After four years of suffering from Parkinson's disease, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre was cured during the night of June 2, 2005.
Five and half years and a thorough investigation later, Pope Benedict XVI has "signed off" on that remarkable and seemingly instantaneous recovery as the miracle required for Pope John Paul II's beatification.
After praying to John Paul II two months after the pope passed away, the nun said she awoke one morning, to the shock of her doctor, feeling reborn and capable of performing previously difficult tasks, such as walking and writing.
Surge Desk offers five facts about Simon-Pierre.
1. She never called her healing a miracle
"I was sick, and now I am cured," Simon-Pierre said at a March 30, 2007, press conference in Aix-en-Provence, France. "I am cured, but it is up to the church to say whether it was a miracle or not."
2. She almost didn't make it
A March 2010 article in the Guardian reported that John Paul II's sainthood had been "set back" by accounts that Simon-Pierre had again fallen ill. The Episcopal Conference of France disputed the relapse as rumor, however, stating that Simon-Pierre was fully recovered from Parkinson's.
3. Her case was heavily investigated
To qualify as a miracle, Simon-Pierre's recovery required an intense evaluation, including psychiatric and multiple neurological screenings.
"We conducted a serious and objective investigation which led us to the conclusion that what had happened was unexplainable," Aix-en-Provence Archbishop Claude Feidt said in March 2007. "We cannot understand why she is the way you can see her today."
4. There are always skeptics
According to the same Guardian report, a Polish daily newspaper, Rzeczpospolita, said at least one doctor assigned to evaluating Simon-Pierre's case proposed that she may have been afflicted with another nervous disease -- not Parkinson's -- that can enter sudden remission.
5. After recovering, she went back to work
Simon-Pierre continued her work as a nurse at a maternity hospital run by her order, the Little Sisters of Catholic Motherhood.
More Surge Desk coverage:
Pope John Paul II's Beatification and the Road to Becoming a Saint
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Sister Marie Simon-Pierre: 5 Facts About Pope John Paul II's 'Miracle' Nun
Jan 14, 2011 – 10:17 AM
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