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Do you believe in miracles?

Annapolis woman claims cancer cured by prayers to 19th-century priest

By LIAM FARRELL, Staff Writer

Published 05/24/09

An Annapolis woman could hold the key to sainthood for a 19th-century priest with local connections.

Liam Farrell — The Capital Mary Heibel, 71, believes her prayers to the Blessed Francis Zavier Seelos, a priest who served St. Mary's Church in the 1860s, helped heal her cancer.

Mary Ellen Heibel, a parishioner at St. Mary's Church, claims her metastasized esophageal cancer was healed after praying to the Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, a German-born priest who served as St. Mary's pastor in the 1860s.

Heibel, 71 and a devout Catholic, has been cancer-free since January 2005, even though the disease had spread to her liver, lungs, back and sternum, and medical treatment had failed.

"What else could have happened … if it isn't a miracle?" she asked.

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Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. +4

Miracles - 2009-05-27 11:24:28

After losing my mother to cancer all I can say is God Bless her!! A person battling Cancer or any other disease needs to use whatever gives them Hope and Strength for the battle.

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Michelle B. - Edgewater, MD - Karma: Neutral

Reading my last post - 2009-05-26 21:51:27

I should get -400 points for posting without proofreading. Horrible.

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T. H. - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Neutral

Karma Cameleon - 2009-05-26 21:24:37

Here is why the karma system is brilliant. Although the staff of The Capital are totally within their rights to remove comments from a private Web site, it would be embarrassing for a newspaper, whose existence is based on the First Amendment, to do so. Therefore, they put the onus on the PARTICIPANTS, as if this was on online village policing themselves. By doing so, they can defend themselves against cries of censorship. However, by doing so, they are violating the spirit of the First Amendment (which, again, isn't technically a right on a private Web site) which protects speech, no matter how unpopular. So people who come to the debate late will not see the comments of those who deviate from the norm. Why? Because their comments are beaten down and hidden so as not to offend the masses, even if they are not being abusive. All that is required for this to happen is that their IDEAS are not in step with other and they must then be silenced. By the way, the whole "you can unhide the comments" argument is weak and weaselly. The karma system is pathetic. If you are that easily offended by words, rather than vote someone down, just stay off the comments. Because if you can't handle someone with different ideas than yours, then you're conviction probably isn't too deep.

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T. H. - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Neutral

karma? - 2009-05-26 20:35:56

What idiot set up this page? If enough people don't like a comment it disappears? Whatever happened to a free exchange of ideas? Do ideas become less worthy of being heard simply because they are unpopular?

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William Cooke - Baltimore, MD - Karma: Neutral

Haha this is Hilarious - 2009-05-26 19:50:28

I don't really know if this is rude, but look, if "Intense radiation and chemotherapy" were not conducted, then "God" helped her. "God" is also known as the placebo affect. If she had no chemotherapy, she'd be dead okay? Or rather she would be lucky to be alive. Please, look back at the Elizabethan Era at the Plagues that went down. 99 percent of those people prayed and no medical practices (science) was not developed. Some fought off the infection, but that's where the placebo effect comes in. These people were most likely more healthy and strong believers, thus making the brain believe the body could heal. "Intense radiation and chemotherapy followed, and a priest who had converted one of John's classmates eventually encouraged the couple to pray to Seelos." Are people still this superstitious? And I wonder how many will rate my comment thumbs down though I'm using my brain here...

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Vasili P. - Annapolis, Md - Karma: Bad

Miracle, probably not - 2009-05-24 11:08:37

"Intense radiation and chemotherapy followed" then she prayed to Seelos. The sequence of events that lead to her remission makes any claims of a miracle suspect at best. but if her experience makes her happy and offers hope to others with terminal cancers so be it.

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reggie schmoenberg - annapolis, md - Karma: Neutral

Miracles - 2009-05-24 09:29:12

Good for you Mary Ellen! I believe that the mind has a huge part in healing. If one truely believes and has possitive feedback the body can heal itself. It has been done for thousands of years. I have seen this in person, years ago when I was working in a hospital caring for a young girl with bone cancer that was at a point that there was nothing that could be done medically and she was just waiting for her body to shut down, the parents had the preists from their parish and some church members come to the hospital to pray over the child and with the family. They were there for four days for hours at a time. They prayed, they played the kid's favorite music, talked of good times, and just tried to keep a positive thoughts going. We on the nursing staff were invited to participate and when we administered any treatments, we said a little prayer no matter what religion we were. After days the patient showed remarkable improvement, she was sitting up, not in pain when touched and in great spirits. She was released from the hospital and within 6 months she was back at school and cancer free. People need to get back to the basics of truely believing in a higher spirit no matter what religious beliefs you have. The power of possitive thinking can be overwhelming. We have too much noise, confussion and negativity surrounding us every day in our culture. Take time to enjoy life and what it has to offer you.

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K. Wallach - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Neutral

maybe - 2009-05-24 08:05:32

Maybe this is a miracle, but more likely the cancer went away on its own (or perhaps was never really there) and we don't know why yet. Reports of tumors disappearing are common in other religions as well. See [link]. What is the devout Catholic to make of that? Perhaps God works through all religions or maybe he isn't working through any of them. Maybe he doesn't exist. No one can be sure.

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William Cooke - Baltimore, MD - Karma: Neutral