FATHER EUGENE REAGAN returned angry from his visit to Bishop John Stevens’s office in the city. The bishop had been adamant that the problem of Martha McGill, this so-called ‘Miracle Woman’, was to be sorted out.
‘There’s the Lucas boy, Sean Peterson, the man in the motorbike accident that was plastered all over the papers and a few others scattered throughout the country,’ complained the bishop. ‘Do you realize, Eugene, that in all the years since Our Blessed Lady first appeared to Bernadette in Lourdes, and with all the millions of pilgrims that have visited that sacred shrine ever since, there has only been a total of sixty-six documented authentic cures – or miracles, as some like to call them – and that is in one of the Church’s holiest of places and yet we are to believe that one of your parishioners has been granted this sacred gift! The whole notion is preposterous, and I for one, Father, am waiting to see how you will put a stop to it!’
‘I spoke to her already, Bishop Stevens, and put my concerns to her, but unfortunately she is not willing to listen.’
‘Then you must make her listen, Father.’
Father Eugene sighed as he worked in the small study of his parish house. He did not appreciate being hauled over the coals by his superiors and admonished for the way he ran his business. He had two funerals booked into the church for the next morning and checked his message service in case any of the deceased’s family members had been trying to contact him. There was a message on his machine from a newspaper journalist asking for a quote on ‘the miracles’, and ‘What was the Church’s and his position in relation to Martha McGill?’
Not having to debate the matter too long, he jotted down the number as he returned Lara Chadwick’s call, knowing exactly what he wanted to say.
The Boston Herald carried the Church’s denunciation of the Miracle Woman and those who believed in her, saying that people who attended her sessions or went for public healing were deluding themselves with false beliefs. The journalist quoted Father Eugene, her parish priest, and printed an official statement from the bishop.
Reading the report, Martha was dismayed. She felt that the priests were good men, men who had worked tirelessly for the Holy Roman Catholic Church for nearly all their lives and yet somehow along the way had lost their ability to believe in the healing power of the Lord God. Now they were condemning her because they knew no better and were afraid.