FRANCE/FILE: French bishop names nun who overcame debilitating disease after praying to John Paul II

A French Catholic nun whose Parkinson's disease apparently disappeared after praying to the late Pope John Paul II declined to call her restored health a miracle on Friday (March 30) but insisted that her recovery was due to the late Pontiff. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, 46, told journalists she had suffered for four years and was about to quit work as a maternity ward supervisor when she suddenly found her hand was calm enough to write clearly again after parying to John Paul II. Her recovery could be central to a drive to beatify John Paul, putting him one step away from sainthood. The Catholic Church demands proof of a medically unexplained healing to bestow that honour and a second such case to declare him a saint. Slightly nervous before a wall of cameras, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre spoke glowingly of the late Polish pontiff as an inspiration to her because of his very public suffering from Parkinson's before his death on April 2, 2005. Talking about her illness, she insisted that it was developing at a very fast pace. "At the speed with which my illness was spreading, I sincerely thought I'd be in a wheelchair in a matter of years," she said. She said she and her fellow nuns had prayed to John Paul for her recovery after his death and linked her healing on June 2, 2005 to him. The Church teaches that Catholics can pray to the dead to intercede with God to perform a miracle on Earth. "I fought a lot by praying, I tried to live with my faith and often turned to the cross and I was telling myself and asking Jesus to help, and the phrase that kept coming back to me was 'if you believe you will see the glory of God'. And it's true that since the death of Jean-Paul II, the entire congregation of the The Young Sisters of Catholic Maternity spoke with John-Paul to ask for me to be healed," she said. Recounting the events themselves, Sister Marie-Simon Pierre that she approached her Mother Superior with a request for her duties to be withdrawn. Her Mother Superior insisted she should write down the name Jean-Paul II, and shortly after she started her recovery. "I wrote John-Paul II, in order to plead to him. My hand-writing was practically illegible, it was very difficult to read what I had written, and both of us stayed in silence for a long time, both praying to John-Paul II," she said. After writing down his name and praying to him, she returned to her room, where she discovered that she had an urge to write, and she was able to get out of bed with ease, although writing and getting out of bed had previously been painful. "I then went back to my room, it was sometime between 2130 and 2145, and when I returned I felt like writing, even through I found writing difficult. I had the impression I heard a voice telling me to pick up a pen and write. I went to sleep, I then woke up at around 0430 in the morning and then I got out of bed with a jump, even though getting up was very difficult and painful. Since my body was in pain, it would take me a long time to get out of bed. I got up with a jump and I felt completely transformed, I was no longer the same inside, something happened that I can't put into words. I cannot say what I was really feeling inside. It was too strong, too big and too mysterious," she said. "I passed a nun who I had spent a lot of time with, and showing her my left hand, I told her look, my hand doesn't tremble anymore. John-Paul II cured me," she said. Aix-en-Provence Archbishop Claude Feidt said he would hand over a thick volume of documents on the case to the Vatican on Monday (April 2), the second anniversary of John Paul's death. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre was due to accompany him there. Father Luc-Marie Lalanne, who led the inquiry in the Aix-en-Provence archdiocese, said a psychiatrist and three neurologists -- two of them university professors -- had testified they could not explain the nun's recovery. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who declined to reveal her real name, said her neurologist was astounded when he saw her walk into his office normally five days after her sudden change. The nun said she then continued work as supervisor of her 40-bed maternity ward in Puyricard, near Aix-en-Provence, until she was transferred late last year to another maternity ward in Paris run by her order, the Sisters of Catholic Maternities. Lalanne said he had no idea how long the Vatican would take to examine the nun's case and whether it would be recognised as a miracle. Church experts in Rome expect it to be approved.

ITN Source | March 31, 2007

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