Deacon recounts miraculous Newman healing
By Simon Caldwell

13 November 2009

Spinal surgeons expressed 'utter amazement' at sudden recovery after prayer to cardinal

An American deacon has recounted how he was suddenly and inexplicably cured from a severe spinal condition after he prayed for healing to Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Jack Sullivan, 71, from Marshfield, Massachusetts, told a press conference at Archbishop's House, Westminster, that he was physically transformed after praying to Cardinal Newman, a theologian and convert to Catholicism who died in 1890.

He said that doctors told him he was on the "brink of complete paralysis" because his lumbar vertebrae were crushing his spinal cord. Even after surgery in Boston in August 2001 the protective lining around his spinal cord was badly torn, leaving him in "incredible pain".

He said surgeons told him it would take eight months to a year before he might be able to begin to walk again.

Mr Sullivan said he was upset by the prognosis because he had trained for three years to be a deacon for the Archdiocese of Boston and wanted to be ordained the following year. He said he prayed the words: "Please, Cardinal Newman, help me to walk, so that I can return to my classes and be ordained."

Mr Sullivan said: "Suddenly, I felt a tremendous sense of heat, very, very warm and a tingling feeling all over my entire body. It was very strong and lasted for a long time. I also felt a sense of joy and peace that I had never experienced before in my life and a sense of God's presence and I had no willpower of my own. I was just standing there and all these things were happening to me. I had no control and then I developed a sense of confidence and determination that finally I could walk, without even taking a single step.

"The next thing I was shouting to the nurse 'I have no more pain' whereas moments before I was in agony. I walked out of the room, to the utter amazement of everybody, up and down the corridors and the floor of my hospital. I was experiencing what I felt was paradise."

He added: "The pain had left me and I was left with a feeling of entire joy and confidence that something special was happening to me."

Not only was he able to walk unaided but he was so mobile that the nurses had to tell him to "slow down", he said.

"I was enjoying walking more than any person possibly could," Mr Sullivan said, adding: "I looked out of the window. I could see all the run-down tenements of Mission Hill in Boston and to me they were like castles made of gold. That's how I felt."

Doctors studying his case determined that Mr Sullivan had regained the lifting capability of a 30-year-old man. They were baffled by his recovery and after final tests in October admitted that they had no explanation for it.

At that point Mr Sullivan decided to write to Fr Paul Chavasse, the postulator of Cardinal Newman's Cause for beatification and the provost of the Birmingham Oratory.

On September 14 2002, the day of Mr Sullivan's ordination as deacon, he received notification that his case had been elected by the fathers of the Oratory as the possible miracle needed to beatify Cardinal Newman. "To my mind that was a sign that this process happened in a wondrous way," he said.

"The effects of my healing go on in my ministry which is a ministry of gratitude," he said. "How could it be otherwise? I have my life back." In July Pope Benedict XVI announced the beatification of Newman after the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood decided that the cure of Mr Sullivan was a result of the cardinal's intercession. The ceremony is likely to take place in Birmingham in September 2010 to coincide with a possible visit to Britain by a pontiff who has made a lifetime study of the life and works of the cardinal.

Mr Sullivan said there could not be a "better time" for the beatification "because the world is in such a state".

He said: "People today want to be decide for themselves what is right and wrong. They want to be self-sufficient, rather than attribute to God what is His. This kind of self-sufficiency can lead to great evil. So the beatification is a way of reminding people that God is God, our Creator, and that he wants to draw us to himself."

Mr Sullivan spoke to journalists at the start of a visit to England at the invitation of Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster. He and his wife Carol will also visit Birmingham and Oxford.