Possible healing could advance Mother Delille's sainthood cause

For what could be the first time in the 176-year history of the Diocese of Little Rock, a diocesan tribunal submitted formal documentation to the Vatican on an alleged healing miracle of a former Arkansas college student.

"We served as a fact-finding gathering source for the Holy See," said Fr. Greg Luyet, judicial vicar of the diocese, who oversaw canonical procedures for this aspect of the sainthood cause.

The documentation prepared for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome is one possible step for the beatification cause for Mother Henriette Delille, who founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans. Her sainthood cause was opened in 1988 and was approved unanimously by U.S. bishops in 1997. She was declared venerable in 2010.

If her canonization cause continues, she could be the first black saint from the U.S.

Mother Delille was born in New Orleans in 1812. She died in 1862.

The story of a possible miracle attributed to Mother Delille's intercession, stems from Christine McGee who was a 19-year-old college student when the alleged healing happened in Little Rock, said Sr. Doris Goudeaux, co-director of the Henriette Delille Commission Office.

In December 2007, McGee was hospitalized for an aneurism. Sr. Doris said her mother was told that her daughter "was very sick, and they should try to get to the hospital as soon as they could ... it looked like she was going to die."

The girl's mother, who had a devotion to Mother Delille, started to pray to her from the time she first learned of her daughter's sickness. "She prayed to Henriette the whole time. Even though it seemed like things weren't going to work, she held on to that belief," Sr. Doris said.