Free Republic

Over the past week, and I suspect for the next week, many of us have read, or at least seen, numerous articles on Israel and her 60th anniversary. Many of these articles stated the seemingly obvious fact that the reestablishment of the state of Israel was nothing short of a miracle. In many ways that is very true, but is it the real miracle? Other countries have disappeared only to be reestablished though none waited quite as long as the Jewish state. So, if Israel returning to the list of countries after almost 2000 years is not the miracle, what...

A picture of little Lujan Buenos Aires, May 5, 2008 / 02:16 pm (CNA).- The Catholic magazine “Cristo Hoy” in Argentina has published an article on a mother who entrusted her daughter to the intercession of Our Lady of Lujan once she was diagnosed with an incurable disease before she was born. The little girl, Lujan, is now three years-old and living a normal life.Marcela is an eye doctor and mother of three.  During the eighth month of her last pregnancy, doctors found her baby to be suffering from anencephaly, a condition in which the brain does not develop...

'Agent' of God helps boy meet Benedict BY CHRISTINA BOYLE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Sunday, April 20th 2008, 4:00 AM Handschuh/NewsSecret Service agent Brad Borst (below) carries Aaron Ruiz, 9, out of St. Patrick's. Ruiz, who has muscular dystrophy, was blessed by the Pope. Handschuh/News When Beverly Ruiz and her wheelchair-bound son arrived outside St. Patrick's Cathedral early Saturday they had no hope of getting inside.But all that changed when 9-year-old Aaron, who has muscular dystrophy, caught the eye of one of the Secret Service agents safeguarding Pope Benedict. Just moments before the historic Mass began, the federal agent singled...

"God put me there, not to watch, but to help." That is how Tim Scott of Bristol, Virginia explains his presence at the fiery crash on the southbound lanes of Interstate 81 near exit 69 Tuesday, April 9th. Scott, who stopped to help after seeing a tractor trailer, driven by Larry Harvey of Princeton, West Virginia, dragging a 1987 Oldsmobile down the interstate, just happened to have a fire extinguisher in his vehicle. Another passerby who also stopped to help, Jeff Kegley of Seymour, Tennessee, said the fire extinguisher was the key piece of equipment that helped save two women,...

TWO SYDNEY good samaritans may have pulled Margaret Cornell and her two children from their blazing car on Easter Monday, but it was a sprinkling of Holy Water in the family Commodore that Ms Cornell believes really saved their lives. A shaken Mrs Cornell said yesterday she believed God had a hand in the miraculous escape of her and children James, 14, and Enya, 8, when their car crashed and burst into flames on the F3 Freeway. The Cornell family attended an Easter vigil at a Revesby Catholic church on Saturday, where Mrs Cornell was given two satchels of Holy...

A woman of 57 with suspected ovarian cancer was in fact expecting her first baby. Susan Tollefsen feared the worst when she was sent to hospital for a scan on her growing bump. But the sonographer told her: "Congratulations, you're almost 30 weeks pregnant." She will become one of Britain's oldest mothers when she has a caesarean section next week. The remarkable story, which she describes as an Easter miracle, follows-several years of attempts to have a baby by IVF treatment at foreign clinics. The special needs teacher and her partner Nick Mayer, who is 11 years her junior, thought...

"Double tall soy mocha cappuccino.To go!" This is the fifth in a continuing series of unconfirmed miracles by Barack Obama (red-letter edition). The Vatican is investigating.The campaign staff gathered around Obama and reported to him all they had done. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. Besides, Michelle needs wireless access." So they went away by themselves in the campaign bus to a Starbucks. But many who saw them leaving...

How many people get a second chance at life? Rae Kupferschmidt has. In mid-January, the 65-year-old former medical secretary suffered a devasting cerebral hemorrhage, a massive bleeding on the brain. "They thought I was dead," she says. In fact, on January 17th, doctors declared her "brain dead." One word, "dead," is handwritten on that date on the calendar in Rae's room at United Hospital in Saint Paul. In that same hospital room where Rae fielded questions from reporters on Tuesday. Clearly, Rae did not die, but even now, her family is not second-guessing the decision to disconnect life support. Medically,...

CASTALIAN SPRINGS, Tenn., Feb. 6 -- The searchers had already gone over the field once. It seemed unlikely that anything else would turn up. It was dark and rainy, and amid the awesome wreckage left by the tornado that had just passed here they had already found three dead. Some of the bodies had been flung hundreds of feet from their homes, landing in tangles of branches and across the roadway. Then they stumbled upon Kyson. The 11-month-old, dressed in a T-shirt and diaper, was lying as silently as any piece of debris in a field of tall grass about...

A YOUNG transplant patient has defied medical science by spontaneously switching blood types and taking on her donor's immune system NSW teenager Demi Brennan is believed to be the first person in the world to completely accept a donated organ to the extent where her immune system entirely changed. Demi, now 15, suffered liver failure and had a liver transplant at the age of nine in 2001. Several months on from the transplant, her doctors at Westmead Children's Hospital say they were shocked to discover her blood type had changed to match the blood type of her deceased male donor....

MANILA, Philippines -- He could not believe his healing power. He wanted to run away from it.A Canadian woman declared dead eight hours earlier, her organs ready to be harvested and donated, suddenly opened her eyes after Filipino priest Fr. Fernando Suarez prayed over her.Suarez, who was then a seminarian, was stunned. “Let me out of here,” was all he could say, ready to flee.He was supposed to go and see the woman earlier but he was not able to make it in time. When he arrived at the Ottawa Civic Hospital in Canada, it seemed too late. But Suarez...

A second reported miracle brings sainthood one step closer to Australia's Blessed Mary MacKillop. Sister Maria Casey, vice-postulator of MacKillop's cause for sainthood, announced the recovery of a woman who was on her deathbed may elevate MacKillop to full sainthood, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Monday in a story carried by Catholic News. Rosa, who does not want her last name revealed, lay in a coma, suffering multiple organ failure from breast cancer. On the night she recovered, coincidentally MacKillop's feast day, her family prayed to Australia's saint-in-waiting for her intercession. Father Raphael Beltrame left to await the call from...

GUWAHATI, India (CNS) -- The sainthood cause of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta could cross its last hurdle if the Vatican approves an allegedly miraculous cure a priest claims he experienced on the 10th anniversary of her death. Salesian Father V.M. Thomas says Mother Teresa's intercession was responsible for the disappearance of a half-inch kidney stone in his lower ureter, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. The stone disappeared in an unexplainable manner after Father Thomas celebrated Mass and prayed to Mother Teresa Sept. 5, the day before he was scheduled for surgery. UCA News reported that Archbishop...

NAPLES, Italy (Reuters Life!) - Roman Catholics in Naples crowded the city's cathedral on Wednesday to witness the annual miracle of Saint Gennaro, who died in the 4th century but whose dried blood is said to turn liquid on his feast day. In a ritual first recorded in 1389 -- more than 1,000 years after the martyrdom of Gennaro, also known in English as Saint Januarius -- a church official waved a white handkerchief to the crowds to signal that the dried blood had liquefied on schedule when brought close to relics which are said to be his body. Cardinal...

Woman, grandkid cheat death as truck nearly falls on them BY OREN YANIV and TINA MOORE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERSWednesday, September 19th 2007, 4:00 AM Truck driven by James Christian dangles from Staten Island Expressway after plunging off it onto South Ave., its wheels striking car driven by Jenetta Christophersen. Jenetta Christophersen, who was traveling with her granddaughter, Kayla, escaped injury. A baby girl and her grandmother escaped death by just inches yesterday when a big rig drove off an elevated highway and plunged in front of their car on Staten Island."I can't believe I'm alive," said Jenetta Christophersen, 61, who...

LAREDO, Texas The Rev. Jose Maria Weyne had an unusual question for his congregation to open a recent morning Mass. “Who saw something out of the ordinary here?” he asked the group of about 70 faithful, pointing to the altar at the Laredo Medical Center chapel. Thirty people raised their hands, saying they could see the image of Jesus Christ. And how many thought the image they saw was a mere reflection, a trick of the light? No one. After the Mass, dozens lined up at the altar, hoping to distinguish the image in the consecrated host displayed in a...

September 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At numerous North American abortion clinics dedicated, prayerful pro-life sidewalk counselors attempt to save mothers and their babies from abortion. Many babies are in fact saved and their mothers helped to continue with the pregnancy and raise their saved children. What is not widely known are the often amazing, unexplainable occurrences that result in many of these successes. LifeSiteNews staff have heard numerous such stories which are sometimes enough to cause tears or raise goose bumps on one's skin. The following is one such story about the uncanny appearance of a stranger who made...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Giant killer Appalachian State has won a following in Buckeyes country, where some Ohio State fans are gleeful over the humiliation suffered by archrival Michigan. The then-No. 5 Wolverines 34-32 loss to the lower-division Mountaineers Saturday has sparked demand for Appalachian State gear among Ohio State diehards.

TARPON SPRINGS -- As Steve Tsalickis lingered near death, feverish from what doctors said was an incurable brain tumor, the 11-year-old asked his mother to bring him the archangel Michael icon that sat in his family living room. What happened next, believers say, was a miracle.During the night, the boy began mumbling. "I have just seen St. Michael," he told his mother. The angel wanted his family to build a shrine in Tarpon Springs. In return, he would cure the boy's illness. When the boy's health was restored the next day, his family held up their end of the bargain...

We are asking prayer for safety,well-being and release of the Korean hostages from Taliban terrorists. 2-3 of the hostages have been murdered! Negotiations for release are political, so the process is slow and painful. Please pray for families involved waiting for their loved ones. Thank You for your prayerful support. Hebrews 13:3..Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, and those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also.

When we left off, we were speaking of Dr. Bob Rice, a Pentecostal minister who converted to Catholicism. That occurred five years ago this coming Easter. Before that, for 33 years, he was a healing minister in non-denominational churches -- a gifted man who says he had seen hundreds of miraculous healings [see previous story]. When his first wife died and he remarried, it was to a Catholic woman, and this eventually led to his conversion -- and a continuation of the remarkable events. Those at his Pentecostal church wouldn't accept his wife, and so he left and began exclusively...

It has been nearly a month since members of the Jeppi family gathered in the living room of their Baldwin home to pray for 12-year-old Sal, who had been suffering from headaches so severe they left him unable to walk.Sal's father, for whom he is named, was in the living room, with its brick fireplace and high ceiling. So were his mother, Denise; his sister, Ashley, 10; and other relatives.An uncle, Darren Upham, led the prayer -- as young Sal recalled, "just that I would get healed."Sal felt what he called "a warm, tingly feeling" that didn't strike him...

DENVER _ The question of whether a Denver girl was cured by a miracle courtesy of an 18th century missionary priest is now in the hands of the Vatican. The Denver Archdiocese has wrapped up its part of an investigation into whether Father Junipero Serra intervened to save Kayla Rebecca Kellog from severe birth defects before she was born. A local church team spent seven months collecting documents, including independent medical data, which is now at the Holy See for further evaluation. It's all part of an investigation into whether the California priest is worthy of sainthood. There's no way...

LONDON (CNS) -- A surgeon who testified about the miraculous healing of a baby at a British hospital said he remains mystified by the child's recovery, the miracle that cleared the way for the canonization of Malta's first saint. Dr. Anil Dhawan, professor of pediatric hepatology at King's College Hospital, London, told Catholic News Service May 22 there was "no scientific explanation" for the full recovery of the Maltese boy who had undergone "devastating" liver failure. The Catholic Church has concluded that the baby was cured through the intercession of Father George Preca, a 20th-century priest who will be canonized...

Paris, Mar 30, 2007 / 12:13 pm (CNA).- “All I can tell you is that I was sick and now I am cured.  It is for the church to say and to recognize whether it is a miracle,” so said the 46 year-old Religious Sister who many think may have been miraculously cured through the intercession of the late Pope John Paul II.  The French nun, the identity of whom was unknown to the world until this week, spoke to the press in today. According to the Associated Press, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre stopped short of declaring her recovery a...

PARIS (AP) — Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre is the French nun whose testimony of a mystery cure from Parkinson’s disease will likely be accepted as the miracle the Vatican needs to beatify Pope John Paul II, an official at the Paris maternity hospital where she works said Wednesday. The identity of the nun has been one of the Catholic Church’s most closely guarded secrets. The nun says that she was cured of Parkinson’s after she and her community of nuns prayed to John Paul. The nun, a member of the ‘‘Congregation of Little Sisters of Catholic Motherhood’’ in Aix-en-Provence in southeast France,...

It's not luck the Irish have.By Chris EdwardsOn Saint Patrick’s Day, we wear green and celebrate the culture of Ireland. I’ll be down at the pub Saturday, but I’ll be toasting Ireland’s success at attracting greenbacks — all that investment flowing into the Emerald Isle and the resulting prosperity.Ireland has boomed in recent years, and it now boasts the fourth-highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. In the mid-1980s, Ireland was a backwater with an average income level 30 percent below that of the European Union. Today, Irish incomes are 40 percent above the EU average.

After trying for 30 minutes to bring two-week-old Woody Lander back to life, doctors decided there was nothing more they could do and called in his parents to say their tearful farewells. A nurse passed Woody to his heartbroken father and gently pulled a tube from his mouth so they could kiss him goodbye. It was then that the miracle happened. The lifeless baby suddenly coughed and moved. Nurses immediately grabbed Woody back, re-attached the tubes and lifesaving equipment and he came back to life in front of his astonished parents. No one has been able to explain why Woody,...

Daniel Walker was on his final lap jogging in his high school gym class when he collapsed, his flawed heart giving out on him. More than four days later, his heart at a standstill, kept alive by a bypass machine, it began beating again. The 17-year-old's parents called it divine intervention. His physicians were no less amazed. "I've been a surgeon for 10 years, and this is probably one of the most incredible things I've ever seen," said Dr. Abeel Mangi, one of Walker's cardiac surgeons at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia. Walker's father described his son's recovery in spiritual terms....

Video from the helmet camera of British skydiver Michael Holmes. It shows him plummeting 12,000ft to earth after both his parachutes failed, saying goodbye to the world... and hitting the ground with a sickening thud at 80mph. Michael's friend, who jumped from the same plane, also filmed the whole event. He found his pal bleeding and unconscious - but alive.

Bridget Smith KENS 5 Eyewitness News A statue of the baby Jesus in Sabinal is crying tears, say believers at St. Patrick's Catholic Church. They believe it is a miracle. Last Sunday was going to be ordinary one at the parish until Maria Alaniz, who leads the choir, decided to add something to the morning Mass. So, she pulled out the church's statue of the baby Jesus, which had been stored away long ago. "And I dressed him and I put him in the back," Alaniz said. She placed the statue on table in the back of the church until...

United States (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Thursday called for universal health care during a speech to the Families USA conference in Washington. Obama, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, said he is working with experts to create a detailed plan. He called for universal health insurance by the end of the next president`s first term.

THE VATICAN is close to making the late pope John Paul II a saint after investigating three "miracles" attributed to him. John Paul had already been credited with curing a nun of Parkinson's disease and now it has emerged he has been credited with two other cures, proof of which will confer on him beatification and then canonisation.This weekend the cardinal in charge of the process said he expected the checks performed by the local dioceses on all three miracles to be complete by April. A formal announcement is expected on April 2, the second anniversary of John Paul's death,...

NAPERVILLE—The Great Hall of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Naperville was filled Jan. 13 with posters propped up on easels likening an art exhibit. The silence, which typically permeates an art museum, filled the air in the room with approximately 5,600 square feet.Interested onlookers read about the 120 eucharistic miracles described on 160 panels of the Vatican International Exhibition of the Eucharistic Miracles of the World. The accounts ranged from well-known visions such as Our Lady of Guadalupe to lesser-known ones such as the eucharistic miracle that occurred in 1412 in Herentals, Belgium. A variety of miracles, including healings and...

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A tug boat on Friday began towing ashore a stricken cargo ship which narrowly missed smashing into two gas platforms overnight in stormy weather off Britain's eastern coast, the Coastguard said. The vessel, the Vindo, carrying 4,200 tonnes of fertilizer, broke down on Thursday afternoon and began drifting towards several gas fields in the southern North Sea. Royal Air Force helicopters were scrambled to airlift 30 workers off one gas platform and production at three platforms was shut down as a precaution. In six meter waves and howling winds, the ship missed one platform by just...

The late Pope John Paul II praying in front of the remains of Blessed Gorg Preca at the MUSEUM chapel in Blata l-Bajda in May 2001 The Congregation for Sainthood Causes in Rome has approved a second miracle that should lead to the canonisation of the Blessed Gorg Preca, the Archbishop's Curia said yesterday. The decision was taken following a discussion held at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican headed by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins on Tuesday. The decision was originally expected in the middle of last year but was delayed. Pope John Paul II beatified Dun Gorg in...

Marines hold out a banner at Al Asad, Iraq, Jan. 2, to thank the communities who supported them during the holiday season. The banner was sent to them, signed by many of the contributors, and the Marines thought it appropriate to sign the reverse side of the banner and send it back to the communities as a show of thanks and appreciation. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. James B. Hoke A Miracle on MALS Street Stateside communities rally support for deployed Marines. By Cpl. James B. Hoke 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing AL ASAD, Iraq, Jan. 4, 2007 --...

British intelligence and law enforcement officials have passed on a grim assessment to their U.S. counterparts, "It will be a miracle if there isn't a terror attack over the holidays in London," a senior American law enforcement official tells ABCNews.com. "It is not a matter of if there will be an attack, but how bad the attack will be," an intelligence official told ABCNews.com. Authorities say they are seeking at least 18 suspected suicide bombers.

Suppose for a moment that the birth in Bethlehem that Christians celebrate this week never happened --that it is, as the secularists would have it, mere mumbo jumbo, superstition, a myth. In other words, consider it not as an event but as a narrative. You want to launch a big new global movement from scratch. So what do you use? The birth of a child. If Christianity is just a myth, then it is, so to speak, an immaculately conceived one. On the one hand, what could be more powerless than a newborn babe? On the other, without a newborn...

Is it a miracle that a legally blind man now has perfect vision? CNN's Jason Carroll reports. (December 21) VIDEO LINK

TAMPA, Fla. -- A golden retriever missing from his family since a 2004 hurricane destroyed a backyard fence resurfaced this week near Chicago. The five-member Baines family of South Tampa had finally given up the search this summer. They thought their pet was deceased. No one knows how the dog, "Sam-I-Am," traveled the hundreds of miles and turned up as a stray at a shelter in McHenry County, Ill., this week. Shelter workers said they don't think he walked because there was no damage to his paws. "He has wanderlust," Debra Quackenbush, spokeswoman for the McHenry County Health Department, told...

A 12-year-old boy whose head was almost ripped from his body in a racing car accident has told Sky News he wants to get back behind the wheel. Chris Stewart's skull was lifted from the top of his spine - an injury which normally results in death.

A 12-year-old boy whose head was severed from his neck in a racing car crash has made a miraculous recovery. Chris Stewart suffered an internal decapitation - which kills or disables most people - during a 40mph smash on a track near Alton, Hampshire, in September. Firefighters spent an hour and a half cutting him free from the wreckage of his 1000cc Mini after the accident. The force of the crash had separated his head from his neck internally and detached his tongue at the root. Surgeons re-attached his head to his spine with metal plates and bone grafts during...

BOSTON (CNS) -- Evidence of an alleged miraculous cure in the Archdiocese of Boston attributed to the intercession of Cardinal John Henry Newman has been sent to the Congregation for Saints' Causes in Rome. The Roman postulator of the cause, Andrea Ambrosi, was assigned by the archdiocesan tribunal in Boston to be the official carrier of the package of documents, which contained two copies of the evidence. He flew from Boston to Rome and handed over the package Nov. 14 to congregation officials at the Vatican. The package, containing the sworn testimonies and the medical evidence of the healing of...

Minneapolis, Nov. 09, 2006 (CNA) - Timothy Vakoc has lay nearly comatose in a Minnesota hospital. Last week, however, he shocked family, friends and caregivers by uttering his first words since being severely injured by an explosion in Iraq. 46 year-old Fr. Vakoc--a Minnesota native--first arrived in Iraq in 2003, following a stint as military chaplain in Bosnia and Germany. His duties in Iraq included holding prayer services and escorting the bodies of fallen soldiers to planes bound for the U.S. Shortly after celebrating Mass on May 24th, 2004--the 12th anniversary of his ordination as a priest--he was struck by...

(ANSA) - Naples, November 2 - A young Italian man cured of lung cancer has attributed his recovery to the miraculous intervention of John Paul II in a case which could speed the late pope along the road to sainthood . According to Neapolitan daily Il Mattino on Thursday, the man from Salerno south of Naples was taken into hospital last year where he was diagnosed with lung cancer. After his wife prayed to John Paul II, the dead pope reportedly appeared in a dream to her and reassured her that her husband would be alright . A few days...

Rove foresees GOP victory White House political strategist Karl Rove yesterday confidently predicted that the Republican Party would hold the House and the Senate in next month's elections, dismissing fallout from the sex scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley. At a luncheon with editors and reporters at The Washington Times, Mr. Rove -- who is widely credited as the architect of the party's historic 2002 midterm election gains -- said Republicans are beginning to make significant headway in defining their party's differences from congressional Democrats, especially on national security. "I'm confident we're going to keep the Senate; I'm confident we're...

Biologists at the University of Manchester want help in cracking their "miracle" discovery of three fish inside a sealed egg. The group found the duck egg in a small pond on a field trip to the French Alps and noticed something moving inside it. When they cracked open the shell, three live minnows were inside. They have enlisted the help of other experts, but despite their extensive combined knowledge, the biologists admit they are "baffled". Dr Matthew Cobb, a lecturer in animal behaviour at the university, said: "As 21st century scientists rather than 17th century antiquarians we think it's unlikely...

LAFAYETTE, La. -- Two little girls, who apparently couldn't sleep, got out of the bed they shared less than a half-hour before a tractor-trailer plowed through their bedroom. Cori Morgan, 7, and her sister, Shadia, 3, had left their bedroom for the living room just before the 4:30 a.m. crash, said Cerrisa Moore, whose mother owns the house. The girls' parents, Cody Batiste and Sally Morgan, both are deaf. "When it happened, I just thought it was the rain," Batiste said through sign language interpreter Phyllis St. Cyr. "There was a big noise, and I was puzzled," Batiste said. "Cori...

Faces And Names I had an interesting day today — maybe the most interesting day of my life. World's Greatest Wife (WGW) and I went to Dr. DNA today on orders from the OB/GYN (henceforth known as "Dr. Uterus"). Mission: genetic counseling, that transparent exercise in medical ass-covery that allows physicians to shrug, hold up their hands in a gesture of innocence, and say "don't blame me" in a court of equity if the kid turns out to have crab claws or something. Seriously, though, the cute "genetic counselor" lady told us about amnio (no thanks), asked us about our...