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A pilgrim prays at the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes located by the Gave de Pau River at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France, Feb. 10, 2024.
OSV News photo/courtesy Lourdes Sanctuary
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OSV News photo/David Snyder, Catholic Relief Services
In a joyful moment after the rosary on St. Bernadette Soubirous' feast day April 16 at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, the shrine's rector, Father Michel Daubanes, announced that a 72nd miracle at the famed pilgrimage site has been recognized.
The sanctuary also confirmed the news on X, saying that Italian woman Antonietta Raco, who suffered from primary lateral sclerosis, "was cured in 2009 during her pilgrimage to Lourdes."
Primary lateral sclerosis, known as PLS, is a type of motor neuron disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain that control movement. The breakdown of nerve cells in PLS causes weakness in the muscles that control the legs, arms and tongue, leaving a patient on a wheelchair.
Raco's Italian diocese rejoiced on April 16, confirming the news.
Bishop Vincenzo Carmine Orofino of Tursi-Lagonegro in southern Italy officially declared the miraculous nature of the healing of Raco April 16.
"Following a pilgrimage to the Grotto of Lourdes in the summer of 2009, after bathing in the pools, on her return home, Mrs. Raco began to move independently and the effects of the unfortunate disease immediately and definitively disappeared," Bishop Orofino said.
He added that "after a long period of careful investigation," the International Medical Committee of Lourdes -- an official medical body investigating possible miracles -- "declared the healing of the lady to be medically unexplained in the current state of scientific knowledge."
The news arrived merely four months after confirming the 71st miracle at the sanctuary, which had been granted to a British soldier, wounded during World War I.
David Torchala, the sanctuary's director of communications, told OSV News: "We are delighted to receive this news from Italy.
"We always wonder why there are so few recognized miracles, only 72, compared to the millions of people who come to Lourdes," but, he said, "it is important to understand that these miracles are the result of long and arduous medical procedures, research and diagnoses. It's a long and rigorous process. It also presupposes that cured patients come back to Lourdes to report it, and agree to undergo all this research and further examinations."
Torchala told OSV News that "there are currently over 7,000 cases that have been studied and for which declarations of healing have been attested. But then, the final decision to recognize a miracle rests with the bishop of the diocese of the patient who has been cured."
He said that after the scientific work of the doctors, "it's up to the church to recognize that there has indeed been the hand of God in a cure."
Torchala emphasized that in addition to the story of the healed woman, "it is an opportunity to pay tribute to all the organizers and volunteers of this extraordinary pilgrimage, the Italian 'Unitalsi.'"
"Italians are the most numerous visitors to Lourdes after the French," he said, adding that they "have a long history of friendship with Lourdes. They come in great numbers, even though they have thousands of their own magnificent churches and sanctuaries dedicated to the Virgin."
"Unitalsi is a huge organization that brings in pilgrims all year round from all over Italy. Without all the hospitaliers and volunteers who devote themselves all year round to the sick, this woman wouldn't have been able to come to Lourdes," Torchala stressed.
Bernadette witnessed 18 Marian apparitions beginning on Feb. 11, 1858, and people of her time witnessed first physical and spiritual healing miracles after visiting the shrine or drinking or washing in the spring Our Lady pointed Bernadette to in an apparition.
Lourdes' baths have fully reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2024. The sick, people with disabilities and all other pilgrims can fully immerse in the chilly spring waters in the sanctuary -- a powerful spiritual moment of healing and cleansing for many.
The Italian diocese of the healed woman responded to the recognized miracle saying, "Praise be to God, who with this divine sign has once again manifested his presence among his People and has given us his Most Holy Mother, Mary Immaculate, as a powerful mediator of Grace."
(Caroline de Sury writes for OSV News from Paris.)
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