- WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) -- Roman Catholic investigators haven't been able
to establish whether wondrous happenings attributed to a disabled girl
are definitely miracles. But they are satisfied the peculiar events are
no flimsy hoax.
-
- "I don't know," Bishop Daniel
P. Reilly said Thursday. "These are things you have to live with,
even though we don't like to do that in this day and age."
-
- Reilly, who is supervising the investigation,
formed a team of two psychologists and a theologian 14 months ago to investigate
claims of miracles at the home of Audrey Santo, 15, of Worcester, Mass.
-
- Rev. F. Stephen Pedone, a canon law expert
for the diocese, said there are only a handful of such investigations under
way in the entire church.
-
- The girl has been comatose since she
nearly drowned at age three in a backyard swimming pool. Visitors to her
Worcester home say statues of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary appear to
weep as they inexplicably ooze oil. Hosts -- the wafers representing the
body of Christ -- are said to bleed. Some visitors say the girl takes on
the suffering of others and helps rid others of ailments.
-
- At a news conference Thursday, the investigators
said they witnessed the oozing of oily liquid from statues and saw red,
blood-like stains on hosts. They said laboratory tests identified a sample
purportedly taken from a host as human blood from someone other than a
family member. "We found nothing we could consider to be trickery,"
said John Madonna, a psychologist on the investigation team.
-
- The investigators said they will continue
to study the evidence and conduct more laboratory tests of religious objects
in the home. They have no deadline to complete their work.
-
- Madonna said they may never be able to
explain the happenings as either natural or divine. "In the final
analysis, it may simply be a matter of faith," he said.
-
- However, the bishop did speak of a "special
presence of God" within the home. "People are in such need of
hope and healing, and I think Audrey brings something of that into their
lives," he said.
-
- He praised Audrey's parents, Steve and
Linda Santo, for their constant care for their daughter. "There's
something, at least in the general sense, ... miraculous about that,"
he said.
-
- However, church officials also denounced
some practices surrounding the girl. They said Catholics should pray for
-- but not to -- her.
-
- They said sick people should not be anointed
with oil from the statues, and the bishop said he regretted huge public
services centered on Santo because "it turns the girl into a spectacle."
-
- About 8,000 attended such a service in
August.
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