# Danila Castelli (Lourdes 1989) ## Intro Danila Castelli was an Italian wife and mother of four from near Pavia. When she was 34, she began to have sudden attacks of dangerously high blood pressure. Doctors searched for the cause for years. They removed her womb, an ovary and part of her pancreas, and in 1983 a scan found a hormone-making tumour deep in her pelvis. More operations followed, and none of them stopped the attacks. In May 1989 her husband, a doctor, was planning to take her to the Mayo Clinic in the United States. She asked to go to Lourdes instead. On 4 May 1989, after bathing in the waters of the sanctuary, she felt a deep sense of well-being. The attacks never came back. The Lourdes doctors followed her for more than twenty years. In 2011 an international medical committee said her cure could not be explained by current science, and on 20 June 2013 her bishop declared it a miracle, the 69th officially recognized at Lourdes. It is filed in the documented tier because it passed the full Lourdes medical process. ![Pilgrims, some of them sick and lying on wheeled stretchers, waiting outside the women's baths at the Sanctuary of Lourdes in the early twentieth century](/codex/assets/lourdes-womens-baths-pilgrims-rijksmuseum.jpg) _Pilgrims, some of the sick on wheeled stretchers, waiting outside the women's baths at Lourdes, photographed between 1900 and 1940. Photo: unknown photographer, Rijksmuseum, CC0, via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vrouwen_voor_het_damesbadhuis_in_Lourdes_Lourdes_(titel_op_object),_RP-F-F16613.jpg), resized._ **The 30-second version:** > Danila Castelli, an Italian mother of four, had nine years of violent high-blood-pressure attacks that a 1983 scan traced to a pheochromocytoma, a hormone-secreting tumour. Repeated surgery failed. On 4 May 1989, at the Lourdes baths, she felt an extraordinary well-being, and the attacks stopped for good. The Lourdes Medical Bureau examined her in 1989, 1992, 1994, 1997 and 2010 and voted unanimously that the cure was complete, lasting and unrelated to treatment. The International Medical Committee of Lourdes called it unexplained in 2011, and her bishop declared it the 69th Lourdes miracle in 2013. The published accounts differ on details of the diagnosis and the file's history, and those points are set out openly. ## In full The case of Danila Castelli runs through every stage of the Lourdes process described on the [Lourdes Medical Bureau](/codex/lourdes-medical-bureau/) page. Born on 16 January 1946, she had lived an ordinary life until 1980, when at 34 she began to suffer severe, spontaneous hypertensive crises (*Le Quotidien du Médecin*, 22 July 2013). In 1982 imaging showed a mass beside the uterus and a fibroid uterus, and she underwent a hysterectomy and adnexectomy; in November 1982 part of her pancreas was removed. In 1983 a scintigraphy identified a pheochromocytoma, a tumour that secretes catecholamines, in the region of the rectum, bladder and vagina. Further operations between 1983 and 1988 aimed at the source of the crises brought no benefit, and only phentolamine controlled the attacks (*Le Quotidien du Médecin*). Her husband, a physician, planned to take her to the Mayo Clinic; she asked to go to Lourdes instead, and the couple went in May 1989 (Independent Catholic News, 22 July 2013). She reported that on 4 May 1989, on leaving one of the sanctuary's baths, she felt "an extraordinary sense of well-being". The Lourdes Medical Bureau examined her in five sessions, in 1989, 1992, 1994, 1997 and 2010, and by a formal unanimous vote found her cured "completely and durably" since the 1989 pilgrimage, without relation to her surgery or treatment. Meeting in Paris on 19 November 2011, the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL) certified that the manner of her cure "remains unexplained according to current scientific knowledge". On 20 June 2013 Bishop Giovanni Giudici of Pavia declared the cure "prodigious-miraculous" and a "sign". Disagreements among the published accounts are recorded under Tensions below. Under the Miracles schema the case is Tier 1 on medical-bureau ratification. ## Summary Danila Castelli, an Italian woman from Bereguardo in the diocese of Pavia, suffered from 1980 onward from severe hypertensive crises that a 1983 scintigraphy attributed to a pheochromocytoma. Several operations between 1982 and 1988 failed to stop them. On 4 May 1989, during a pilgrimage to Lourdes with her husband, she bathed in the sanctuary's baths, felt an extraordinary well-being, and had no further crises. The Lourdes Medical Bureau, after five sessions between 1989 and 2010, unanimously judged the cure complete and lasting; the International Medical Committee of Lourdes judged it unexplained on 19 November 2011; and Bishop Giovanni Giudici of Pavia recognized it as miraculous on 20 June 2013, the 69th recognized cure at Lourdes. She died on 9 October 2016, aged 70. ## The event 1. **The onset.** In 1980, at 34, she began to have sudden, severe attacks of high blood pressure (*Le Quotidien du Médecin*; *Aleteia*, 12 January 2016). 2. **The search for a cause.** According to the account published from the sanctuary's announcement, imaging in 1982 showed a mass beside the uterus and a fibroid uterus, and she had a hysterectomy and adnexectomy. In November 1982 part of her pancreas was removed. *Allo Docteurs* describes the sequence as three successive explanations: first a fibrous mass in the uterus and an ovary, then a pancreatic abnormality, then a pheochromocytoma. 3. **The tumour.** In 1983 a scintigraphy located a pheochromocytoma between the rectum, the vagina and the bladder (*Le Quotidien du Médecin*; *Pourquoi Docteur*, 21 July 2013). 4. **Failed treatment.** Several operations between 1983 and 1988 aimed at removing the sources of the crises had no effect. *Le Quotidien du Médecin* reports that phentolamine was the only treatment that controlled the attacks. 5. **The choice of Lourdes.** Her husband, a physician (described by *Aleteia* as a gynecologist of Iranian origin living in Italy), intended to take her to the Mayo Clinic as her condition worsened. She asked to be taken to Lourdes instead, and the couple went in May 1989 (Independent Catholic News). 6. **The baths.** She reported that on 4 May 1989, as she came out of one of the sanctuary's baths, she felt "an extraordinary sense of well-being" (*Le Quotidien du Médecin*). In her later testimony she said simply, "In the baths, I was healed" (*Aleteia*, 2016). She has said her husband, waiting outside, sensed the change too. 7. **Afterward.** The crises did not return. She returned to Lourdes months later for medical examinations (*Aleteia*). In 2013 she still lived with the after-effects of the partial pancreatectomy (*Le Quotidien du Médecin*). She served the sick as a volunteer with UNITALSI, the Italian association that brings the sick to Lourdes, and she died on 9 October 2016, aged 70; her funeral was held in Pavia on 11 October (*Avvenire*, October 2016). ## Witnesses + documentation - **Danila Castelli**, the patient: her declaration to the Lourdes Medical Bureau in 1989, and public testimony, including at a press conference at the Bureau on 23 September 2013 (*Avvenire*, 24 September 2013). - **Her husband**, a physician, with her on the pilgrimage. He is not named in the published accounts. - **The Lourdes Medical Bureau** (Bureau des Constatations Médicales): sessions in 1989, 1992, 1994, 1997 and 2010, ending in a formal unanimous vote. **Dr. Alessandro de Franciscis** was its president when the case was concluded. - **The International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL)**: met in Paris on 19 November 2011 and certified the cure unexplained. - **Dr. Federico Baiocco**, head of the UNITALSI physicians and a member of the commission, who described the transfer of the file to the Church after the medical phase (*Avvenire*, 2013). - **Bishop Giovanni Giudici** of Pavia: formal canonical recognition, 20 June 2013. - **Father Horacio Brito**, then rector of the Sanctuary of Lourdes, who spoke at the 2013 presentation. - **Joël Luzenko**, communications officer of the sanctuary, who explained that the recognition was announced only on the sanctuary website on 19 July 2013, because the sanctuary had just been flooded (*Le Quotidien du Médecin*). - **Published record:** - Dr. Lydia Archimède, "Une 69e guérison miraculeuse annoncée à Lourdes," *Le Quotidien du Médecin*, 22 July 2013. - "Lourdes : une Italienne reconnue guérie de ses crises d'hypertension," *Pourquoi Docteur*, 21 July 2013, citing the sanctuary's website. - Géraldine Zamansky, "Lourdes annonce sa 69e guérison miraculeuse," *Allo Docteurs*, 23 July 2013. - Sarah Mac Donald, "Another Lourdes miracle recognised," Independent Catholic News, republished by CatholicIreland.net, 22 July 2013. - Laura Badaracchi, "Ecco come il Signore mi ha guarita a Lourdes," *Avvenire*, 24 September 2013. - Ary Waldir Ramos Diaz, "Lourdes Miracle Reveals Merciful God," *Aleteia*, 12 January 2016. - "Storia di Danila, miracolata a Lourdes," *Avvenire*, October 2016. ## Verification **What was checked:** 1. **A documented illness.** The diagnosis rests on a specific test, a 1983 scintigraphy, and on a surgical history of several operations between 1982 and 1988, reported in a French medical newspaper. 2. **Long follow-up.** The Bureau examined her five times over twenty-one years (1989 to 2010) before voting. A cure that lasted two decades cannot be a short remission. 3. **Exclusion of treatment.** The Bureau's finding states that the cure was unrelated to her operations and treatments. The last operations had failed to stop the crises before the pilgrimage. 4. **Two independent votes.** The Bureau's vote was unanimous, and the CMIL, a separate international committee of specialists, then judged the manner of the cure unexplained in 2011. **Naturalistic explanations considered:** - **Misdiagnosis.** The strongest natural explanation is that the crises had another cause and the scan finding was mistaken. Clinicians do recognize paroxysmal hypertension without any tumour, sometimes called pseudopheochromocytoma, and attacks of that kind can be linked to stress. Against it, the 1983 scintigraphy located a specific mass, and the crises had resisted years of surgery and treatment. The full Bureau file, which would show what the specialists made of this, is not public. - **A delayed effect of surgery.** A late result of one of the earlier operations would be a natural cause. The Bureau, which had the surgical records, specifically found the cure unrelated to surgery and treatment. - **The emotional dimension.** By her own account she asked at Lourdes also for the ability to forgive the doctors who, she felt, had nearly brought her to the end of her life, and for peace for her husband (*Allo Docteurs*). A skeptic may suggest that relief of long-held anger ended stress-driven attacks. That would not explain the disappearance of a tumour, if the 1983 diagnosis was correct, and the published reports do not say what later imaging showed. **Caveats and remaining uncertainties:** - **The published reports are summaries.** None of the sources reviewed here prints the Bureau's or the CMIL's report, the follow-up imaging, or the catecholamine measurements. - **No independent skeptical analysis was found.** A search turned up no published critique of this case, but also no independent medical reanalysis. The case rests on the Lourdes process itself. ## Tensions The published accounts conflict on several points. They are recorded here, attributed, without choosing a winner. - **The diagnosis.** *Le Quotidien du Médecin* and *Pourquoi Docteur* report a pheochromocytoma confirmed by a 1983 scintigraphy. *Allo Docteurs* presents it as the last of three successive explanations, after a fibrous mass and a pancreatic abnormality. The 2016 *Avvenire* obituary says only that she was diagnosed with "a tumour" in 1982. - **When the file was opened.** *Le Quotidien du Médecin* says the Bureau opened her file in October 1989, two months after her declaration. *Allo Docteurs* says the Bureau opened its examination on 1 October 2009. Most accounts list Bureau sessions from 1989 onward. - **Why she went to Lourdes.** Independent Catholic News says she asked to go to Lourdes instead of the Mayo Clinic as her condition worsened. The 2013 *Avvenire* report says she went at her spiritual director's suggestion and was not seeking a physical cure. *Allo Docteurs* says she asked for three graces, the healing of her body among them, together with the ability to forgive her doctors and peace for her husband. - **How grave her state was.** The 2013 *Avvenire* report calls her terminally ill at the time of the pilgrimage, and the 2016 obituary says doctors had concluded there was no hope. Independent Catholic News says only that her condition was worsening and that a Mayo Clinic visit was planned. - **The count of years.** *Allo Docteurs* speaks of eight years of crises; *Aleteia* of seven years of surgery and treatment; onset in 1980 and the cure in 1989 make nine years from the first crisis. ## Apologetic value - **A long, cautious process.** Twenty-one years of follow-up, five Bureau sessions, a unanimous Bureau vote and a separate international verdict before any bishop spoke. That record answers the charge that Lourdes declares miracles quickly. - **After medicine had been tried.** Unlike cures where treatment might have worked, this one followed six years of failed operations. The Bureau found the cure unrelated to them. - **Small numbers.** *Le Quotidien du Médecin* reported about 7,000 cures recorded at Lourdes since 1858 and only 69 recognized as miraculous by 2013. The filter is strict, which strengthens the cases that pass it. - **The biblical pattern.** The case echoes the woman in the Gospel who "had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse" ([Mark 5:26](/codex/mark-5-26/), ASV), and was healed when she reached out in faith ([Mark 5:28-29](/codex/mark-5-28-29/)). - **How to deploy it.** Lead with the documented facts: the 1983 scan, the failed operations, the twenty-one years without a crisis, and the unanimous finding that the cure was unrelated to treatment. Concede openly that the published reports disagree on details and that the full medical file is not public. Remember that the recognition is Catholic and is attributed to the intercession of Mary at Lourdes; for a Protestant audience, present the medical facts and the answered prayer, and let the audience weigh the setting. She herself said the greater healing was the return of a heart able to forgive. ## See also - [Miracles](/codex/miracles/), master hub - _schema, the vetting standard this entry follows - [Lourdes Medical Bureau](/codex/lourdes-medical-bureau/), the body that investigated the case, and the CMIL above it - [Bernadette Soubirous](/codex/bernadette-soubirous/), the visionary of Lourdes - [Antonietta Raco (Lourdes 2009)](/codex/antonietta-raco-lourdes-2009/), the 72nd Lourdes miracle, another Italian cure followed for many years before recognition - [Edeltraud Fulda (Lourdes 1950)](/codex/edeltraud-fulda-lourdes-1950/), a recognized Lourdes cure of an endocrine disease, Addison's disease - [Jean-Pierre Bely (Lourdes 1987)](/codex/jean-pierre-bely-lourdes-1987/), a recognized Lourdes cure from the same years - [Argument from Miracles](/codex/argument-from-miracles/), the argument this case supports - [David Hume](/codex/david-hume/), whose standard for credible miracle testimony this case presses on - [Naturalism](/codex/naturalism/), the worldview such cases press against
## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is the 69th Lourdes miracle?** It is the cure of Danila Castelli, an Italian woman who had suffered for years from severe attacks of high blood pressure traced to a pheochromocytoma. After bathing at Lourdes on 4 May 1989 the attacks stopped. The International Medical Committee of Lourdes judged the cure unexplained in 2011, and Bishop Giovanni Giudici of Pavia recognized it as a miracle on 20 June 2013. **Q: What illness did Danila Castelli have?** From 1980 she had sudden, severe hypertensive crises. A 1983 scintigraphy attributed them to a pheochromocytoma, a tumour that releases stress hormones, located between the rectum, bladder and vagina. Several operations, including a hysterectomy and a partial removal of the pancreas, failed to stop the attacks. Some reports describe the diagnosis only as "a tumour". **Q: How was the Castelli healing investigated?** The Lourdes Medical Bureau examined her in 1989, 1992, 1994, 1997 and 2010 and found by unanimous vote that she was cured completely and lastingly, without relation to her surgery or treatment. The International Medical Committee of Lourdes then met in Paris on 19 November 2011 and certified that the cure remained unexplained by current scientific knowledge. **Q: Why was the 69th Lourdes miracle announced late?** Bishop Giudici signed his declaration on 20 June 2013, but the sanctuary announced it only on its website on 19 July 2013. Its spokesman said the sanctuary had just been flooded and was in no position to make a formal announcement. **Q: Could the Castelli cure have a natural explanation?** The main possibilities are a mistaken diagnosis or a delayed effect of her earlier operations. The Lourdes Medical Bureau, which had her records, found the cure unrelated to treatment, and she remained free of crises for more than twenty years. The full medical file has not been published, so outside specialists cannot review it.