A sudden and lasting healing can emerge particularly clearly through the available medical records. Physicians' reports, laboratory values, and imaging establish the preceding illness. Examination after recovery shows which functions have been restored. This connection between findings before and after is the basis of medical assessment.
Medical assessors evaluate the severity of the illness, its treatment, and whether the healing can be explained. The ecclesiastical examination connects this judgment with the context of prayer, intercession, and faith. The process thus leads from the established bodily event to recognition of the miracle.
A Traceable Medical History
The dossier must make the condition before and after the healing comparable. This includes the established diagnosis, dated examinations, the course of illness, treatment, and the present condition. The ecclesiastical proceedings also hear treating physicians and direct witnesses. If the healed person is alive, two medical experts must examine that person's current state of health separately.[1]
For presenting an individual case, this means distinguishing an account of pain from an examination finding. The information must make clear which condition had been established and was subsequently checked. A convincing personal account does not replace missing medical records.[1][3]
The Classical Criteria
The criteria systematized by Prospero Lambertini, later Pope Benedict XIV, examine a serious illness that is not easily curable and whose natural course did not already lead one to expect improvement. Treatment administered must not explain the claimed extraordinary healing. Restoration should be sudden, complete, and lasting; a normal turning point in the illness must not be presented as a miracle.[4]
This does not mean that a person who received treatment is excluded in principle. The classical criterion already takes administered medication into account: the decisive question is whether it could have brought about the healing. Nor is it enough that a recovery was rare, welcome, or better than expected. The medical explanation must be assessed against the specific course of illness.[4]
Sudden, Complete, and Lasting
These words require medical precision. In the Roman assessment, the reference can be to an instantaneous healing or one that is extraordinarily rapid for the illness concerned. This so-called relative suddenness must be justified; ordinary recovery in somewhat less time is insufficient. Completeness means more than partial improvement. A surgical scar, however, does not automatically exclude complete functional restoration. Permanence requires investigation of possible relapses; a temporary remission, meaning a lessening of disease, is not yet a definitive cure. The required observation depends on the illness.[5]
Assessment of therapy also includes the timing: what effect was expected of it, and can it explain the actual course? Only when diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and the nature of the healing are examined together does a statement of medical inexplicability acquire its specific meaning.[5]
The Lourdes Procedure
A person reporting a healing is first registered by the Bureau des Constatations Médicales, the Medical Bureau. The physician collects records and checks whether the case warrants a more detailed investigation. A reported healing, a confirmed healing, and an extraordinary healing are different procedural stages.[3]
The Comité Médical International de Lourdes, or CMIL, examines suitable cases with specialist medical support. It compares findings before and after the healing and assesses the event in light of scientific knowledge. A positive medical finding is forwarded through the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes to the bishop of the healed person's place of residence. Only the ecclesiastical judgment recognizes the healing as a miracle. The account of the procedure names the Lambertini criteria of sudden, complete, and lasting healing.[3]
Bernadette Moriau's case illustrates the separation in time: the reported healing occurred on 11 July 2008. Following examinations and several consultations, medical conclusions were reached in 2016; the Bishop of Beauvais declared its miraculous character on 11 February 2018. The date of the healing is thus neither the date of the final assessment nor the date of recognition.[6]
Nonbelieving Physicians Also Participate
Clinical discussions in Lourdes are open to physicians regardless of their religious convictions. In 2018, the then head, Alessandro de Franciscis, explicitly named agnostics and atheists among the participants. The account of the Roman procedure also emphasizes statements by nonbelieving or non-Catholic treating physicians. Their judgment is valued according to medical expertise and the findings.[9][10][5]
The assessment therefore does not presuppose assent to the Catholic faith. Physicians can confirm the scientific inexplicability of a healing while differing in their religious interpretation. The Promotor fidei is a separate officeholder; “Advocatus diaboli” is not a general title for the physicians involved.[7][4]
Healings in Beatification and Canonization Proceedings
Here the investigation asks whether a healing can be attributed to the intercession of a particular Servant of God or blessed person. Examination of the alleged miracle is conducted separately from the investigation of that person's life and virtues. The diocesan inquiry secures witness statements and documents; the records are then examined in Rome.[8][2]
The Consulta Medica is the medical expert board of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. Under its published regulations, two specialists initially prepare independent assessments. Seven members are designated for the joint deliberation; at least six must participate. A case may proceed with at least five positive votes out of seven, or four out of six. The specialists assess diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, and the course of healing. Direct contact between the appointed physicians and the petitioner or postulator of the cause under examination is prohibited.[7]
The subsequent theological examination concerns, among other things, the connection with prayer: the request for the particular intercession must have preceded the healing and been unambiguous or at least predominant. The Roman procedural sequence must therefore not be equated with the independent Lourdes procedure.[5][2][3]
The Church's Judgment in the Dossier
A sound healing dossier names the illness, accessible prior findings, treatment, time of healing, follow-up examinations, and the ecclesiastical judgment actually issued. If only a report or a medical assessment is documented, that precise status must be given. This presentation makes the basis of the assessment visible without replacing missing records with stronger wording.[1][2][3]
Sources and procedural documents
- [1] Sanctorum Mater. Instruction for conducting diocesan or eparchial Inquiries in the Causes of Saints
Official instruction; medical records, treating physicians, and separate examinations by two experts.
Open source · vatican.va ↗ - [2] Divinus Perfectionis Magister
Apostolic constitution; separate medical and theological deliberations, followed by the Pope's decision.
Open source · vatican.va ↗ - [3] Recognition of a miracle
Official account of the Lourdes procedure; accessed on 15 October 2026.
Open source · lourdes-france.org ↗ - [4] Critères canoniques d’une guérison miraculeuse
Presentation of the classical criteria with Latin text and French explanation; accessed on 15 October 2026.
Open source · amilourdes.com ↗ - [5] Il miracolo: accertamento degli elementi scientifici e teologici – Inchiesta diocesana
Officially published specialist contribution; relative suddenness, completeness, permanence, and connection with intercession. Accessed on 15 October 2026.
Open source · causesanti.va ↗ - [6] 70. Sr Bernadette Moriau
Case presentation with dates of healing, medical deliberation, and episcopal recognition.
Open source · amilourdes.com ↗ - [7] Regulations of the Medical Board
Approval date of the regulations; independent preliminary review, composition, subjects of deliberation, and voting.
Open source · causesanti.va ↗ - [8] Norms to be observed in Inquiries made by Bishops in the Causes of Saints
Official norms; competent bishop and separate investigation of alleged miracles.
Open source · vatican.va ↗ - [9] Le Bureau des Constatations médicales
The clinical discussion is open to physicians present regardless of faith. The CMIL assesses medical inexplicability.
Open source · lourdes-france.org ↗ - [10] Il medico che analizza i miracoli di Lourdes: Da me le persone vengono per dirmi che sono guarite
The head of the Bureau attests to the participation of agnostics and atheists. He explains the CMIL's secret ballot and two-thirds majority.
Open source · famigliacristiana.it ↗