Vatican finds evidence of miracle in Kansas case

[proud2BlibKansan]

BY ROY WENZL
The Wichita Eagle

Vatican found enough evidence of a miracle in the survival of Chase Kear of Colwich that it intends to keep studying his survival, with an eye toward declaring it an official miracle, church officials say.

Declaring it a miracle would help determine whether Father Emil Kapaun of Pilsen will be canonized as a saint of the Catholic Church.

Andrea Ambrosi, a lawyer and investigator for the Vatican, visited family members and doctors for two Wichita-area families on Friday who believe the survival of their children during nearly lethal medical crises recently should qualify as miracles.

One of them involved Chase Kear, a 20-year-old Colwich athlete severely injured in October.

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Kear survived a catastrophic head injury in October 2008 during pole vaulting practice at Hutchinson Community College. His family said they believe his life was saved by his neurosurgeon and other doctors, but also by thousands of prayers to Kapaun.

Grundmeyer, who operated to save Kear's life, said in a brief interview with The Eagle earlier this month that he considers Kear's survival a miracle.

If the miracle is proven, it will significantly advance the chances that the church will declare Kapaun a saint, decades after he died a hero in a North Korean prison camp in 1951. The church requires miracles to elevate a person to sainthood.

more . . . http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/1297312.html

[scheming daemons]

1. Neurosurgeon and other docters 99.999999% responsible... Prayers .000001%

...and I may be overstating the contribution of the prayers.


The miracle here is the miracle of modern science.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. I would agree

But even the doctor says it is a miracle. :shrug:

[Warpy]

12. Neurology is where you see the miracles

and somebody who's basically dead meat on a ventilator can be walking and talking well enough to resume his life six months later.

While my gut feeling of who was still home and who wasn't was astonishingly accurate, that's as far as my predictive skills for who might get their lives back and who would be persistently veg went.

It's amazing how few miracles there are since the invention of photography. Still, they do happen now and then in medicine. The problem is that there is no way to control when and how and to whom they will happen, and we still need meticulous medical care to set up the conditions to allow them to happen.

Prayer, by itself, is useless. Some studies show it is damaging to people who know they're being prayed over.

I'll take medicine, thanks. That's where the real miracles occur.

[Joe Chi Minh]

29. So, the miracles that you say "do happen now and then in medicine",

are pretty counterfeit, compared to the contribution of medicine on its own?

The Catholic Church has always taught that recourse should always be made to regular medicine first, and, for sure, many more cures are effected by it than by miraculous intercessions. But you clearly dismiss the obviously enormous probability that many prayers would often have been said by most of the parties involved, medical staff and patients, before and after such interventions. Not to speak of the scientific innovators and researchers indirectly responsible and their prayers.

And who are you to say they were of negligible importance or worthless? You have no more authority to say that than vice versa. In fact, less, since you would only claim to have knowledge of the measurable, or you would not be so dismissive of prayer.

[redqueen]

35. "Some studies show it is damaging to people who know they're being prayed over."

Really?

Fascinating...

[Joe Chi Minh]

30. 100% predictable. Except that it's so presumptuous it always takes one by surprise!

[lindisfarne]

31. If the person being prayed for knows about the prayer, it can have an effect.Telling an atheist you

are there for them and care about them can have the same effect.
Prayer (or knowing others are praying) can help reduce a person's stress, give someone a sense of control - both of which are known to help one deal with difficult situations. There may be a placebo effect, too, in people who believe prayer can help (just giving a person a sugar pill and telling them it can help will have the same effect).

Divine intervention has nothing to do with it though!

[Oregone]

2. A miracle would of been God helping the kid not get hurt in the first place

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. LOL Good point!

[gmoney]

5. +1

[Boojatta]

44. Even if God could somehow repair Mark Sanford's reputation...

Mark Sanford has already suffered from embarrassment. The real miracle would have been informing Mark Sanford, before he became governor, that adultery is immoral. Then the whole mess could have been avoided.

Why didn't God influence the world to ensure that Mark Sanford would have an opportunity to become familiar with the ten commandments? Why didn't anybody tell Mark Sanford that the number seven is a positive integer that isn't larger than ten?

[rrneck]

6. The miracle of credulity.

Followed by the miracle of effective marketing and the miracle of compound interest.

[kestrel91316]

7. I don't get why praying TO a human (and a dead one at that) isn't

considered heresy or idolatry or whatever. Doesn't the Catholic Church frown on what the Shintos do, which is pray to their dead human ancestors (rather than God)?

The kid recovered because of excellent medical care provided by humans AND the inherent healing ability of living tissue. That's miracle enough, to me. What does a dead European have to do with it?

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. It's the 'saint' thing

And no, Catholics don't frown on that at all.

[fishwax]

17. because it's seen as a prayer for intercession

not a prayer to the dead human as a kind of god, but rather a prayer to the dead human that he might take those concerns before the "one true god."

On edit: also, for the record, Kapaun isn't a dead European; he was from Kansas.

[kestrel91316]

19. Oops. It said he was from "Pilsner" in the snip and I mistakenly inferred

that was in Europe, lol.

So they prayed to a dead Kansan. Ok.

I was raised Presbyterian. I just find the whole thing odd, lol.

[wolfgangmo]

25. I'd pray to "Pilsner"

I like my prayers answered in a long neck bottle. My favorite would be Carlsberg.

[fishwax]

28. There is a patron saint of beer

Actually, a patron saint of brewing (and hop picking): Arnold of Soissons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_of_soissons

:D

[fishwax]

26. i can understand finding it odd

"I was raised Presbyterian. I just find the whole thing odd, lol."

I can see that--I was raised Catholic, but most of my friends weren't (and some were actually rather anti-catholic), so I got pretty used to explaining such oddities as intercession:)

-------------------

"So they prayed to a dead Kansan. Ok."

That sums it up, and also struck me as really funny :rofl:

[YOY]

18. Basically it's like asking one of the experts to put it in God's ear.

It does not put a saint on the same level as God (or anywhere near). The hierarchy of heaven is all part of Catholicism and the saints are closer to God than regular John and Jane deceased souls.

Not that I believe in it anymore...but it's not quite idolatry. It's just kind of silly.

[kestrel91316]

20. It seems silly to me, too. God is too busy to listen to the prayers of

the Little People? He only listens to his dons?

[YOY]

27. I wouldn't say "Dons"...but yes it is a little silly.

"Dons" would invoke some criminality to it.

[kestrel91316]

33. Well, a lot of what God is supposedly involved in looks pretty criminal

to me.........

priests and pedophilia
the church and the nazis
the inquisition

I could go on.......

[YOY]

36. THere is bad...much bad...and there is good.

n/t

[NV Whino]

21. It's kinda like lobbyists in Washington.

[theoldman]

8. If a doctor is modest he or she will not take all of the credit.

Most doctors I know talk about miracles when they have no explanation for a persons survival. I know they sure as hell don't talk about miracles when the patient dies.

[havocmom]

9. Vatican feeding the OR bears?

Lots of MEDICAL miracles happen pretty often and all over the globe. Interesting the Vatican focuses on Kansas at this point in time.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Probably just a coincidence

But then again, we don't really know for sure, do we?

[havocmom]

14. The older I get, the more observations made, the less I believe

in coincidence ;)

[get the red out]

10. They can pray to a cheeseburger

I don't care if they pray to a cheeseburger, I just want them to leave our secular laws alone and stay out of reproductive rights. After that it's none of my business. Until they decide to leave people alone and not try to make the laws in our country I hope they get ridiculed for every move they make.

[Vickers]

15. He should be thankful he didn't have a limb amputated...

...the track record for miracles in that area is pretty bad.

:eyes:

[wpelb]

16. I'm reminded of a Benny Hill joke

Declaring it a miracle would help determine whether Father Emil Kapaun of Pilsen will be canonized as a saint of the Catholic Church.

Would you like it if your "Father" (priest) was a canon?

Here's the joke: Benny is in a skit where he learns that his father has been made a canon:

"Daddy's a canon?

"I'll be a son of a gun!"

[defendandprotect]

22. The miracle is that a church based on male supremacy still exists . . . !!!

[MGKrebs]

23. So why does one choose to pray to a deceased priest rather than

to the Big Man Himself? Isn't that a little bit of a protocol faux pas? Or is the thinking that G-D is so busy that sometimes you get better attention by alerting an angel with local connections? Do angels have territories?

I don't know how this stuff works.

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. You pray to all of them

Saints specialize in certan things. There's a saint you pray to when you have lost something and another when you're sick, etc.

[mtnester]

24. Wonder how quick they sent someone to that single toddler who survived the plane crash

this morning into the ocean?

Dumb luck or miracle or whatever you believe, that child belongs to all categories

[rd_kent]

34. It can only be a miracle if there had been no doctors or surgery

even then, it would most likely be "chance". Evidence of the "hand of god" will never be found because a god doesnt exist.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

37. I'm wondering if Miracles happen

only to Catholics...

I guess if they happened to non Catholics the Miracle would go unrecognized.

[Christa]

38. Remove the doctors and what do you have?

A disaster.

[piratefish08]

39. and if he had died it would have been "gawd's will"

you can never win this argument...................

[laconicsax]

43. No, it just wouldn't have been "part of God's plan" for him to live.

[LAGC]

40. How do you "prove" a miracle anyway?

Does God tell them that it is?

I wonder how those investigators for the Church live with themselves, knowing they and they alone determine what is and is not a miracle in so many people's eyes...

[laconicsax]

42. Easy.

Apply the following test:

An unexpected fortuitous outcome happens:
1)Did someone directly affected pray for this outcome?

-If yes, God was responsible, its a miracle.
-If no, proceed to question 2

2)Did anyone anywhere pray for this outcome?

-If yes, God was responsible, its a miracle.
-If no, proceed to question 3

3)Was the outcome very unlikely?

-If yes, God was responsible, its a miracle.
-If no, proceed to question 4

4)Was the outcome a likely result?

-If yes, God was responsible, its a miracle.

[laconicsax]

41. The two ways of looking at this.

(taken from http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/a_miracle.php)

Chase Kear has a serious accident, fracturing his skull.
                ↓                                        ↓
Bystanders call for emergency          Bystanders pray.
medical help on their phones.
                ↓                                        ↓
Doctors arrive in a helicopter.          Family prays.
                ↓                                        ↓
Doctors administer emergency          Family prays.
care.
                ↓                                        ↓
Helicopter arrives at hospital;          Family asks for the last rites
doctors take him into surgery.         to be administered to Kear.
                ↓                                        ↓
Surgeons remove portion of his         Family prays.
skull to protect his brain from
swelling.
                ↓                                        ↓
Kear is treated with antibiotics          Family prays.
to prevent infections.
                ↓                                        ↓
Swelling reduces, doctors restore      Family prays.
Kear's skull.
                ↓                                        ↓
Kear survives, is rehabilited, and seems to be making a full recovery.

Calling it a miracle cheapens the work of the surgeons and doctors on the case. It says that everything else that done to get Kear to a hospital and everything done by the medical staff was unnecessary--that Kear would have survived and made a full recovery if he had just been left lying on the field with a fractured skull. This was not a miracle.