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Monday, February 24, 2014

An atheist helps the Church in declaring new saints!


Prof Jacalyn Duffin shaking hands with Pope John Paul II
Meet Dr. Jacalyn Duffin, MD, an atheist who wrote two books about medical miracles brought about by candidates to sainthood. Her investigations helped canonized them.

In a Wikipedia entry:

"Upon her return to Canada, Duffin settled in Ottawa where she took on a contract to review a set of slides, which she assumed were to be used in a malpractice suit. She was given no information about the patient, but identified the young woman as suffering from acute myeloblastic leukemia, “the most aggressive leukemia known.” As the slides were from some 5+ years earlier, she assumed the patient as deceased, as that form of leukemia kills usually within two years. Instead, she found that the patient had, after a relapse, gone into remission and was doing well some five years on. Duffin's testimony was to be used by the Vatican to determine whether Marie-Marguerite d'Youville (1701 – 1771) had performed a miracle and was worthy of canonization. According to Duffin, “They never asked me to say this was a miracle. They wanted to know if I had a scientific explanation for why this patient was still alive. I realized they weren’t asking me to endorse their beliefs. They didn’t care if I was a believer or not, they cared about the science"

You can read her own account of that miracle, how she judged the case only through the lens of a microscope.   She has also written two books about the medical miracles documented in the different canonizations.

She remains an atheist. Now that is one miracle let us hope for!

1 comment:

  1. It is best that an independent and scientific opinion verifies a controversial issue so critics of the Church have no other way to again accuse the Church of concocting lies inasmuch as they accuse the Church
    +that Peter was never in Rome,
    +that the doctrine of the Trinity was a Catholic invention,
    +that Catholics adapted pagan customs in the use of icons and statues
    etc...

    As they say, "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will suffice."...NOT EVEN if it was an independent and Non-Catholic attestation such as this.

    Liberabit vos Veritas!

    ReplyDelete