AIX EN PROVENCE - A French nun at the centre of a Vatican case to beatify pope John Paul II recounted Friday how she had been cured of Parkinson's disease by praying to the late pontiff.
"I am cured. It is the work of God, through the intercession of pope John Paul II," told Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, smiling broadly before a barrage of television cameras.
"It's something very strong, very difficult to put into words," she told reporters in the southern French city of Aix en Provence.
The 46-year-old nun was holding her first news conference since the Vatican revealed that her testimony could provide evidence of a posthumous miracle performed by John Paul II after his death in April 2005.
Convincing evidence of a miracle -- usually a medical cure with no scientific explanation -- is essential in the beatification process, the first step to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.
Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre had been suffering from Parkinson's, a degenerative disease of the nervous system, since 2001, but has testified that she was cured in the night of June 2, 2005 after praying to John Paul II, whose final years were marked by the disease.
"I was sick and now I am cured. It's up to the Church to say whether this is a miracle," said the nun.
She recounted how she had suddenly been able to write legibly after struggling for months to hold a pen, the disease having progressed to the point that she no longer controlled motion in her hand.
"I came across a sister who had helped me tremendously and I told her as I held up my hand, my left hand, 'look, my hand is no longer trembling'," she said. "Jean Paul II cured me."
"Since then I have not taken any treatment. My life has completely changed -- it was like a second birth for me," she said.
Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre grew up as one of five children in a Catholic family in northern France, before joining a Catholic congregation from Puyricard, near Aix-en-Provence. She had been working as a nurse at a Paris maternity clinic since late 2006.
Her identity had been kept secret during a year-long Vatican inquiry, which wrapped up on March 23, into her claims that she had been cured through the late pope's intercession.
Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre is due to travel to Rome to take part in the process that is to culminate with the beatification of John Paul II, which would put him on the first step to sainthood.
She will attend a solemn ceremony on Monday, the second anniversary of John Paul II's death, when the beatification dossier is to be handed over to the Vatican's saint-making body.
The Rome diocese's website carries dozens of testimonials from individuals claiming cures at the hands of the pope, but to qualify as a miracle the recovery must be sudden, complete and permanent -- as well as inexplicable by doctors.
03/30/2007 15:07 GMT