In the past century, Lourdes has become better known as some sort of breeding ground for miracles, rather than as the site of the apparition of The Virgin Mary. These supposed miracles have been investigated by the International Medical Committee of Lourdes since its foundation in 1947. One Irish representative sits on the committee and, along with his colleagues, identifies the ordinary in seemingly extraordinary stories and investigates inexplicable medical cures based on indisputable scientific and biological fact. The Irishman in question is Northern Irish hospital registrar Dr. Michael Moran.
For the majority of Irish people educated by the state’s largely Catholic-run institutions, the mention of Lourdes conjures up distant memories of religion classes, dedicated to classmates’ retelling of relatives’ anecdotes of their experience in the Pyrénées region of France. Factual elements of the story of St Bernadette and the apparitions of 1858 are often lost amid rapturous enthusiasm for semi-personal testimony. This results in many of our young citizens not being entirely sure as to why, historically-speaking, millions of Irish people ever boarded planes to the small French town in the first place.
Moran, a Belfast-born man, strolls into the Yellow Door Café located off the main street of Portadown, Armagh. Having just completed his morning rounds at the nearby hospital, he orders himself a bite to eat before settling down to what he deems one of his most important tasks: giving back to the place that has given him so much.
Moran is not what I expected. In the seat opposite me sits not a pious, elderly surgeon who wears his Catholicism on his sleeve, but rather an exuberant young professional with a thick northern accent and the ability to enthrall the listener with captivating stories of unique experiences.
Moran’s association with Lourdes began in an unlikely fashion. Aged sixteen, with little else of interest to him going on at home, he boarded a bus filled with volunteers and headed off to Lourdes. There was no quasi-religious calling of Moran, who says that at the time he was “a pretty average Catholic”. For Moran, who had begun considering a medical career two years previously during a family illness, Lourdes taught him a lot about being a doctor long before he walked through the gates of Queen’s University Belfast some years later. “The thing that Lourdes gives you is a nice introduction to the importance of interpersonal-relationships and the importance of the accompaniment of the people who are sick, as well as the fixing of them in the medical sense.” Interpersonal-relationships feature again and again in Moran’s story, to this day he counts fellow passengers aboard that bus to France as friends.
“The thing that Lourdes gives you is a nice introduction to the importance of interpersonal-relationships and the importance of the accompaniment of the people who are sick, as well as the fixing of them in the medical sense.”
As a Catholic born in Belfast making an annual trip to Lourdes Moran could have been perceived as striving to express a Catholic identity amidst a community divided by a sectarian history, a division that was still very much ongoing at the time of his first trip. Moran rejects the idea that religious trips such as Lourdes in any way promote a sense of a distinctly Catholic identity. Rather, he believes that Northern Irish Protestant and Catholic identity is formulated from the organisation of the education system rather than this sort of extracurricular activity: “I think people already have their catholic identity by virtue of the fact that schools are segregated, in most cases, by religion.”
After receiving his degree, he returned to volunteer in Lourdes, taking with him his new set of medical skills. Working as a medical professional in Lourdes was a new experience for him, with welcome differences from the hospital setting. He explains that on those sacred grounds “where you’re automatically identifying as a catholic doctor, the people are more open to the spiritual aspect to medicine. Although there are chaplains who deal with the spirituality and liturgies in Lourdes, I think, as doctors, the patients sort of appreciate that we also understand them in terms of their spiritual needs.” In Lourdes he is able to “appreciate openly the importance of people’s psyche and spirituality and the things that you can’t measure necessarily or treat with a drug.”
“where you’re automatically identifying as a catholic doctor, the people are more open to the spiritual aspect to medicine. Although there are chaplains who deal with the spirituality and liturgies in Lourdes, I think, as doctors, the patients sort of appreciate that we also understand them in terms of their spiritual needs.”
The story of St Bernadette and the apparitions in Lourdes revolves around the appearance of The Virgin Mary to the young French girl, who shares with her advanced religious dogma, which she later conveys to church authorities. The connection between these documented historical events and the healing properties now associated with the site was instantaneous Moran explains: “From the very start, with the first one on the 1st of March 1858, it was noted that people who were in attendance experienced miraculous cures. So, from the very outset, it’s been a place associated with healing”. Bernadette, an uneducated country girl, was able to convey the complicated messages on Catholicism that, to this day, are well documented. Moran certainly believes in the story of Bernadette, citing the sheer volume of evidence as a convincing factor. He adds that, following the apparitions, people couldn’t stay away despite the area being closed off by authorities. He explains this captivating force, saying: “People who have gone to Lourdes will tell you that there’s something about it that brings you back”.
The modern-day manner of investigations, carried out by Moran and his colleagues, were not a feature of the early events at Lourdes. The church itself was, at first, unsure of how to proceed. “The apparitions only happened between February and July and in one year, so it was only a few months, but the whole thing ricocheted between absolute denial that this is happening, ignore the girl, to a total turnaround from the church’s’ point of view, to them embracing it fully. So historically it’s always had that link to healing and, at that stage, it would have been very chaotic and not very well documented”. However, further inexplicable recoveries occurring during pilgrim trips to Lourdes over the following years required a permanent medical body to be set up.
In order for an event to even loosely fit the required criteria to be deemed a “miracle” there is a very rigorous testing process. This initial investigation prevents clearly fictitious cures from making their way onto the committee’s desk. Moran tells me how, before it even reaches them, the claimant has already taken part in a long and winding process: “There’s a medical bureau which is staffed year-round. You should present yourself to the medical bureau if you’re in Lourdes. As a doctor it’s your duty to sign into the medical bureau and let them know you’re in the town”. While doctors who sign in are not routinely summoned, there is a process in place: “Essentially, if someone was to come, then they would try to assemble all of the doctors that were in the area at that time to come and examine the patient, so that there’s an initial panel who are not the International Medical Committee”. The assembled medics try to reach a “consensus opinion on whether this is anything worth talking about or something that doesn’t need to be investigated any further”. The medics when decide “whether or not a file is opened or not”. Moran explains that “if a file is opened, then the permanent staff of Lourdes will do certain interrogations and investigations, ask for documents from the home country and maybe the person looking after them”. Therefore, he stresses that “really all of that has to happen and go to a far stage, before it even reaches the International Medical Committee.”
His appointment to the International Medical Committee of Lourdes in November 2012 has attracted widespread media and public attention. The committee is composed of medical professionals from various locations around the world who meet annually, or at times bi-annually, to discuss recent proposed miracles that took place in Lourdes. The committee was set up following an increase in international visitors to Lourdes which led to a rise in the number of foreign pilgrims claiming to have been miraculously cured. The representatives on the committee are from as vast a geographical area as possible in order to facilitate the rigorous follow up of pilgrims necessary to ensure that the disease does not return after the patient leaves Lourdes. Moran describes his own role and appointment as being “like a bum on a seat”, continuing that the committee “have to have a certain number to vote, we’re there for consensus opinion”. He explains that his appointment came following issues surrounding the Irish pilgrims: “A few years ago it was felt that Ireland was a massive pilgrimage country in regard to Lourdes, that was completely overlooked and not represented on the International Medical Committee when England, Scotland and Wales all have a person each. “
“The committee was set up following an increase in international visitors to Lourdes which led to a rise in the number of foreign pilgrims claiming to have been miraculously cured.”
The committee itself is not quite composed of miracle-making magistrates as they have been portrayed previously by certain media outlets. Rather they are, as Moran describes them, a group who play “devil’s advocates”. “What Lourdes has is a panel of devil’s advocates and the thing is, that lots of things happen in Lourdes year on year. If you stood [stayed] in a shopping centre in Dublin and said ‘if you’ve been to Lourdes and something happened come and talk to me’ people would drift over and tell you stories. That will never meet the criteria of the International Medical Committee of Lourdes, which is why the number of cures is so perishingly small, because we can only take the ones which are not just a nice story and not just partial healing.”
The International Medical Committee have a prerequisite role set down upon its foundation: “A common misconception is that it’s sort of like a Catholic zealous type panel, which it’s not”. He stresses that it isn’t a “pro-God committee” and adds that “by that token, you know what our job really is to do is to debunk and disprove people who claim to have been cured in Lourdes. As much as we’re not setting out to ruin people’s stories” he says, “we have to medically pare down all the information, so that you end up with something that is indisputable and so that if any other doctor in the world, from any other experienced background, would agree with the committee’s decision.”
“our job really is to do is to debunk and disprove people who claim to have been cured in Lourdes.”
Even following this exhaustive need for scientific evidence it’s perhaps surprising to learn that one doesn’t have to be Catholic to sit on the board, although Moran explains that “A lot of the people are chosen or co-opted on because they’re known to the Lourdes community and that sort of invariably involves a link through the Catholic Church”. Many committee members may have been raised Catholic but are not practicing, or may have turned away from the Church. Ultimately, what religion his fellow board members identify as is irrelevant to the Northern Irish doctor. Despite the strong Catholic contingent of the board, Moran is resolute in stating “We’re not there to smooth over stuff and pretend on behalf of the Church. We all have to stand over our own medical degrees and our duty to tell the truth at all times.”
Miracles are evidentially not easy to come by. Moran tells me that “in numbers, about one person per week, roughly, in pilgrimage season, about thirty people a year, turn up to the office stating that they’ve been cured.” In order for the committee to consider these cases, the conditions of the Lambertini criteria must first have been met. This is a set of several guidelines that regulate what is termed an “inexplicable cure” – the word the committee favours over the more commonly used “miracle”. According to this list, set up in the 1700s and thus preceding events at Lourdes, in order to be considered for evaluation several criteria must be met: the person must have been cured completely and instantly, have been receiving no current medical treatment for their illness and have undergone extensive medical procedures in the past. There must also be no remaining signs of illness and, finally, the illness must be serious.
“We’re not there to smooth over stuff and pretend on behalf of the Church. We all have to stand over our own medical degrees and our duty to tell the truth at all times.”
Even if the individual’s case does meet the criteria there is still a long way to go: “You then have to wait for about ten to fifteen years because you need to make sure that whatever illness it was doesn’t relapse. So, if it was cancer or paralysis or whatever, it’s a case of keeping in touch with the person and nominating certain members of the committee to monitor the case”. The most recent recognized cure, although it predates Moran’s own appointment, came in 2011. The committee came to the conclusion that there was no logical medical explanation for the recovery of Danila Castelli, who had long suffered severe high blood pressure complications and had undergone multiple medical procedures until her visit to Lourdes in the 1980s. Moran explains “She had a benign tumor but it was secreting adrenaline and making her blood pressure very high and that after a trip to the bath she felt well”.
He recounts stories where the protagonist was put off by the long and arduous process. Many wish to avoid the publicity that comes along with cures and, as Moran explains, “may not want anyone to know about it, if their life is changed for the better”. He adds that this cure “might be enough for them and they don’t feel they have a duty to publicize Lourdes or God”. One man that this appears to have been the case for was Liverpool native John Traynor. Traynor went to Lourdes in the 1920s, paralyzed and suffering multiple medical complications. Despite being one of the most popular tales of cure in Lourdes, it was never made official. Moran believes this was because, at that point, the medical committee was not international and because Taynor wanted to carry on enjoying the new lifestyle free of illness that he was experiencing. Moran speaks fondly about how the man is said to have gone back home, built his own home by hand and spent his life caring for his wife and children. Therefore, according to Moran, while it’s not official, there is little doubt that he was cured.
Moran stresses that the committee he sits on is concerned solely with “inexplicable cures” taking place in Lourdes and that, while the committee may validate a claim, it is totally separate from any Vatican investigation, which is an independent process. If Moran’s committee states that they consider a cure to be inexplicable “the paperwork goes back to the person and the person then deals with their own bishop in their diocese and it’s then up to the church [of that particular area] to declare or not declare”. Therefore, that bishop can say he approves of the report of Lourdes and that, yes, he believes a miracle has taken place.The Vatican is the place to go for a spiritual investigation and often seeks to search for evidence needed to canonize individuals. He states: “There are panels in the Vatican for different things”, adding that those cured in Lourdes “could also bring that to the Vatican as a separate thing, but it’s entirely independent.” He adds that “In the Vatican, what you’ll have is a person on it who is the devil’s advocate who must argue against whatever is happening”. This person could be a priest or an expert in canon law.
Moran’s own appointment has been a source of amusement for his colleagues in the medical profession. Indeed, the contrast between Moran’s belief in God and his loyalty to science is fascinating. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just doing a job he was asked to do – one that happened to result from a trip to Lourdes. He speaks of public perception of his role: “They first of all think it’s like this super Catholic thing, whereas it’s a massive privilege to be asked, because it’s linked to the Catholic Church and it’s a prestigious panel in its own right”. Moran insists that for both “Protestant and Catholic, it’s kind of fun”. Moran says that it “raises an eyebrow and we have a bit of a laugh about it”. While he has not encountered issues with his Protestant colleagues, the small amount of negative feeling directed towards him has stemmed from more scientific-minded hospital staff: “The one part of my life where the gel didn’t happen was in science, where you are working with scientists who do not believe in any God. [They] almost are very dismissive of it and don’t mention it. It’s nearly the silence that’s more conspicuous than the jokey comments.”
Regardless of whether or not he oversees the passage of further miracles, the sense is that this young doctor is simply happy to be able to give back to a place that he has loved so much, for so long. A man of faith and science, he states: “I’m happy in the fact that I’m Catholic. I’ve seen it in other people’s lives, I’ve seen it in my life where it gets me though a lot of difficult periods where we don’t necessarily know why something is happening. But when you can defer to a greater entity, then sometimes it means that you don’t have to be all-knowing. Generally things all work out the way they should, you just have to put your trust in God.”
