Miracles outside the Catholic Church

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I one time heard someone say (or maybe I read it?) that there have only been miracles within the Catholic Church. It was being mentioned as part of the proof of the Catholic Church as the one true church. Does anyone know if that seems to be true? Have there been miracles (serious ones like Fatima or Lourdes, not tortillas) outside the Catholic Church?
 
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Lrning:
I one time heard someone say (or maybe I read it?) that there have only been miracles within the Catholic Church. It was being mentioned as part of the proof of the Catholic Church as the one true church. Does anyone know if that seems to be true? Have there been miracles (serious ones like Fatima or Lourdes, not tortillas) outside the Catholic Church?
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You would be hard-pressed to find one that can be documented or proven, outside of the church. At least at Lourdes, there is much valid medical evidence to support the healings that have been declared by the church as miraculous. Ernest Ainsley (is that spelled correctly?) has no valid evidence whatsoever.

Technically speaking, though, the answer can be confusing. If someone performed a miracle, it is the spirit performing the miracle through that person, not the individual of his/her own innate ability. If the spirit will use such a person as a lens to focus its miraculous light through, then that person cannot be considered “outside of the church” even if they are not Catholic; since the spirit would not perform miracles through someone who is either a heretic, or in opposition to the unity of the apostolic church.

This falls in line with the biblical event of the disciples of Jesus trying to prevent a man, who was not of their numbers, from casting out demons in the Lord’s name. “Do not prevent him, for he who is not against us, is for us.”

Thal59
 
In a discussion with an atheist, I refered to the bodies of saints found incorruptible as physical evidence of the Catholic Church’s spiritual authenticity.

He came back with the story of a black man killed in the civil rights movement who, when his body was exhumed for some reason, was found with his body incorruptible as well. He said that incorruptibility might not be a miracle after all, but some misunderstood physical phenomenon.

Anyhow, I checked on the internet if there was some truth to his story, and, sure enough, he was right.

I’m sorry, but I can’t remember the deceased man’s name.
 
I think even one of the Popes said that incorruptibility could be a deception of Satan. That’s why it’s only a part of the process of canonization, and then it’s a maybe. Many saints were not incorruptible.
 
forteantimes.com/articles/159_saintspreserved.shtml

The Catholic authorities are right to be cautious in equating incorruptibility with holiness; a case in point concerns the body of Cardinal Shuster (1880–1954), a former archbishop of Milan, which was discovered to be incorrupt after 31 years in the grave. The 1985 exhumation caused some embarrassment as the cardinal was anything but a saint; he was a friend of Mussolini and supported fascism and Italy’s war with Abyssinia. Nor does the phenomenon of incorrupt bodies necessarily prove the claims of Catholicism. When the famous yogi Paramahansa Yogananda died in California, in 1952, his unembalmed body had not decayed and was said to emit a beautiful fragrance. Perhaps there are many incorrupt bodies of holy Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, but we’ll never know because these religions don’t have the unusual custom of digging up their suspected saints. [Editor’s note: There are, however, several incorrupt bodies of Buddhist monks which are preserved as objects of veneration. See **FT78:9, 157:23].
 
I don’t want to stray off the OP but I did want to ask a question. How often does the Catholic Church dig up the bodies of suspected saints? Take for example, Padre Pio … has he already been dug up? Are the results made known to the general public?

As far as miracles in other religions, Talitha had a good question:

What do you mean by miracles? Miracles happen everyday but there are miracles (I made it out of the house on time) and then there are MIRACLES - ie Lourdes.
 
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MaryD7:
What do you mean by miracles? Miracles happen everyday but there are miracles (I made it out of the house on time) and then there are MIRACLES - ie Lourdes.
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I was thinking MIRACLES, on the order of Lourdes… miracles that have become very public, not the private miracles that happen everyday.
 
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Talitha:
Please, define " miracles".

Thank you
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Rather than go to Webster’s dictionary, a miracle can be looked upon as an action or an event that, under the normal laws of physics and science, is an impossibility. This infers that a divine force, whose powers are independent of and superior to the laws of science, effected the event.

For instance, lets say a person has a form of cancer that is not only drawing the person near to death, but has been x-rayed to show that large portions of the tissues of the effected organ/organs has been eaten away. While it is rarely possible that the cancer may suddenly and unexplainably go into remission, there is no medical or scientific explanation as to why the miraculously healed person would suddenly have new healthy tissue where the original tissue was missing.

Thal59
 
The Catholic Dictionary defines a miracle as
“A sensibly perceptable effect, surpassing at least the powers of visible nature, produced by God to witness to some truth or testify to someone’s sanctity.”
 
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, in the context of biblical miracles and rational explanations.

Recently there was an article in the news where a scientist argued that Jesus could have been walking on floating blocks of ice when the bible recorded him as walking on water. The science of it all followed, with stipulations that it was an extremely unlikely (1 in 1000) event, and such. The general christian response was skepticism and derision, and I have to admit it sounds like a stretch to me.

On the other hand, I’m curious about why there is this seeming ‘demand’ for a certain amount of mystery in a miracle. A friend of mine who’s into physical sciences told me that (and those experienced with this, feel free to verify the claim) in some physics classes, students are told to calculate the odds of their bodies’ particles spontaneously disassembling then reassembling on the other side of a brick wall, in order. The odds are unbelievably low - but the key is, the value is greater than zero. If it happened, even if it’s materially explainable, would it be miraculous?

The real point, for me, is more confusing. We live in a world that both conforms to basic, essential laws, yet there is the potential (however remote) for the truly bizarre and unthinkable to occur materially - not ‘magic’, and not defying reality. But once you admit that there’s an extraodinarily small chance - yet still a chance - for the physical world to behave in this way and for it to not be magical, what must happen for it to be considered miraculous?
 
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Lrning:
I one time heard someone say (or maybe I read it?) that there have only been miracles within the Catholic Church. It was being mentioned as part of the proof of the Catholic Church as the one true church. Does anyone know if that seems to be true? Have there been miracles (serious ones like Fatima or Lourdes, not tortillas) outside the Catholic Church?
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I have read about miracles occurring in the Eastern Orthodox Church and in the Baptist Church.
 
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Kirane:
in the Baptist Church.
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Such an inistitution does not exist. Baptists are considered an “ecclesial community” but certainly not a church.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
forteantimes.com/articles/159_saintspreserved.shtml

The Catholic authorities are right to be cautious in equating incorruptibility with holiness; a case in point concerns the body of Cardinal Shuster (1880–1954), a former archbishop of Milan, which was discovered to be incorrupt after 31 years in the grave. The 1985 exhumation caused some embarrassment as the cardinal was anything but a saint; he was a friend of Mussolini and supported fascism and Italy’s war with Abyssinia. Nor does the phenomenon of incorrupt bodies necessarily prove the claims of Catholicism. When the famous yogi Paramahansa Yogananda died in California, in 1952, his unembalmed body had not decayed and was said to emit a beautiful fragrance. Perhaps there are many incorrupt bodies of holy Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, but we’ll never know because these religions don’t have the unusual custom of digging up their suspected saints. [Editor’s note: There are, however, several incorrupt bodies of Buddhist monks which are preserved as objects of veneration. See **FT78:9, 157:23].
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Cardinal Schuster (O.S.B.) was beatified in 1996, FWIW: cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=492​

For an irreverent and very funny satirical suggestion that Dubya should be canonised, go to this page
 
This is something I have been thinking of off and on. I live after all in a community where Chatholics are a severe minority. Thus I spend a lot of time with Hindus, my closest friend is a Hindu. I have never heard, though I have looked very closely for anything remotely resembling the miraculous events we have. I include the appearences of our Blessed Lady, of Sister Faustinas visions, of the various documented visions of our saints. Hindus have their holy men who were visonaries, but nothing compared to our saints in terms of visons, teachings and miracles. Still it is better to be cautious …there may be much we have not heard of
 
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undeserving:
This is something I have been thinking of off and on. I live after all in a community where Chatholics are a severe minority. Thus I spend a lot of time with Hindus, my closest friend is a Hindu. I have never heard, though I have looked very closely for anything remotely resembling the miraculous events we have. I include the appearences of our Blessed Lady, of Sister Faustinas visions, of the various documented visions of our saints. Hindus have their holy men who were visonaries, but nothing compared to our saints in terms of visons, teachings and miracles. Still it is better to be cautious …there may be much we have not heard of
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Didn’t the hindus have “The Milk Miracle” about a decade ago, where suddenly all around the world statues of… I forget the exact name, Brahma? The elephant-shaped god? were ‘drinking’ milk. It was a pretty big deal, as it apparently only lasted 24 hours, and there was all kinds of video footage of it. Should be easy to find online.

There were some pretty reasonable explanations for it though, and the fact that the milk didn’t disappear but instead always (I believe) pooled at the feet of the statue was indicative of something else going on. Porous material ‘sucking up’ the milk, people noticing that the milk would only disappear if the spoon was at an angle, etc. But, judge for yourself.
 
Yeah, it didn’t look convincing to me in the videos. Then again, those same videos showed people lined up far and wide to feed the statues, so who knows. I could have been missing something. 🙂
 
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Kirane:
For information about the American Baptist Churches USA please see:
abc-usa.org/
For a comprehensive directory of independent Baptist Church websites:
bn66.com/churches/baptist.html
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I think you are missing the point. There is only one Church and that is the one established by Christ and it is the Catholic Church. Other sects may call themselves churches but they are not!
 
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