The last major hurdle barring Dun Ġorġ Preca from being proclaimed a saint may be removed on Tuesday when the Vatican shall attribute a second miracle to his intercession. On Tuesday the Congregation for the Causes of Saints is expected to report the healing of a Maltese child in 2001, due to the intercession of Dun Ġorġ.
However, the final decision lies in the hands of Pope Benedict XVI once the cause is reviewed by the Ordinary Congregation of Cardinals. Dun Ġorġ was declared Blessed during a visit by Pope John Paul II on Wednesday 9th May 2001.
According to The Times of Malta doctors appointed by the Congregation confirmed that the boy's recovery cannot be explained in medical terms.
Eighty-eight Maltese witnesses were examined in an diocesan process presided over by Archbishop Joseph Mercieca, before the case was handed over to the Vatican in 2004. The claim was first probed into in 2002, on request of Mgr Charles Scicluna, the postulator in the cause of Blessed Dun Ġorg.
The case concerns a young boy who developed severe liver complications 20 days after his birth on the 15th June 2001.
After being taken to King's College Hospital in London, England, doctors believed that the only hope for the child’s survival would be a liver transplant. Although the boy did find a donor, once the operation was set it resulted that the liver available was not a suitable match. It is at that point that fervent prayers were made to Blessed Ġorġ. A glove used in his exhumation was placed on the child. Two days later on the 20th July 2001 the boy's condition unexplainably changed and his liver started functioning normally. By the 24th of July doctors decided the boy no longer needed a transplant. The child has since fully recovered.
The cause for Dun Gorg's beatification was initiated in 1975. He was declared venerable in June 2000 and Blessed in May 2001. In another unexplainable miracle, Charles Zammit Endrich's detached retina healed after he placed a relic of Dun Ġorġ under his pillow. The case took place over 40 years ago on the 3rd February 1964.
See also MaltaMedia's special feature on Pope John Paul II's visit to Malta.
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