"Miracle" Investigated for Pope

A panel appointed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore is about to take on a rare investigation -- whether prayers to a 19th-century priest miraculously cured an Annapolis, Md., woman of terminal cancer, The Baltimore Sun reported.

The case is just the fifth such investigation in the archdiocese's 200-year history. If the priest, Francis X. Seelos, is found to be behind the woman's cure, it could move him closer to being declared a Roman Catholic saint. The pope will have the final say.

Mary Ellen Heibel, 71, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2003, The Sun said. She underwent surgery, but doctors later discovered the procedure had missed a cancerous lymph node. The disease spread to her lungs, liver, stomach and chest.

She began praying to Seelos, who had been a pastor at her church, St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church. Seelos died in 1867 while treating yellow fever victims in New Orleans. In the 1970s, a woman there beat terminal liver cancer after praying to Seelos. The Catholic Church investigated that case and deemed it a miracle, a finding that led to Seelos' beatification in 2000.

Heibel, her husband and their priest began a special series of prayers to Seelos in January 2005. At that point, her doctor believed she had six, maybe 12, months to live. The following month, a scan showed something stunning: All her tumors were gone. And, according to the results of her latest scan, in March 2008, she's still healthy.

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