History of the 72nd recognized miracle of Lourdes

Antonia Raco, a 67 -year -old Italian affected for a long time by an incurable neurodegenerative disease, was officially presented to the press on July 25 in Lourdes, where her healing was recognized as the 72nd miracle attributed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary from the appearances of 1858.

Raco was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ELA), a progressive and deadly disease, and experienced a recovery that challenged the medical explanation.

Initially announced by the Sanctuary of Lourdes on April 16 of this year, the recognition marked the culmination of 16 years of medical, canonical and pastoral research.

Raco, mother and active parishioner of Basilicata, in southern Italy, had been living with the disease for several years when he traveled to Lourdes in 2009.

“As a child, I had always wanted to go to Lourdes,” he recalled. That desire came true that summer, when she and her husband Antonio traveled to the sanctuary with the Italian Pilgrimage Association UNITALSI.

The experience, however, was not exactly as she had imagined: she arrived in a wheelchair, already with difficulties to breathe and pass the food.

The second day, the sanctuary volunteers took her to the bathrooms. “We pray together. It was then that I heard a beautiful female voice that said three times: ‘Don’t be afraid!'” He said during the press conference in Lourdes, held in the presence of religious and medical authorities.

Raco wore the white and uniform of Lourdes hospitable, the volunteer caregivers to whom he now joins every year, helping the sick with the same compassion as once they showed her.

“At that moment I broke down and prayed for the intentions I had brought with me.”

He described a sudden and acute pain on his legs during the immersion, as if they had taken them away. He did not reveal to anyone what happened during his stay and returned home in a wheelchair.

It was there, in her room with her husband Antonio, where she heard the same voice that urged her: “Tell him! Call it!” Obeying her voice, she called her husband, who had just entered the kitchen. “Something has happened,” he said.

At that time, he stood up without help for the first time in years. Seized by the emotion, the couple hugged and cried when he realized that he was cured.

Although she was very happy, at first Raco did not know how to talk about her experience. Finally, he confessed with a pastor of his diocese from Tursi-lagonegro, in Basilicata, who urged her to undergo a medical evaluation.

Shortly after, the local archbishop who had accompanied the pilgrimage that year, Mons. Francesco Nolè, visited her and, after listening to her story, said: “Antonietta, the Lord has entered your house and gave you a gift, but it is not just for you. It is for all of us.”

The path to recognition required more than a decade of exhaustive medical evaluations and review by experts. “There is no cure for the ELA,” said Professor Vincenzo Silani, a prominent neurologist who participated in the investigation. He was one of those who confirmed both the diagnosis and the inexplicability of the recovery of Raco. “Patients are condemned to get worse a little every day.”

Dr. Alessandro de Franciscis, permanent doctor of the Sanctuary of Lourdes, reminded those present that the Church considers a miraculous healing only if it is sudden, complete, lasting, medically inexplicable and not attributable to a treatment or a gradual recovery.

These criteria, which continue to guide the discernment of the Church today, were first established by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, and later by Pope Benedict XIV.

The debate in the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL) was initially unfinished when the case was presented for the first time in 2019. However, a new international consensus on the diagnosis of ELA, published in 2020, laid the foundations for a reevaluation.

In 2023, Silani reevaluated Raco in Milan and confirmed the definitive healing.

Finally, in November 2024, a secret vote was held between 21 members of the International Medical Committee of Lourdes: 17 voted in favor of an inexplicable, complete and lasting healing, complying with the two -thirds majority required by the criteria of the Church.

After the positive medical vote, the case was sent to the current bishop of the Diocese of origin of Antonia Raco, Mons. Vincenzo Carmine Oroofino, who formally recognized the miracle on April 16 of this year.

The bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, Mons. Jean-Marc Mica, who participated in the scientific process without the right to vote, praised the rigor and transparency of medical debates. “What impressed me the most,” he said, “was the freedom of experts. They are not there to defend a cause, but to seek the truth.”

He also reminded participants that miracles never impose faith. “Not even the resurrection forced anyone to believe. A miracle is a sign, a gift that is received in light of faith.”

When closing the press conference, the rector of the Sanctuary of Lourdes, P. Michel Daubanes, expressed his deep emotion and gratitude by remembering the honor of announcing the miracle during the rosary of 6:00 p.m. on Holy Thursday, April 17, minutes before his proclamation in the cathedral of Tursi-Lagonegro.

We usually say: “If I saw a miracle, I would believe.” But the truth is that, if I think, I can see miracles, ”he said. This healing is not just a story of the past. It is a living testimony that continues to bear fruit.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA