Pope Leo XIV has officially declared his first miracle as pontiff, crediting the 2007 recovery of a dying newborn in Rhode Island to divine intervention following a physician’s desperate prayer.
The Vatican announced last month that the ailing child, Tyquan Hall, who was born prematurely via emergency cesarean section and left with no detectable pulse, made a full recovery after a doctor invoked the name of a long-forgotten 19th-century Spanish priest.
The declaration elevates not just a miraculous story of life snatched from the jaws of death but also the potential sainthood of the humble cleric whose name was called in a moment of need.
‘We are thrilled that this recognition will move the cause of beatification and canonization forward for Venerable Servant of God Salvador Valera Parra,’ said Rev. Timothy Reilly of the Diocese of Providence, calling the papal pronouncement a blessing for Rhode Island and beyond.
The miracle marks the first to be authenticated under Pope Leo XIV, the newly elected American pontiff, and it may set in motion the canonization of Father Valera Parra, a priest who died in Spain in 1889 and had no known miracles to his name, until now.
I am filing this under ‘Buddhism’ as well as ‘religion’ because many Buddhists, including me, also believe in miracles and paranormal phenomena.
All words, concepts and religions have overlapping meanings and describe overlapping realities.
Buddhism, as I understand it, is very open to this side of human thought and existence.
Philosophically, the Buddhist term emptiness does not at all mean ‘nothingness’ or ‘you don’t exist’.
It means all sensory and mental data is transient, like lightning, like dew, and may be wondered over, admired, even sought, but is not nailable to any wall of definite meaning. ABN
American Buddhist Net 