Nun credits God, Pope John Paul II for healing

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France -- A French Catholic nun who said her Parkinson's disease disappeared after she prayed to the late Pope John Paul II declined to call her restored health a miracle yesterday.

Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, 46, told journalists she had suffered for four years and was about to quit work as a maternity ward supervisor in this southeastern France city when she suddenly found her hand was calm enough to write clearly again.

Her recovery could be central to a drive to beatify John Paul II, putting him one step away from sainthood. The Catholic Church demands proof of a medically unexplained healing to give that honor and a second such case to declare him a saint.

Sister Simon-Pierre spoke glowingly of the late pontiff as an inspiration because of his own very public suffering from Parkinson's before his death.

"All I can say is that I was ill and now I am healed," said the nun, who walked to and from the news conference with ease.

"It's up to the church to say whether it was a miracle," she said, but she had no doubt about her own interpretation of her recovery. "My healing was the work of God through the intercession of John Paul."

She said she and her fellow nuns had prayed to the pope for her recovery after his death and linked her healing on June 2, 2005, to him. The church teaches that Catholics can pray to the dead to intercede with God to perform a miracle on Earth.

Archbishop Claude Feidt said he would hand over documents on the case to the Vatican on Monday.