Boy's recovery credited to blessed Kateri
BELLINGHAM – Pope Benedict XVI has decreed that a Washington state boy’s recovery from the flesh-eating bacteria that nearly killed him in 2006 is a miracle that can be attributed to Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha’s help, making possible the canonization of the first American Indian saint in the Catholic Church.
Monsignor Paul A. Lenz, the vice postulator for the cause of Blessed Kateri, confirmed on Monday the link to Jake Finkbonner.
Doctors who treated Jake, as well as a committee of doctors at the Vatican, came to the same conclusion, Lenz said.
“They didn’t think any of their medical expertise was the cure,” he explained. “They thought every night he was going to die.”
As Jake lay near death, the Rev. Tim Sauer, a longtime family friend, advised his mom and dad, Elsa and Donny Finkbonner, to pray to Blessed Kateri, who is the patroness for American Indians, for her intercession.
In other words, they asked Blessed Kateri to pray to God to perform a miracle on Jake’s behalf. The boy is of Lummi descent.
The Vatican decided Jake’s recovery was a miracle that is beyond the explanation of medicine and that could be attributed to the intercession on his behalf by Blessed Kateri, who was born in 1656.
To his family members, who are devout Catholics, there’s no question that a miracle occurred.
“In my heart, in all of us, we’ve always found that Jake’s recovery, his healing and his survival truly was a miracle. As far as Blessed Kateri becoming a saint, it’s honorable to be a part of that process,” Elsa Finkbonner said.
She said Jake, now a sixth-grader at Assumption Catholic School in Bellingham, was excited by the news and also the opportunity to attend a ceremony for the canonization.
“He’s excited to meet the pope. I think that’s going to be the icing on the cake for him,” Elsa Finkbonner said.
For American Indian Catholics, Blessed Kateri’s canonization was a cause for celebration.
“It’s been a long time coming for the Indians across the country. A lot of people are happy today. … It’s something that we’ve all been waiting for,” said Henry Cagey, a former Lummi tribal chairman who is active at St. Joachim Catholic Church on the Lummi Reservation.
Jake’s fight for his life began after he fell and bumped his mouth in the closing moments of a basketball game on Feb. 11, 2006.
Necrotizing fasciitis, or Strep A, invaded his body and bloodstream through that small cut, and the aggressive bacteria raced across his cheeks, eyelids, scalp and chest as doctors worked desperately to stop its spread.
Jake spent nine weeks at Seattle Children’s hospital, where doctors prepared the family several times for what they believed to be the boy’s impending death.
Some months after Jake recovered in 2006, Sauer sent a letter to the Archbishop in Seattle about a possible miraculous occurrence.
After Sauer wrote the letter, investigators from the Catholic Church interviewed the priest, Jake’s family and others who testified that they prayed for her intercession.
Blessed Kateri, known as the Lily of the Mohawks, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980, becoming the first American Indian to be so honored.
Kie Relyea
McClatchy
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