From Mr J. Azzopardi
The so-called miracles attributed to Gorg Preca have simply helped demonstrate the outrageous solipsism of religious fanatics.
The daughters of the high priest Anius (son of Apollo and Rhoeo) changed whatever they chose into wheat, wine or oil. Athalida (daughter of Mercury) was resuscitated several times. Aesculapius resuscitated Hippolytus. Hercules brought Alcestis back from the dead. Heres returned to the world after spending a fortnight in hell. The parents of Romulus and Remus were a god and the vestal virgin Rhea Sylvia. The demigod Perseus was born when the god Jupiter visited the virgin Danaë as a shower of gold and got her with child. The virgin daughter of a Mongol king awoke one night and found herself bathed in a great light, which caused her to give birth to Genghis Khan. Krishna was born of the virgin Devaka. Horus was born of the virgin Isis. Mercury was born of the virgin Maia. These incredible prodigies are straight out of Greek, Roman, and Eastern mythology. They bear an uncanny resemblance to solipsistic claims of the three main competing monotheistic religions. If no credence is to be allowed to the mythological writings then, equally, a claim for truth by the monotheistic religions cannot stand, particularly as each of them vie for the final truth.
Let believers believe what makes them happy, but equally allow non-believers to be. Faith is a private matter and should not be rammed down the throats of the general public. Having said this, it is pertinent to recount a claimed divine intervention that helped Mother Teresa’s beatification cause and to see the similarity with the Gorg Preca miracles.
On the first anniversary of her death, two nuns in the Bengali village of Raigunj claim to have strapped a medal belonging to Mother Teresa to the abdomen of a woman named Monica Besra. This woman, who was said to be suffering from a large uterine tumour, was cured of it. Dr Manju Murshed, the superintendent of the local hospital, Dr T. K. Biswas and gynaecologist Dr Ranjan Mustafi categorically affirmed that no miraculous cure was involved but that they had treated the patient for tuberculosis and an ovarian growth and that the medical intervention had been successful. Moreover, Dr Murshed confessed he had received numerous calls from Mother Teresa’s order pressing him to say that the cure had been miraculous. The patient herself was not very convincing when interviewed, but her husband Selku Murmu broke the silence and confirmed that his wife had been cured with ordinary medical treatment.
If this is the best the church can do in modern times when claims can be checked by physicians and investigators, it is not difficult to imagine what was rigged up in times of ignorance and fear, when the clergy faced less doubt and opposition. Cures may sometimes have no natural explanation, but it does not follow that there is therefore a supernatural one.
John Azzopardi
BIDNIJA