An American in Birmingham

Father C. J McCloskey explains on the Washington Post ’s website :

I hosted a series of programs on the life and works for EWTN on Cardinal Newman in the year 2000.

At the end of one of his programs, while interviewing Fr. Ian Ker, the renowned Newman biographer from Oxford, I put a message on the television screen that read: “If you receive any favours from Cardinal Newman, please contact the Birmingham Oratory in England.” This is where Newman had lived and died and where the postulator of his Cause of beatification, Fr Paul Chavasse, resided.

Jack Sullivan happened to be watching this program. Jack Sullivan is a lawyer and ordained deacon from the greater Boston area who prayed the prayer card and was miraculously cured of a excruciating painful back ailment that left him unable to walk. He said that if there had been no notice at the program’s end, he probably would not have prayed to Cardinal Newman, whom he previously knew very little about. On Sunday in what is truly a first in the church, Deacon Jack Sullivan will proclaim the Gospel and assist Pope Benedict in the Mass honoring the man who cured him, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman!

Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online .