From The Mail:
Wheelchair-boy ‘miraculously walks again’ at memorial visit to tomb of Pope John Paul II
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 11:25 PM on 02nd April 2009A child crippled by a kidney tumour was able to walk again after praying at the tomb of Pope John Paul II on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the late pontiff’s death, it was claimed last night.
The nine-year-old Polish boy was brought to St Peter’s Basilica on a pilgrimage to the grave of the Polish pope who died on April 2 2005.
Last night Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the former private secretary of Pope John Paul, said that after praying at the tomb in the crypt of the Rome basilica he ‘suddenly’ started walking again.
‘He was brought in a wheelchair because he wasn’t able to walk,’ the cardinal said. As soon as the boy emerged from the basilica, he told his parents: ”I want to walk.’ He got up and started walking, healthy,’ the prelate said.
He said the boy is from Gdansk, the Polish seaport known as the birthplace of the Solidarity movement which helped bring down decades of Communist rule in John Paul’s homeland in the late 1980s.
If investigations reveal that there are no scientific explanations for the child’s recovery, the healing may be put forward as the miracle needed to declare John Paul II ‘blessed’. A second miracle will be required to declare him a saint. [After beatification…]
…
Only a month after John Paul’s death in 2005, Benedict put him on the fast track for sainthood by waiving the usual five years before a person’s life and works can be examined. Vatican officials say the process is taking its course, and the required miracle has been identified for examination.
One possible miracle involves the curing of a French nun with Parkinson’s disease.
Cardinal Dziwisz said ‘there is always hope’ that John Paul II will be announced a saint before the fifth anniversary of his death. But in an interview with Polish TVN24 television, he said the process must go though all necessary stages ‘so there can be no doubt.‘ [Well… there must be a moral certitude, not "no doubt".]
The cardinal – who now heads John Paul’s old diocese of Krakow, Poland – indicated there was no shortage of potential cases of possible miracles to investigate.
The head of the Vatican’s saint-making office, Archbishop Angelo Amato, said the process already got a boost when Benedict waived the five-year waiting period.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, he said the process must actually be more rigorous and thorough for a pope like John Paul since he was so well-known.
‘Promptness doesn’t mean speed or superficiality; on the contrary this requires care and professionalism,’ Amato said.
The parliament in Poland, the pope’s homeland, observed a minute of silence yesterday to mark the anniversary. Masses and prayers were also being held across Poland.
