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French daily names miracle nun in John Paul case

28 Mar 2007 20:31:24 GMT
Source: Reuters

PARIS, March 28 (Reuters) - A French newspaper on Wednesday named a mystery nun cured of Parkinson's disease after praying to the late Pope John Paul as Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, 45, a maternity ward staffer in Paris.

Bishop Claude Feidt, of her home diocese of Aix-en-Provence and Arles in southern France, is due to announce her name on Sunday, the Catholic daily La Croix reported.

Both newspapers posted their reports on their Web sites before publication in their Thursday editions.

The case is key to the effort to declare John-Paul a saint. If the Church recognises her recovery as a miracle thanks to prayers to him, the late pontiff can be beatified - one step short of sainthood.

Church law says a second medically inexplicable healing must be attributed to a candidate before sainthood.

Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, who contracted Parkinson's in 2001, wrote anonymously of her illness in a magazine published by the Italian Catholic Church.

"I was losing weight day by day. I could no longer write and if I did try to, it was difficult to decipher. I could no longer drive ... because my left leg became rigid," she wrote.

She describes how she and her fellow nuns in her religious community prayed to the late Pope for her healing.

On June 2, 2005, exactly two months after the Pope's death, she felt the sudden urge to pick up a pen: "My handwriting was completely legible ... my body was no longer pained, no longer rigid ... I felt a profound sense of peace."

Her neurologist and other doctors and psychologists who later examined her were at a loss for a medical explanation.

She will be the main guest next week when the Rome diocese gives the Vatican tens of thousands of pages of documentation proposing John Paul be beatified.

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, in charge of promoting John Paul's sainthood case, told reporters in Rome about the nun on Tuesday but declined to name her or say if she would be identified.

"The nun will be at the ceremonies in Rome and the Vatican on April 2, but so will thousands of others," he said.

Le Figaro said Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre was working at a maternity ward run by her order in Puyricard, near Aix-en-Province, when she was suddenly healed. She was later transferred to another maternity ward in Paris in late 2006.

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Last updated:Wed Mar 28 20:32:58 2007