Let me make it clear that exceptional cures at the scene of visions are not denied. But let me also make it clear that as members of the Holy Family are not the cause of the visions, neither can they be the cause of the miraculous cures which indeed happen by virtue of visions.
Nevertheless miracles are performed in the name of holy figures. The periodical Children of Fatima
[l2] prints regular reports of cures, confirms the addition of votive tablets or quotes from letters by people who certify that they have received help from or been cured by praying to and invoking the Christian hierarchy. And the bulletins in this periodical do not only contain the names of Mary, Jesus, archangels and saints! Frequently letters of thanks are addressed to the dead visionary children, who promptly grant requests of all kinds, although they have not been beatified or canonized by the Church, in other words, are active without religious approval.
The Church not only decides which visions are 'genuine', it also defines what a 'miracle' is. In 1870 the definition of what should count as a miracle was laid down by the Vatican. A miracle is 'in contradiction to the laws of nature'. Full stop. But this definition is over 100 years old, it has acquired a patina, like many church towers. Man is getting to know more and more about nature's tricks, he is even learning to manipulate the laws of nature at will. So I have a well-founded hope that in 100 years'
time there will be nothing left we can call a miracle.
At the time of writing about 1,200 (!) cases for beatification or canonization are under consideration in the Vatican.
There are already some 12,000 saints (!).
Since Pope Benedict XIV published his work 'On the Beatification and Canonization of God's Servants' in 1738, the rule applies that each saint must be shown to have performed at least two miracles after his or her death. All those who are now on the waiting list of 1,200 'near-saints' have a very much harder time of it than their predecessors. Things that were readily accepted as miracles before are performed today by every competent medical practitioner. It is no longer so easy to become a saint as it was before. I remember the Latin tag from my schooldays: Tempora Mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis (Times change and we change with them).
What does the Church do when one of its servants performs miracle after miracle during his lifetime?
If he is venerated ... and prayed to as a saint by the faithful without its supreme blessing? It tolerates the situation.
In initiated circles it is considered quite certain that Francesco Forgione, who became world-famous under the name of Pater Pio, will be summoned into the community of the saints. Pater Pio performed so many miracles during his lifetime that he was turned into a (living) saint long before there was any question of canonization.
Francesco Forgione was born in Pietrelcina on 25th May, 1887. He died as Pater Pio in the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo on 23rd September, 1968, 'almost fifty years to the day when he received the stigmata of Our Lord' [13].
Deliberately or by chance, little is known about Francesco's youth. He said of himself that he had been a 'maccherone senza sale' (lazy lad). The Capuchins do not speak about the development of their saintly brother, but even during his novitiate rumours reached the outside world that 'strange phenomena' distinguished the young brother, for 'this pale emaciated novice dispenses with food for days on end. ... In Venefro he lived for twenty-one days solely on the Holy Eucharist.' His weak health made him suffer from sudden attacks of fever which
'constantly burst the monastery thermometers': the brother in charge of nursing tried him with a strong bath thermometer and the mercury rose to 48º (!).
Nights in the monastery cell were exciting. 'Horrible monsters appeared from all sides, when he, obeying the holy rule, tried to get some rest.'
Pater Pio was staying on his parents' farm to convalesce. On 20th September, 1915, when his mother called him to lunch, he came out of a hut in the vineyard, 'waving his hands about as if they were burnt'. His mother asked what had happened and Pio answered that all he could feel were slight pricking pains. But according to the book which bears the highest ecclesiastical imprimatur, 'Pater Pio had really received invisible stigmata'. The invisible marks later began to bleed while he was sitting in the last row of the choir with his fellow brothers. When Pio stepped forward, his hands bled, there were stigmata on his feet and a deep cut in his right side.
'Pater Pio e un santo' cried the multitude. Pater Pio is a saint.
Photographs of the stigmata reached the Holy Office. (Today the Office of the Congregation of the Faith, formerly the Holy Inquisition.) Pater Pio was ordered to undergo medical examination and so still the curiosity of the faithful. Doctors examined him and sealed bandages over the wounds. They finally stated that 'this kind of lesion was beyond the comprehension of science'. Pater Pio lost a cup full of blood every day. Every day he wore brown gloves over the visible lesions.