The Medical Bureau of the Lourdes Shrine in France was founded in 1883 at the same time that the area of the baths was established. As noted on the shrine’s website, it is the only organization of its kind in the world, including pilgrimage sites of other religions.
To date, more than 70,000 cases of extraordinary events have been presented, of which 70 have been recognized as miraculous by the Catholic Church. In most of them, women are the recipients of this special grace. In 50 of the 70 cases, the miraculous event occurred through contact with the shrine’s water, which has no special properties.
It was Pope Leo XIII who in 1886 gave his approval to the procedures followed by the medical bureau. In 1902, the Holy See ratified these protocols, which have four fundamental stages:
The office director receives the person who claims to have received a miracle. If the director considers the case worthy of being taken seriously, he calls in the doctors on staff that day at the shrine. If they agree that the case should proceed, an investigation begins that can last several years. When completed, the members of the International Scientific Committee of Lourdes vote on whether the extraordinary event is “unexplained in the current state of our knowledge.” This vote is sent to the bishop of the place where the cured person resides, who is the one who has the authority to declare the miracle.
The seven criteria doctors must take into account
The website of the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes also specifies the seven criteria that must be observed during the medical investigation of cases. Before healing, the following must be taken into account:
1) The disease must be serious and have an unfavorable prognosis.
2) The disease must be known and cataloged by medicine.
3) The disease must “be organic, lesional,” and be examined by “objective, biological, radiological criteria.” This means that “even today, cures for pathologies will not be recognized without precise objective criteria, such as psychological, psychiatric, functional, and nervous diseases, etc.”
4) There should be no treatment to which the cure can be attributed.
5) The healing must be sudden, abrupt, instantaneous, immediate, and without convalescence.
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After healing, two more criteria must be considered:
6) It should not be a simple regression of symptoms but rather a return to all vital functions.
7) It should not be a simple remission but rather a cure, that is, lasting and definitive.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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