(October 27, 2017 at 11:11 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote:(October 27, 2017 at 11:04 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I guess it's impossible to determine that. Maybe 100 years from now we will discover that a certain type of scent immediately makes brain tumors go away if we inhale it or something lol. And that's why the guy in my example was spontaneously cured. I haven't looked into nor am I familiar with many Church approved miracles, but if I had to guess I'd say some of them were probably caused by completely natural causes. I definitely do believe in the Fatima sun miracle. I see what you mean about proclaiming something a miracle "prematurely", and considering we will never understand everything about the world, every miracle made official will be premature in that sense. I suppose for lack of a better way to put it, it's "harmless" to believe that something was a miracle. With the exception of the miracles of Jesus, the immaculate conception, and others in the Gospel, official miracles are still not dogmatic. This means that they are not infallible teaching that all faithful Catholics must adhere to. Actually it's perfectly fine for a Catholic not to believe in the Fatima miracle or any other miracle of the like. Probably for the very reason you listed.
I'm not too familiar with the abdominal tumor miracle, but I'll look into it and let you know what I think. The "rule" for officiating a miracle like that is that there cannot be possibility of the cure being caused by medical treatment. So it strikes me as strange that they'd officiate it.
Bolded mine - that's pretty much what I was getting at, yeah. If one can't definitively prove that there is no other explanation, then one is not justified in citing god as a cause, and unjustified in calling it a miracle.
I don't really agree that its completely harmless though, since any misinformation or support for a flawed way of thinking or making decisions is undesirable in and of itself, in my opinion, and could be the basis for flawed thinking in making other decisions as well. But that's a discussion for another time.
Just on the tumor miracle - the doctors said her recovery was nothing abnormal and followed the expected response to treatment that they'd done before - not a single one of the medical staff responded to the Vatican's call for someone to support it as a miracle. That's just the most blatant one that comes to my mind, I'm sure other people are more informed on other miracles.
I googled around for the tumor miracle. Looks like there's a lot of conflicting reports.
The story goes that she was being seen by doctors for a mass/tumor in her abdomen caused by some kind of infection secondary to tuberculosis. Apparently her belly was distended because of it. This much seems to be confirmed.
She said she was still not getting well despite medical treatments (which consisted of antibiotics she took for almost a year), and on the anniversary day of Mother Theresa's death, still feeling extremely sick, she was helped to a church where they prayed for Mother's intercession and rubbed a medal over her distended belly. She fell asleep and when she woke up her belly was flat and the pain was completely gone, never to return again.
Apparently three doctors did decline to testify for a miracle (as you said), but there were supposedly other doctors who treated her who did back up her claims. She was set up for surgery to remove the tumor but was too sick to be put under general anesthesia so she never went through with it.
Her husband initially called it a hoax but later said he believes it was a miracle, which I found odd.
Anyway, I'm not sure what to think of this one. On one hand she was receiving antibiotics for a long time, on the other hand it seems odd that she'd be cured so suddenly overnight, precisely because she as getting treated for so long and apparently not getting better. And it is interesting that she'd be cured on the exact anniversary day of the saint she prayed to, but that could just be a crazy coincidence. I'd have to get an explanation from the church investigators as to why they don't think this overnight cure was medically possible. As of now I'm not entirely convinced.
I looked through several articles about this, but these were the two that stuck out to me most:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asi...0bc2086e86
and video: http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-in...-my-tumour
What do you think? Do you think she could be lying or exaggerating a bit?
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
-walsh
-walsh
