
Three days after the incident, May 6, Pope John Paul celebrated Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and officially proclaimed Juan Diego blessed.
Shortly after the Mass, "this youth woke up and started eating. It frightened everyone in the hospital. They thought he should be dead, but instead he was hungry," Father Chavez said.
"Over the next four days, his cranium healed completely, and exactly one week after the fall, he walked out of the hospital on his own," the priest said.
Father Chavez said the doctor told him the young man, now about 30 years old, completed a computer engineering degree and is living in the United States, although he does not know in what city.
Other decrees issued Dec. 20 cleared the way for the canonization of an 18th-century Italian Capuchin, Father Ignazio da Santhia, and a 19th-century Italian Benedictine, Sister Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinello.
Decrees recognizing the miracles needed for the beatification of four Italian priests and one Spanish priest, all founders of religious orders, also were read.
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