Boston, Mass., May 4, 2023 / 16:00 pm
The Archdiocese of Hartford is appealing to the Vatican for guidance on how to proceed with its investigation of a possible eucharistic miracle at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Thomaston, Connecticut.
The referral is the first public update by the archdiocese since it was first reported in late March that Jesus, truly present in the holy Eucharist, appeared to multiply himself in the ciborium, typically a gold chalice that holds the eucharistic body of Christ.
“Reports such as the alleged miracle in Thomaston require referral to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. The archdiocese has proceeded accordingly and will await a response in due time,” David Elliott, a spokesman for the archdiocese, told CNA Thursday.
It’s unclear how long the dicastery could take to respond to the archdiocese’s request, Elliott told CNA.
Since news of the possible eucharistic miracle spread, a number of pilgrims have flocked to the church where Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, was once the pastor.
On March 5 at the conclusion of Mass, Father Joseph Crowley announced that a eucharistic minister witnessed something unexplainable as he was distributing Communion.
“One of our eucharistic ministers was running out of hosts and suddenly there were more hosts in the ciborium. God just duplicated himself in the ciborium,” an emotional Crowley told the faithful.
“It’s really, really cool when God does these things, and it’s really, really cool when we realize what he’s done, and it just happened today,” the priest said.
“Very powerful, very awesome, very real, very shocking. But also, it happens, and today it happened,” he said.
“They were running out of hosts and all of a sudden more hosts were there. So today not only did we have the miracle of the Eucharist, we also had a bigger miracle. It’s pretty cool,” the priest said.
On March 28, the Archdiocese of Hartford put out a statement saying: “As people of faith we know that miracles can and do happen, as they did during Christ’s earthly ministry. Miracles are divine signs calling us to faith or to deepen our faith.”
“Roman Catholics experience a daily miracle because every time Mass is celebrated what was bread becomes the Body of Christ and what was wine becomes his Blood,” the statement said.
“Through the centuries this daily miracle has sometimes been confirmed by extraordinary signs from Heaven, but the Church is always careful to investigate reports of such signs with caution, lest credence is given to something that proves to be unfounded,” the statement continued.
“What has been reported to have occurred at our parish church in Thomaston, of which Blessed Michael McGivney was once pastor, if verified, would constitute a sign or wonder that can only be attributed to divine power to strengthen our faith in the daily miracle of the Most Holy Eucharist. It would also be a source of blessing from Heaven for the effort that the U.S. bishops are making to renew and deepen the faith and practice of our Catholic people with regard to this great Sacrament,” the statement said.
CV NEWS FEED // Parishioners at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Westerly, Rhode Island, observed the host in the adoration chapel’s monstrance turn blue on Sunday, May 7.
Pastor Giacomo Capoverdi announced on his personal Facebook page on May 8, “Our Host in the monstrance in our perpetual adoration chapel has the appearance of turning blue.”
“Nothing can be officially called a ‘miracle’ until the Diocese and the Church Universal does a thorough investigation,” Fr. Capoverdi added in the same post.
Michael F. Kioeloch, Director of Communications and Public Relations for the Diocese of Providence, concurred with Capoverdi’s statement. Kioeloch told CatholicVote, “Having only just learned of the purported events at Immaculate Conception in Westerly, Rhode Island, the Diocese of Providence will be reaching out to the pastor to gather information to consider a preliminary investigation.”
Both the diocese and Capoverdi emphasized that while the matter is under investigation, the most important response Catholics can make is to frequent the sacraments and Eucharistic adoration.
“In the meantime,” stated Kioeloch, “we wish to continue to encourage Catholics to participate in the celebration of Holy Mass and the adoration of our Lord in the blessed sacrament.”
The Catholic Church takes claims of miracles with measured skepticism and, in limited cases, a local bishop may launch a rigorous scientific investigation of unexplained phenomena. Calling an event a “miracle” takes place only after all possibility of fraud, human error, or other natural causes is ruled out.
Matthew McGuire drove his children from outside Newport to see the phenomenon for himself on May 10. He told CatholicVote, “I just heard a big commotion yesterday – people were texting each other that the Eucharist had turned blue. I just kept thinking about it all night, so I went over there. And there it was… blue.”
“It doesn’t appear painted,” McGuire said when pressed. “There’s no way to describe it.”
“A bunch of locals were there,” he said. “People were crying. It’s very emotional.”
McGuire brought his small children to see the host as well. “My kids went into the adoration chapel, and it was the quietest they’ve ever been,” he marveled. “They just sat there and stayed there.”
McGuire isn’t the only curious Catholic. Capoverdi posted a late-
McGuire confirmed to CatholicVote that not only had the white host turned blue but also the white elements of images of saints that decorate the monstrance.
In the parking lot outside, McGuire reported, parishioners discussed what the occurrence could mean.
“May is dedicated to Mary,” McGuire said. “And Mary’s color is blue.”
Immaculate Conception Parish has had a Perpetual Adoration Chapel for over 20 years and is remarkable for its Marian and Eucharistic devotion. The parish hosts both Corpus Christi and Our Lady of Mount Carmel processions through the city each year.
“Since the late 1990’s, in all the time that Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has been exposed in the chapel perpetually, it has never been this color during any time of the day,” Capoverdi wrote.
The Diocese of Providence, founded in 1872, announced on May 1 that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of retiring Bishop Thomas Tobin. Bishop Richard Henning succeeded him as bishop.
The news comes as the nearby Archdiocese of Hartford, CT, is investigating another possible Eucharistic miracle.
CV NEWS FEED // “In an obscure village, without any social relevance, far from the urban area, the Lord chooses to manifest himself.”
So said the first bishop of the Diocese of Gracias in Honduras, his excellency Walter Guillén Soto, upon approving a new Eucharistic miracle that occurred in a rural parish in the small town of San Juan.
On June 9, 2022, an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion named José Elmer Benítez Machado discovered a corporal – a linen cloth placed beneath the chalice at Mass – stained with blood in the tabernacle of the chapel of the El Espinal community.
Since the region does not have a priest based in the town, Benítez was appointed to celebrate the Liturgy of the Word and distribute communion to the faithful.
When he opened the tabernacle to retrieve the ciborium of consecrated hosts, the corporal (sacred linen cloth) was stained with what appeared to be human blood.
“I was amazed,” he told EWTN Noticias, the network’s Spanish-
Benítez called two priests of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who came the following day to confirm what he saw.
They transferred the corporal to Bishop Guillén’s keeping two days later.
The bishop waited for three months before requesting scientific tests to be conducted at a nearby medical center.
“I’m not that prone to naively believing in things. Logic makes us prudent, in terms of believing things without sifting through them and without analyzing them,” the bishop told EWTN Noticias.
After initial tests, the corporal was sent to a medical center in Tegucigalpa for further analysis, which confirmed that the blood was indeed human.
The blood type was AB with a positive Rh factor, identical to the blood found in both the Eucharistic miracle in Lanciano, Italy, and on the Shroud of Turin.
The tests also ruled out the possibility that the pattern of the blood stains was made artificially.
Bishop Guillén then officially recognized the occurrence as a Eucharistic miracle.
Out of prudence, he and priests of the diocese have not yet exposed the blood-
Archbishop Gábor Pintér, the apostolic nuncio in Honduras, has requested that the scientific evidence and notarized oaths of the witnesses be sent to the Vatican for further investigation.
Bishop Guillén made special note of the significance of the miracle happening to a lay person.
“It’s the time of the laity,” he said. “It is the faith of the laity that has kept alive the vitality of the Church in these corners of the world. For me and for the clergy of the diocese, it has been a call to conversion to recognize the call of God in the voice of the laity.”
Pending the Vatican’s approval, Gracias, Honduras, would be the fifth Eucharistic miracle to have taken place in Latin America.
| Eucharistic Miracles |