How Saints Are Recognized

The Apostle of California provides a good example of the arduous process — Junipero Serra needs just one more miracle. The article begins with a list of "claims of miracles that didn't make the grade:"

A man falls off his horse and, thanks to Junipero Serra, he gets up unscathed. A woman visits Serra's tomb in Carmel and something stirs her deeply, changing the course of her life. An alcoholic gives up drinking and credits Serra for seeing him through.

They all believed their experiences to be miraculous -- but none was deemed the miracle needed to lift Serra into sainthood, a goal church officials announced 75 years ago today, the 225th anniversary of his death.

Serra, the revered and reviled Franciscan priest who founded California's missions, has one officially recognized miracle to his name. A nun in St. Louis was healed of lupus after praying to him, leading to Serra's beatification in 1987.

But sainthood requires a second miracle, defined by the church as an event that cannot be explained by science but can be attributed to the candidate's intercession from beyond the grave.

Two years ago, Serra advocates thought they had found one. A Denver woman who had prayed to Serra delivered a healthy baby, despite a dire prognosis. The case went to Rome, but physicians for the Vatican concluded it was not a miracle.

Now there's another possibility. Sheila E. Lichacz, a Panamanian artist, has survived 14 brain surgeries for tumors called meningiomas, after being told time and again that she was dying. One-third of her skull was removed in surgery and replaced with acrylic plates. But they too were removed after causing life-threatening infections.

"Whether her story will reach the Vatican is an open question," the article informs us. "The process of discerning miracles is grindingly meticulous and has become even more demanding as science explains once-mysterious phenomena."