Newman's Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint (57 page)

Sullivan was examined on 6 July by a back specialist, Dr Stephen Parazin of Newton, Massachusetts. The doctor said that all Sullivan’s lower functions could suddenly shut down at any time. ‘Paradoxically’, says Sullivan, ‘… I had normal strength in both legs and walked upright without major difficulty.’ The doctor said that surgery seemed unnecessary, as the pain was almost gone. He then stated that he thought Sullivan could carry on with his diaconate classes, but if the pain returned or if he had any difficulties with his lower functions, he should immediately seek hospitalization.

On 15 July he went to see the neurologist Dr Brick. He took a scan and said that the vertebrae and the discs at L2–L5 were completely compressed on the spinal chord threatening the nerves associated with legs. He said that even if the pain had gone, he needed an operation. Perplexed by these two opinions he consulted a third specialist, Dr Cueni, who referred him to a Dr Banco, said to be the best neurologist in Boston. Banco said that the operation was very delicate, and since he had no pain it would be better for him to ‘wait and see’.

In May of 2001 the pain came back again and his condition began to deteri-orate once more. He could only walk with difficulty. He went to see Dr Banco who was amazed that Sullivan had lasted for so long, but said that an operation was now inevitable. Sullivan says that he continued to pray to Cardinal Newman during this period. The operation was performed on 9 August and lasted for about six hours. Afterwards Dr Banco explained that the procedure was complicated. The lower spine was badly ruptured and there was significant tearing of the
dura mater
(the membrane surrounding the spinal cord housing protective fluids). The fluids leak out causing the protruding bony areas to rub against the spinal cord. Dr Banco apparently said that it was a ‘miracle’ that Sullivan had survived throughout the summer. He said at one of the post-op meetings: ‘I have absolutely no medical explanation to give you as to why your pain stopped. The MRI and subsequent surgery bear out the severity of your condition. With the tear in your
dura mater
your condition should have been much

worse. I have no medical or scientific answer for you. If you want an answer, ask God.’

After the operation Sullivan was in great pain and unable to walk, as was expected. On 15 August, sitting on his bed, he ‘silently but fervently’ prayed to Cardinal Newman: ‘Please Cardinal Newman, help me to walk, so that I am able to get back to my classes.’ Suddenly, he reports, ‘I felt a very warm sensation all over my body and a sense of real peace and joy came over me. I immediately began to shudder and felt a very strong tingling sensation, which gripped my entire body. It lasted for what seemed a very long time, and was very strong. Then I felt a surge of strength and confidence that I could finally walk. I was suddenly free of my crippling pain even without the Demerol. My healing in this one moment became remarkably accelerated – two to three months in one moment of time. I then smiled, refused the walker and said: “I will walk with the cane.” For the first time in several months I was walking upright, normally, and with real strength in both legs.’
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Sullivan went from strength to strength and as of September 2009, he has been free of pain and capable of walking normally. His doctors have expressed in writing their surprise at both instances of alleviation of pain and return of normal function. Dr Banco has testified that Sullivan’s recovery after the operation was ‘unbelievable, 100 per cent, totally remarkable! … I have never seen a healing process occur so quickly and completely.’

Dr Banco put in writing the following statement to Sullivan: ‘Your recovery was extremely rapid and is clearly very much a rare exception rather than the rule for recovery after this type of surgery. I have been in practice for 15 years and have seen many cases similar to your case. I have treated probably over 1,500 patients with spinal stenosis. Your lack of pain preoperatively for that time period as well as your post operative recovery were truly miraculous, in my opinion.’
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What is one to make of this series of events? What is clear from the various accounts is that Jack Sullivan’s underlying physical condition was neither altered nor cured by his prayers. In fact, it seems likely that his ability to continue walking on being relieved of the pain in June 2000 did further damage to his spine. The inexplicable nature of his condition relates to the relief of his pain on both occasions, and his consequent confidence to walk in June, and again, after his operation in August of the following year. According to the rules of the Congregation for Causes of the Saints the ‘miracle’ should be long-lasting; but the first relief was only temporary; the pain and debilitation returned the following summer. The rules further stipulate that improvement should not be the result of intervention, such as an operation; yet it is clear that the long-term healing of Sullivan’s condition has been a result of his operation in 2001. The remarkable factor, therefore, relates to pain and swifter healing than was normal for

such a condition. As Dr Banco wrote: Sullivan’s recovery ‘was extremely rapid and is clearly very much a rare exception rather than the rule for recovery after this type of surgery’. This seems to leave the door open to natural explanation: rare exception is hardly an admission of inexplicability as to the laws of nature. Is it possible that Sullivan’s ‘miracle’ was purely a matter of relief of pain and therefore explicable by placebo effect? The conclusions of the scientific board of five lay medical experts in the Vatican was that Sullivan’s condition, on both occasions, would have made it impossible for him to walk normally, and that it was not simply a matter of relief of pain, but of an inexplicable underlying ‘mechanical’ physiology. In consequence the chair of the board, Professor Massimo Gandolfini, could state that the events were ‘not completely explicable in scientific terms’.
1
3
By any criterion the events are unusual. It might be argued, however, that the relief of pain was a placebo effect and that the underlying problem was cured by surgery. Even so, the relief of pain fits at least with New-man’s view of ‘an event which is possible in the way of nature …’ performed by

‘Divine Power without the sequence of natural cause and effect at all’.

Acknowledgements
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For hospitality I thank Fathers Paul Chavasse and Gregory Winterton, former Provosts of the Birmingham Oratory, Dr Mark Harris of Oriel College, Oxford, and Sir Ivor Roberts, President of Trinity College, Oxford. For conversation and advice I thank Father Robert Byrne (Provost of the Oxford Oratory), Father Philip Cleeveley (of the Birmingham Oratory), Dr Padraig Conway (of Newman House, Dublin) and Dr David McLoughlin (of Newman University College, Birmingham); also Dr Tim Jenkins, Dr Ian Ker, Dr Kate Kirkpatrick, Dr Michael McGhee, Dr Rod Mengham, Professor Véronique Mottier, Professor John Milbank, Ashley Peatfield, Professor Stephen Prickett, Dr Roderick Strange. My friend and fellow ‘Academician’ Patrick O’Connor, who died suddenly in February 2010, presented me with a rare early recording of Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’. I benefited from the services of the Cambridge University Library, the British Library, and the London Library. I am grateful to Judith Champ, archivist at Oscott College, and Gerard Boylan, Oscott’s librarian, for assistance with materials in his keeping, and the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory for permission to quote from the 32 volumes of published Letters and Diaries of Newman. I am especially grateful to Professor Stephen Heath, Professor Nicholas Lash and John Wilkins for generously reading and commenting on the manuscript. Any remaining errors and misapprehensions are entirely my own.

I thank James Bowman, Tony Lansbury, Jeff Scott, and Robin Baird-Smith. I owe a debt of gratitude to the Master and Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge, for providing an ideal circumstance for research and writing. I thank Crispin Rope, as ever, for encouragement and support. Finally I thank my friend and agent Clare Alexander.

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Notes to the chapters
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Abbreviations used in the Notes:

A J. H. Newman,
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
(Penguin, London, 2000) Ian Ker (ed.).

AW Henry Tristram (Ed.),
John Henry Newman Autobiographical Writings
(New York, 1956). Bouyer
Newman: His Life and Spirituality
(London, 1958).

Culler A. Dwight Culler,
The Imperial Intellect
(Yale, 1955).

Dessain Charles Stephen Dessain,
John Henry Newman
(London, 1966).

Dev J. H. Newman,
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
(Foreword by Ian Ker) (South Bend, Indiana, 1989).

G J. H. Newman,
An Essay In aid of A Grammar of Assent
(London, 1891). Gilley Sheridan Gilley,
Newman and his Age
(London paperback edition, 2003). Idea J. H. Newman,
Idea of a University
(London, 1891).

Ker
John Henry Newman
(Oxford, 1988).

LD
The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman
(Ed. Charles Stephen Dessain,
et al.
), 32 vols (Oxford and London, 1961–2008).

PN Edward Sillem, Ed.,
The Philosophical Notebook of John Henry Newman
, 2 vols (Louvain, 1969–1970).

PPS
Plain and Parochial Sermons
, 8 Vols (London, 1875).

Trevor i, ii Meriol Trevor i,
Newman: The Pillar of the Cloud
; ii,
Newman: Light in Winter
(London, 1962).

Tristram Henry Tristram,
Newman Centenary Essays
(London, 1945). US
Oxford University Sermons
(London, 1890).

Ward i, ii Wilfrid Ward,
The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman
, 2 vols (London, 1912).

1. LD xx 443.

The Notes

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

1. J. H. Newman,
   Discourses to Mixed Congregations
   (Leominster, 2002), 371–372. 2.
   Ibid
   . 373.
   

   1. A 15.
   

2. Trevor ii 338.
   

   CHAPTER 1
   

3. See G. Egner,
   Apologia Pro Kingsley
   (London, 1969), 4.
   
4. Quoted
   ibid
   .
   
5. L. B. C. Butler,
   Life Ullathorne
   (1926), 159.
   
6. James Joyce,
   A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
   (Ed. Seamus Deane) (Penguin; London, 2000), 190.
   
7. Quoted Samuel Hall,
   A Short History of the Oxford Movement
   (London, 1906). 51. 8. A 226.