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BALTIMORE – Catholic church officials in Baltimore are poised to begin the process of investigating a miracle attributed to Francis Xavier Seelos, a 19th century Redemptorist priest who lived, worked and died in New Orleans, the city which has helped give rise to the cause for his canonization.
A committee appointed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore will soon look into the story of Mary Ellen Heibel, an Annapolis, Maryland woman who was cured of terminal cancer in 2005, after praying to Seelos. The findings will be sent to the Vatican, as part of the campaign to have Seelos declared a saint.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II declared Seelos blessed, one step from sainthood. Part of that investigation involved a Gretna housewife, Angela Boudreaux, who said that her advanced cancer disappeared after she prayed to Seelos in 1966. Mrs. Boudreaux and her husband traveled to the Vatican to attend the beatification service. She died in 2001.
A Bavarian priest, Seelos worked among German immigrants in New Orleans for a year before dying of yellow fever in 1867. The city is home to a Seelos shrine and museum, housed inside St. Mary’s Assumption church, where the priest once served. He also served as a pastor and religious superior in Baltimore and Annapolis, two cities where the most recent canonization effort is now centered.
The church requires one more miracle to complete the process for canonization. Believers hope that the Baltimore case would be that miracle.
According to the Baltimore Sun report, Heibel, 71, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2003 and underwent surgery. But a year later, doctors found cancer in a lymph node. Heibel began praying to Father Seelos, and asking parishioners at her church, friends and family to do the same.
Her prayers intensified a year later when doctors told her the cancer had returned, and spread to her lungs, liver, stomach and chest. Her doctor at Walter Reed Army Medical Center told her she might have only six months to live.
During her chemotherapy treatment, a doctor agreed to treat Heibel with a new combination of cancer drugs, thinking that the medication would double her life expectancy to 12 months. Hoping for intervention from Father Seelos, a friend asked a priest to schedule a novena to the priest, or series of prayers recited for nine consecutive days or weeks.
According to the Baltimore Sun report, the week after Heibel’s final chemotherapy treatment, a scan showed most of her cancer had disappeared.
Heibel, her doctors, nurses and friends will be among the 11 witnesses to appear before the church committee examining her case.
