So, What Was Pope John Paul II's 2nd Miracle?

Floribeth Mora says he healed her brain aneurysm
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 5, 2013 5:04 PM CDT
So, What Was Pope John Paul II's 2nd Miracle?
Floribeth Mora holds up a magazine featuring Pope John Paul II on the cover as she gives her account of a miracle attributed to him during a press conference in San Jose, Costa Rica, July 5, 2013.   (AP Photo/Enrigue Martinez)

As promised, more details have been released on the second miracle that got Pope John Paul II cleared for sainthood. Floribeth Mora, a 50-year-old Costa Rican woman, told her story publicly for the first time today, tears in her eyes. She developed a brain aneurysm in 2011 and had no hope for treatment, she said. Doctors discovered it had begun to hemorrhage; they couldn't stop the bleeding; and no one thought an operation would be safe. So her family built an altar to the pope outside her home, and during his beatification shortly after her diagnosis, Mora was watching the Mass and looking at a photo of John Paul when, she says, she heard a voice.

"I contemplated the photo of the Holy Father with his arms extended and I fixed my eyes on him," she recalls. "In this moment, I heard a voice tell me, 'Get up, don't be afraid.'" She immediately felt better, and subsequent medical exams found that the aneurysm had vanished. Mora, who had also taken part in a religious procession and says she received a sign there of her imminent healing, showed journalists before and after pictures of her brain, the AP reports. She had to undergo more exams in Rome so church officials could confirm the miracle. The neurosurgeon who diagnosed her denies the aneurysm was as serious as Mora says, Reuters reports, but he does find its disappearance "remarkable," and adds, "I had never seen this in my career." (More aneurysm stories.)

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