| Lourdes
A
Medical Perspective
Dr.
Patrick Theillier, born in Valenciennes, France,
received his medical
diploma from the Faculté de Médecine
de Lille in 1969. In 1974, he also received a diploma
in acupuncture and homeopathy. Dr. Theillier is
the twelfth doctor to head the Medical Office in
the
famed shrine of Lourdes, where many have claimed
miraculous cures since Our Lady appeared to Saint
Bernadette Soubirous in 1858. Mr. Miguel Vidigal,
of Crusade Magazine, interviewed Dr. Theillier
in Lourdes.
Mr. Vidigal: Dr. Theillier, what is your work as
the doctor in charge of the Lourdes Medical Office?
Dr.
Theillier: I receive pilgrims claiming to have
received the grace of a cure connected with Our Lady
of Lourdes. I take notes and begin to try to determine
the possibility of the cure being recognized as miraculous.
Then I initiate a medical investigation. The first
step is to collect all documents before and after
the cure to ascertain that a cure truly happened.
I also consult all the doctors in Lourdes for the
possibility of such a cure having a purely natural
or therapeutic cause. In short, my investigation
has to go full circle before I propose this cure
to the Church so that it can declare the cure a miracle.
Mr. Vidigal: What was the first officially recognized
miracle?
Dr.
Theillier: The first miracle was that of Catherine
Latapie, a thirty-eight-year-old woman. On the night
of February 28 to March 1, 1858, she felt the need
to go to the grotto of Massabielle where Our Lady
appeared to Saint Bernadette.
Two years prior, she had fallen from a tree, injuring
and paralyzing her right arm. This hindered her enormously.
Besides, she was pregnant. Despite all this, she
went to the grotto at night to attend the Twelfth
Apparition. When it finished, she climbed into the
grotto, which was at the time on higher ground, and
found the spring where only three days before Our
Lady had asked Saint Bernadette to wash. As Catherine
Latapie dipped her hand into the waters, she recovered
the complete use of her right arm. Walking the six
kilometers back home, she felt labor pains and soon
afterward gave birth to a son whom she named Jean-Baptiste.
He became a priest.
Mr. Vidigal: How many miracles have been recognized
to date?
Dr.
Theillier: There are sixty-six miracles recognized
officially by the Church. However, it must be explained
that it is always the bishop from the diocese of
the cured person who recognizes the miracle. It is
also good to know that the ratio of claimed cures
to officially recognized cures is 100 to 1.
Mr. Vidigal: Are there any recent cases?
Dr.
Theillier: Of course, there are always new cases.
At present I have about fifty cases to study. I even
have some cancer cases, but since cancer is an illness
that must be treated medically, I must determine
whether or not a medical treatment is at the bottom
of the cure. This is a long, time-consuming work,
demanding much study and comparison with other cures
throughout the world.
Mr. Vidigal: How long does it take to study and
recognize a miracle?
Dr.
Theillier: It takes a minimum of five years,
but generally about ten or twelve years. I receive
roughly thirty-five claims a year, of which three
or five claims will be investigated.
Mr. Vidigal: How does the Lourdes Medical Office
contact persons claiming a cure?
Dr.
Theillier: We just wait. People contact us.
Mr. Vidigal: When
one comes to Lourdes, one hears that the greatest
miracle,
either at the grotto or
during the whole of the pilgrimage, is the miracle
of the soul—even more than that of the
body. As a Catholic physician, what do you feel
about this?
Dr.
Theillier: As a Catholic
physician, I appreciate the fact that human beings
have a spiritual dimension
inherent to their nature. Being created in God’s
image and likeness, there is within us a fountain
of eternal life. I consider that the physical cure
is a sign of God’s goodness and mercy toward
the sick and sinner, but that it does not happen
without spiritual healing as well.
By spiritual healing, we must understand that
it is a cure for all the wounds that we accumulate
throughout
our existence and these wounds, at that particular
moment, needs treatment and healing. Thus, I believe
that we should not only focus on the “amazing” aspect
of the physical miracle, but also seek the meaning
behind it, which is the spiritual healing.
Mr.
Vidigal: Those that have been cured at Lourdes,
do they also feel this?
Dr.
Theillier: I will tell you the story of a sixty-seven-year-old
gentleman who told me of a cure he received in 1963.
During his military service in Algeria, he came
down with an illness called tubercular sacroiliitis.
He
was sent back to France, and was a patient at the
Military Hospital of Bordeaux. He was declared a
complete invalid, and was awarded a military disability
pension. Then someone suggested a visit to Lourdes,
and once there, he was taken to the baths, but since
he had a cast from his neck to his feet that was
impossible to remove, a wet sponge was applied to
the cast on the most painful spot.
Upon his return to the hospital in Bordeaux, he went
for an X-ray, and to everyone’s surprise, the
X-ray revealed that he was totally cured from tubercular
sacroiliitis.
Mr.
Vidigal: The purpose of your work here is to
confirm medically a change to nature that medicine
cannot explain. Is this what is called a supernatural
action?
Dr.
Theillier: Exactly—still, supernatural,
but not against nature. It is not an action against
nature because at a certain moment there is a physiological
movement within someone’s organism that changes
illness into health. God always gives signs that
we may accept or deny. Truly, the sign is given to
lead us to believe, to give us the occasion to see,
to help our faith, to help us further on the way
and to open our eyes to the dimension of the infinite
or the invisible that are here with us but that,
unfortunately, we do not see. We should not expect
the amazing, for a miracle is a sign, not an amazement.
Mr. Vidigal: Were there any doctors who, while visiting
Lourdes, converted after witnessing a miracle?
Dr.
Theillier: Yes. For example,
there was the case of Doctor Alexis Carrel, the
1912 Nobel Prize Winner
in Medicine, who accompanied a gravely ill woman
who was in a terminal coma from generalized tuberculosis.
At the grotto, he witnessed this sick woman “resurrect.” It
was an extraordinary cure, but he would not admit
to it because of his positivist formation. Nevertheless,
after his death, a manuscript was found where he
relates his trip to Lourdes and recognizes having
witnessed a miracle.
Mr. Vidigal: The
doctor in charge of this office at the time
of the writer
Emil Zola had a debate
with him, isn’t it true?
Dr.
Theillier: True. Zola, interested in finding
out more about the shrine in Lourdes, paid a visit
at the end of the 19th century. Doctor Boissarie,
one of my predecessors, opened the doors of the medical
office to him, and the writer had the opportunity
to witness the true miraculous cures of two young
women whose cases we have in our files to this day.
Upon his return to Paris, Zola wrote his book about
Lourdes. In it he recounts faithfully these two miracles
and only changed the name of the young women. The
problem is that he tampered with reality when he
added that the two had a relapse and died of their
illnesses. This is absolutely false.
Doctor Boissarie went to Paris and looked him
up. At a public conference, he challenged
Zola, demonstrating
that he had changed the truth. Zola answered that
he was a fiction writer who had the right to introduce
whatever he wished in his books.
In reality, both young women were truly cured of
their ailments, never had a relapse, and lived
to old age.
Mr. Vidigal: These cures cannot be seen as simple
signs and nothing more. In your opinion, what is
the meaning of these cures?
Dr.
Theillier: I believe that healing is for all
and not only reserved to a few. Otherwise, it would
be unjust, and we could ask, why are some healed
and others not?
Sooner or later we are all called to be healed
of our wounds—of our sins. We must live in hope
and understand that God loves us, and that He is
not the source of evil, sickness or handicap, or
we would live in rebellion. We must understand that
He suffered and gave His life for us and saved us.
The most important is the spiritual health, and we
must look at those physical cures from the perspective
of eternity, in anticipation of the resurrection
of the bodies.
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