A French nun will be thrust into the global limelight today when Catholic Church authorities explain that her purported recovery from Parkinson’s disease can be attributed to the miraculous intervention of Pope John Paul II.

The sudden return to health of Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre after she scrawled Pope John Paul’s name on a piece of paper is being hailed as the post-humous miracle needed to set the late Pope on the road towards sainthood.

The case of the 45-year-old nun, described by nurses as “a discreet little nun”, will be submitted to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints along with a list of Pope John Paul’s “heroic virtues” next week.

Her dossier was selected from among 130 allegedly miraculous cures sent to the Vatican to bolster his claim for beatification. Under Vatican rules one miracle is needed to approve a beatification and two for a sainthood.

The Rome Diocese said it chose her because the recovery was clear-cut and unexplained by medical science and because she was suffering from the same malady as Pope John Paul.

Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, from Puyricard, near Aixen-Provence, in southern France, lsaid she was struck by Parkinson’s disease in 2001. Her condition worsened over the next four years and, by the time the Pope died in April 2005, she was unable to stand or walk. She had stopped working as a nurse in a Paris maternity hospital and was confined to office activities.

Two months later she tried to write down John Paul II’s name as she prayed to him for help “but all that came out was a scribble,” she said in an account sent to the Vatican.

However, that evening, the “miracle” occurred.

“I fell asleep and, waking up several hours later, felt that the illness had disappeared,” said Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre.

She leapt out of bed and went to the chapel to pray.

“I felt a profound sense of peace and wellbeing. My hand did not tremble anymore.” Four days later the doctor who had been treating her for four years declared that the symptoms had vanished completely, with no medical explanation.

Father Slawomir Oder, the Polish prelate in charge of John Paul II’s beatification claim, said handwriting experts had compared the nun’s “illegible scribble” on the day of her prayer with her “perfectly legible and comprehensible” writing the next morning. He said doctors in France had become convinced of the miraculous nature of her cure. Psychologists had also conducted tests to prove she had no psychiatric problems.

Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre is expected to be among thousands of other nuns at the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome on Monday for a ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of John Paul’s death.

Making saints

— After death, candidates for canonisation are put forward by the bishop of their diocese, who will present evidence that they have lived a life of “heroic virtue”. They can then be declared a Servant of God and given the title “Venerable”

— To ascend to beatification candidates must either be determined to have died a martyr or they must perform one verifiable posthumous miracle

— The miracle is determined by a team of Vatican investigators that includes relevant experts (doctors, if the miracle involved healings) and theologians

— To be canonised and considered a saint a second miracle must occur. The final decision is the Pope’s

Source: The Vatican. Catholic Communications Office

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