CONGREGATION FOR THE CAUSES OF THE SAINTS

 

LE MANS

 

BEATIFICATION AND CANONIZATION

 

VEN. SERVANT OF GOD

 

 

BASILE-ANTOINE MARIE MOREAU

 

PRIEST AND FOUNDER OF THE

 

CONGREGATION OF HOLY CROSS

 

(1799 – 1873)

___________

 

 

DECREE SUPER MIRACULO

 

The Venerable Servant of God, Basile-Antoine Marie Moreau was born on February 11, 1799 in the town of Laigné-en-Belin.  A priest of the diocese of Le Mans, France, he was a dedicated professor at the major seminary who devoted himself fully to his pastoral duties.  He founded the Congregation of Holy Cross which is made up of three branches:  Salvatorists (Priests), Josephites (Brothers) and Marianites (Sisters).  After encountering many trials and tribulations during his life, on January 20, 1873, very piously breathed his last breath.

The Supreme Pontiff, John Paul II declared on  April 12, 2003 that the Servant of God had exercised the heroic practice of virtue.

For his beatification, the Postulation of the Cause submitted to this Congregation for its examination the alleged miraculously recovery of a Canadian woman named Laurette Comtois, who after giving birth to a prematurely deceased foetus on June 1, 1948, manifested symptoms of a dry cough, fever and pain in the left hemi-thorax.  After being diagnosed with pleuritis of the left lung, the sick woman was given the treatment appropriate for her case; yet, her condition worsened.  On the 18th of that same month of June, a decision was taken to do a thoracentesis.  In the meantime, the Sisters and the novices of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the patient, her father and other people began invoking divine assistance through the intercession of the Servant of God, Basile-Antoine Marie Moreau.  On the night between the 17th and 18th of the same month, the sick woman recovered completely her good health; the pleural fluid was quickly reabsorbed thus making the thoracentesis unnecessary and her fever disappeared along with all other infections related to her illness.  Thus, this woman was declared to have recovered faster than normal.

Concerning this recovery, which was judged to be miraculous, the Archdiocese of Montreal carried out in 1950 a canonical trial whose juridical validity was decreed by this dicastery on January 24, 2003.  In their meeting on January 27, 2005, the Medical Consultants recognized that her recovery had been quick, perfect, lasting and inexplicable from a scientific point of view.  Having received this positive opinion, the meeting of the Theological Consultants was held on April 15 of the same year.  The following November 8 during the meeting of the Ordinary Congregation and after having listened to the Ponentis Causae, His Most Reverend Excellency, Msgr. Lorenzo Chiarinelli, bishop of Viterbo, the Cardinal and Bishop Fathers asserted that Mrs. Laurette Comtois’ recovery was truly miraculous.

Hence, the Cardinal Prefect, after having written up a careful report of all these events for the Supreme Pontiff, Benedict XVI, His Holiness gathered the opinions of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, ratified them and on this day has declared:

“It follows that the miracle performed by God through the intercession of the Venerable Servant of God, Basile-Antoine Marie Moreau, priest and founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, i.e., that Mrs. Laurette Comtois’ recovery from ‘pleuropneumonia with massive effusion in the left hemi thorax in puerperium’ was swift, perfect and lasting.”

The Supreme Pontiff then decided that this decree should be made public and conserved among the acts of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

 

Given in Rome on April 28, in the year of the Lord 2006.

 

 

Joseph Cardinal Saraiva Martins

Prefect

 

 

Edward Nowak

Secretary

 

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