“Chase survived in part because hundreds of people prayed to Father Emil Kapaun to intercede on his behalf. It was absolutely a miracle.”… Prompted in part by what the Kear family has said publicly, and partly by a preliminary investigation begun by the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, a Vatican investigator named Andrea Ambrosi will arrive from Italy in Wichita on Friday.He will investigate on behalf of the church in Rome whether 20-year-old Chase Kear’s survival qualifies as a miracle; whether he survived a severe head injury last year in part because his family and hundreds of friends successfully prayed thousands of prayers to the soul of Father Emil Kapaun, a U.S. Army chaplain from Pilsen, Kan., who died a hero in the Korean War. (Wtchita Eagle)
Erm, what? Let’s review…
Chase Kear fell on his head while pole-vaulting, and was knocked clean out. 911 was called immediately, and rapidly evaced to hospital. This, to me seems like the appropriate first steps in saving Chase’s life. No, apparently, what started him on the road to recovery was his family praying, not to God, but to a dead chaplin.
By the time a helicopter delivered him to Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus, his family was already frantically praying as they watched the helicopter land… And she was calling Sacred Heart Church in Colwich, asking people there to get everyone in the church praying to Father Kapaun for help.
The pressure in Chase’s brain was relieved by removing a section of his skull, and an agressive antibiotic treatment was started to prevent infection in the hole left. It was touch and go, as it always is with traumatic brain injuries, but weeks later Chase walked out of the hospital.
“There is no doubt in anyone’s mind in our family that Father Kapaun helped save our son,” Paula Kear said of Chase, who is making a full recovery. “We were told at least three or four times in those first two days that Chase wasn’t going to make it.
Of course, that’s exactly what happened. Nothing to do with the excellent care and assessment by the first on-scene, the skill of the helimed crew and ER doctors, the surgeons and anaethetists who handled his swollen brain, and the nursing staff who oversaw his recovery. It was only through the power of prayer that he survived? That power of prayer which has on multiple occasions been shown to not have an effect on recovery.
Sure, the doctors said it was “a miracle”. But this is a different definition of the word, one which means unexpected, against the odds. Not due to divine intervention. Just because you don’t understand how something worked doesn’t mean that God needs to, or was, involved. Personally, I say if you want to claim this, then prove that your prayers did the job? Because my money is on the skill and hard work of the medical staff, and they’re the ones who should be getting the credit.
June 25, 2009 at 11:16
Although you probably don’t realize it, you’re effectively repeating Hume’s argument, which runs as follows:
1. A miracle is defined to be “a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.”
2. The laws of nature are, by definition, inviolate.
3. Therefore, miracles do not happen.
Of course, this is just as much a wilful misinterpretation of what we mean by “miracle” as the one you raise above (i.e. assuming that when a doctor uses the word “miracle” it is being used in the theologian’s technical sense) – it’s just that in your case, you’ve managed it without making an explicit definition anywhere, so it’s better hidden.
There’s a reason why the Catholic Church investigates claims of miracles: they’d agree with you that many (or, more likely, most) such claims turn out to be nothing special. What you call a “miracle” is not a question of science versus religion: it is a matter of religious sophistication versus a lack of religious sophistication. By all means, argue against the blind acceptance of the improbable as a miracle, but bear in mind that some of the religious can be far more scientific about what we mean by a “miracle” than we have even begun to approach here.
June 25, 2009 at 19:34
Rather a random choice of person to pray to…
Sorry could say more, but then I run the risk of sounding like a crazy person.
Take care,
Differently
June 25, 2009 at 21:24
It’s more like asking somebody else to pray for you. Except that the person in question happens to be dead. (And, you hope, somebody who’s made it. Indeed, the success of such prayer is one of the ways used to determine whether somebody has made it. No prizes for spotting a chicken-and-egg situation on this one.)
Slightly less cynical answers are available via your favourite search engine (a term such as “prayer to saints” will work).
June 26, 2009 at 01:34
Medical staff only come into it if they need someone to blame. Personally, I’m holding out for the day I hear about someone asking their church for prayers, then bursting in a few days later with “YOU DIDN’T PRAY HARD ENOUGH YOU BASTARDS!!”
June 28, 2009 at 18:02
Hi nice website.
Check this site :http://guide-spirituel.blogspot.com
Amazing videos of true miracles.
July 6, 2009 at 11:39
Wow. Let’s all stop paying for medical healthcare, and start praying for spiritual healthcare instead. Because, as we all know, the mortality rate in more religious times was so much lower, and just what do doctors know, anyway? I mean, only the sum of hundreds of years of scientific enquiry, tested empirically with reliable, reproducible results.