Updated

Updated · Vatican News - English · Sep 26

Pope Leo to Visit Lourdes for World Peace, Healing and Unity as Shrine Marks 72 Recognized Cures

Updated

Updated · Vatican News - English · Sep 26

Pope Leo to Visit Lourdes for World Peace, Healing and Unity as Shrine Marks 72 Recognized Cures

Q: What rigorous medical tests must a healing pass to become one of Lourdes' 72 officially recognized miracles?

To be recognized as one of Lourdes’ 72 official miracles, a healing must survive years—sometimes decades—of medical scrutiny and then a separate church review. The key medical test is not one laboratory exam but a demanding set of criteria applied by the Lourdes Medical Bureau and the International Medical Committee of Lourdes. Doctors look for a firmly documented diagnosis of a serious, organic disease with a poor prognosis. They then examine whether the recovery was sudden or very rapid, complete, and lasting over time. The patient’s records must show that the cure cannot be explained by normal treatment, spontaneous remission, misdiagnosis, or the natural course of the illness. In the words cited by Lourdes physicians, the cure must appear “instantaneous,” “complete,” “lasting in time,” and without any possible scientific explanation based on current medical knowledge. That review depends on extensive documentation: hospital files, scans, pathology, specialist reports, treatment history, and long-term follow-up. More than 7,000 reported cures have been examined since 1858, but only a small fraction have met that standard. If doctors judge a case medically inexplicable, it does not automatically become a miracle. The file then goes to church authorities, including the local bishop, who decide whether the healing can be formally recognized as miraculous in the religious sense.

3 articles · Updated · Vatican News - English · Sep 26

Pope Leo will make a pilgrimage to Lourdes to pray for peace, healing and unity, with the visit framed by shrine officials as a response to an unsettled world.
Father James Phalan, who coordinates the English-speaking chaplaincy, said the pope’s trip is a true pilgrimage centered on prayer, the Rosary and Mass at one of Catholicism’s major Marian shrines.
Lourdes has recorded 72 officially recognized healings after a rigorous medical and diocesan review, while officials say thousands of other physical recoveries and millions of spiritual healings have been reported.
The southern French sanctuary, built around the grotto where Mary is said to have appeared in 1858, now includes multiple basilicas, including an underground church that can hold 20,000 people.