“My professional experience has placed me many times before events that are difficult to explain from the scientific point of view, but what happened in 2008 to a Brazilian engineer is truly incredible,” said Professor Carlo Jovine, official expert of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, primary neurologist at the Saint John the Baptist Hospital of the Order of Malta.
Professor Jovine was part of the Medical Consultation team charged by the Vatican to study, from the scientific point of view, the extraordinary healing of Marcilio Haddad Andrino, mechanical engineer born in Santos, close to Sao Paul in Brazil.
In December of 2008, at the age of 35, Andrino was urgently hospitalized. He got sick suddenly and presented serious disturbances in the neurological sphere. The specialist examinations showed the presence of eight cerebral abscesses — the presence of eight points in which brain infections were found.
Professor Jovine explained that a cerebral abscess is a purulent area of bacterial or viral origin, which determines the destruction of tissues and the production of pus within the encephalon.
After his urgent hospitalization, the CAT scan confirmed the gravity of the pathology underway. The patient entered into a coma and, after a few days, an obstructive hydrocephalus also appeared.
The situation was so serious that the surgeon, Professor Cabral, in the presence of a progressively deteriorating clinical picture, with the risk of imminent death, decided to subject Andrino to an urgent intervention.
However, at this point, a series of unexplainable events occurred.
Taken to the operating room in a state of coma, the patient suddenly opened his eyes and, to the astonishment of those present, asked why he was there.
Recovering from his astonishment and observing the patient’s full lucidity, Professor Cabral decided not to carry out the planned surgical intervention and to execute an immediate CAT to understand what was occurring.
The examination revealed a radical change of the pre-existing pathological picture, with the disappearance of the acute hydrocephalus and a 70% reduction of the cerebral abscesses.
In the course of a few days, Andrino’s conditions improved to the point that Professor Cabral, verifying the perfect clinical and neurological conditions, decided to discharge the patient, certifying the absence of any trace of the preceding alterations, that is, there was no trace either of cerebral abscesses or of hydrocephalus.
However, the most surprising thing was that the patient did not have any debilitating effects of the grave pathology that had stricken him. In the course of a few days – from December 13, date of the planned surgical intervention, to December 23, date on which he was discharged from the hospital – Andrino was cured definitively and totally.
At present, Marcilio Haddad Andrino drives, works, has two children, is completely autonomous and, above all, shows no negative consequences of any sort. A cure that, in relation to the gravity, to the course of the illness and to the grave complications associated with it, is inexplicably far from the natural course of the illness, as known by medical science.
It must be stressed in fact, that even in the hypothetical case of an eventual cure, the latter would have had need of a surgical intervention (which did not take place), it would have had a slow course and in any case would have left some effects. Instead, the cure was manifested spontaneously without any medical intervention.
Jovine explained: “There are no precedents — one can be cured of one cerebral abscess, but with eight cerebral abscesses and an acute hydrocephalus, the percentage of the deceased is practically 100%. From this concatenation of events and from the specialist and expert clinical examinations, one must necessarily conclude that we are before a scientifically inexplicable event, which occurred in a resolute, instantaneous, lasting and total way. And, for the Church, this is equivalent to say a miracle.”
A miracle that, by the ways it manifested itself, leads to the intercession of Mother Teresa, the famous Albanian Sister, protector of the “last” who lived and died in the fragrance of sanctity, confirming, with her exemplary life, the vox populi that, already in life, wanted her to be named a Saint.
But what does Mother Teresa have to do with the inexplicable cure of Marcilio Hadda Andrino? The wife of the Brazilian engineer is called Fernanda and, when her husband’s conditions were worsening dramatically, she went to Father Elmiran Ferreira, parish priest of the church of Our Lady Aparecida, Sao Vicente.
The parish priest was about to celebrate a Mass of commemoration with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries. Father Ferreira heard what happened and tried to console Fernanda. He gave her a booklet of novenas and told her to continue to pray, asking for the intercession of Blessed Mother Teresa.
As the situation was worsening, on the evening before the surgical intervention, Father Ferreira went to the hospital with Fernanda.
The priest recited the prayers and administered the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, after which, together with Fernanda, he put a holy picture and relic of Mother Teresa next to Marcilio’s head. Shortly after that, the extraordinary cure occurred.
Professor Jovine stressed that, although he is a believer, when he carries out expert assignments of such delicacy and responsibility, he tends deliberately to clear the field of any suggestion in order to concentrate exclusively on the scientific objectivity of the case being examined.
So it was in 2011, when he analyzed the cure of Sister Normand, who was at the origin of the Beatification of Karol Wojtyla, and so it was today for the cure of Andrino, from which will stem Mother Teresa’s Canonization.
And the conclusion is that the objectivity of the analysis, based on medical and documentary checks, confirms that Andrino’s cure is absolutely inexplicable from the scientific point of view.
Hence, we are in the presence of an incredible event that has provided further proof of Mother Teresa’s sanctity. On the basis of these circumstances, Pope Francis recognized the existence of the miracle, giving a green light for the Canonization of the Albanian nun.
