Vatican declares healing of Colorado Springs boy a miracle after prayers to German nun

Excerpt from The Denver Post

By Electa Draper

The wheels of canonization grind slowly, but a German nun who lived 100 years ago could be named a saint because the Vatican believes a Colorado Springs boy experienced a miracle in 1999.  Mother Theresia Bonzel, who founded the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration in Olpe, Germany, in 1863, is scheduled for beatification in November — a step toward sainthood — as a result of the boy's miraculous recovery. Two Colorado Spring nuns prayed to Bonzel on behalf of 4-year-old Luke Burgie, and the events that followed — over the next 14 years — have been closely scrutinized and investigated by church officials and doctors.

Sister Margaret Mary Preister and the late Sister Evangeline Spenner had just recited a series of prayers over nine straight days asking Mother Bonzel, who died in 1905, to intercede for Luke.

Doctors couldn't explain Luke's sudden recovery, and the Vatican machinery for investigating alleged miracles began to churn.

Journalist Bill Briggs, who wrote in depth about Catholic Church investigations into such supernatural occurrences in his book "The Third Miracle," said the process is, in a word, "rigorous."

"I think what would surprise people outside the church is how very dubious investigators are," Briggs said. "To examine these claims, they look at hundreds, if not thousands, of medical records and other pieces of evidence. It's the furthest thing from a rubber stamp."

Briggs said the situation or illness doesn't have to be terminal or even dramatic. The cure simply has to be rapid, complete and utterly inexplicable by ordinary means. The church interviews the original doctors in the case, and a team of independent medical experts then pore over all the records.

Colorado Springs Bishop Michael Sheridan on Friday congratulated the local motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration on the Vatican pronouncement of a miracle in the Burgie case.

Read more: Vatican Declares Healing a Miracle