Pope Francis approves miracle of 'World Youth Day cardinal' paving the way for beatification

Pope Francis has approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of fellow Argentine, the Venerable Eduardo Franceso Cardinal Pironio, paving the way for the cardinal’s beatification, the last step before canonization.

No date has yet been set for his beatification.

At the time of his death, Pironio was president-emeritus of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the Vatican body tasked with organizing the global Catholic youth event, World Youth Day.

The Holy See’s official website said the Pope approved the publication of a decree regarding the miracle attributed to Pironio’s intercession in an audience on Wednesday morning with the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Cause of the Saints, Marcello Cardinal Semeraro.

According to the website of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the miracle attributed to Pironio involved the healing in 2006 of Juan Manuel Franco, a 15-month-old boy in Argentina who suffered from acute respiratory distress syndrome after inadvertently inhaling and swallowing porporino, a metallic glitter, that his mother was using for restoration work. 

He was immediately rushed to a hospital where his condition turned for the worse. The doctors, seeing that the boy was having difficulty breathing, transferred him to the Intensive Care Service of the Specialized Mother and Child Hospital of Mar del Plata, where he was subjected to further medical interventions, which did not improve his condition.

While he was being treated, his parents asked for the intercession of Pironio, using a prayer printed on a booklet that they had received from a local parish priest. The boy’s condition suddenly improved and he was discharged from the hospital less than two weeks later.

The Dicastery said the medical board assigned to review the boy’s healing found that his “rapid, complete, and long-lasting recovery” could not be explained scientifically. 

“The causal link between the invocation and the rapid, complete and long-lasting healing, which cannot be explained scientifically, was recognized,” the Dicastery said.

Pironio was born in 1920 in Argentina to a family of Italian immigrants. He was the youngest of the 22 children of José Pironio and Enriqueta