c. 2005 Religion News Service

SYRACUSE, N.Y. _ In the drama that has been Kate Mahoney’s life, there’s one chapter she doesn’t remember at all.

That’s the three months she spent in Crouse Hospital, including six weeks in intensive care, after her liver, kidneys and lungs stopped working in December 1992. Now 27, the aspiring actress’s unlikely recovery 13 years ago cast her in a role that will forever link her with a former Syracuse nun who could be named a saint.

A papal decree says Kate was healed because people prayed to Blessed Mother Marianne, who died in 1918.

According to the Roman Catholic Church, Kate’s recovery is a miracle: a divine act with no scientific explanation. But Kate considers her role no more than a bit part in the story of Mother Marianne, a Franciscan who ministered to leprosy patients in the 19th century.

This is the first time Kate’s role in the story of Mother Marianne has been revealed publicly. It is also the first time Kate _ in an interview with The Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. _ has publicly told her story. It offers a unique window into an official “miracle” that could become evidence of sainthood. The Catholic Church requires at least two posthumous miracles for canonization, which declares one a saint.

“There’s nothing miraculous about me,” said Kate, now 27. “I’m just the vehicle. I have no special power or authority. I have nothing but gratitude.”

Her story opened June 4, 1978, when Katherine Dehlia Mahoney was born two months early. Her parents, who are Central New York natives, were then living in Washington, D.C. John and Mary Mahoney called their daughter Kate, after the feisty, independent character in William Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.”

One day in June 1992, Kate, an outgoing, high-energy Syracuse teenager, didn’t feel well.

“I couldn’t keep any food down,” she recalled. “I had abdominal pain. It was 90 degrees out and I had on a turtleneck. My father knew something was wrong.”

At age 14, she was diagnosed with germ cell ovarian cancer.

Surgeons at Crouse removed a basketball-sized malignant tumor from her abdomen and she underwent the first of what were expected to be six inpatient chemotherapy treatments.

On Dec. 10, 1992, Kate went into cardiac arrest during a procedure at Crouse to remove fluid from her abdomen, a condition that was a reaction to the drugs she was taking for cancer treatment, said the Mahoneys and Dr. Russ Acevedo, one of the doctors who treated Kate.

Doctors revived her after about 25 minutes, and she was moved to the intensive care unit. Her organs had begun to fail.

“We knew that every breath could be the last,” said Mary Mahoney. “I remember thinking, `If she needs to go, she needs to go. If that’s the will of God, it’s the will of God.”’

On Jan. 3, 1993, about halfway through Kate’s stay in the ICU, Sister Mary Laurence Hanley visited Kate for the first time and prayed for Mother Marianne to intercede with God on Kate’s behalf.

“Her poor condition was appalling to me,” said Hanley. “I never have seen anyone this ill anywhere at any time.”

Hanley posted a prayer request in the Franciscan residence on Syracuse’s North Side. A man in Utica, N.Y., where Mother Marianne grew up, encouraged prayers. During morning announcements at Kate’s school, students were asked to pray for Mother Marianne’s aid for their schoolmate. Kate’s name appeared on local prayer lists.

By the second week of January 1993, Kate’s organs began to recover, Acevedo said, and doctors withdrew the drug that had kept her asleep for more than two months.

It’s just as well that Kate was unaware of what was happening then, her parents said.

“I will hear the machines until the day I draw my last breath,” John Mahoney said. He imitated the instruments that helped his daughter breathe, stay hydrated and receive nutrition: “Poof, paboom, sheesh, sheesh.”

On Jan. 22, 1993, Kate was awakened and her breathing tube removed, Acevedo said. Two days later, she was moved from intensive care to the progressive care unit. On March 4, she was moved to a regular medical/surgical floor, and two weeks later, she was released from the hospital.

Kate matter-of-factly recounts memories of the nearly two-year outpatient rehabilitation. She had to retrain all her muscles and relearn how to walk and talk.

“It was like baby steps,” she said. “`See that pen. Pick it up.”’

With her parents cheering her, she worked hard. She joined the school choir, though her voice was so weak no words came out when she sang. She joined the soccer team, though she lacked strength in her lungs and her legs.

Meanwhile, Sister Mary Laurence Hanley was gathering paperwork to initiate a church inquiry of a miracle. The Mahoneys said they consented to her request to release medical records in early 1994. Acevedo, contacted about the same time, said that was the first he had heard of the church aspect of the case.

By 1998, Bishop James Moynihan, who had twice talked to the late Pope John Paul II about Mother Marianne’s cause, formally opened the church inquiry. A committee called a Diocesan Tribunal, made up of three local priests, a doctor and a lay person, met 20 times. They interviewed at least 15 people, including four doctors, and gathered 1,702 pages of evidence.

Kate graduated from high school in 1996 and attended Washington College in Chestertown, Md., where she majored in drama.

Her health is fine. She’s been cancer-free for more than 10 years.

“I’m great. Everything’s clear,” she said.

She met with the tribunal for about 15 minutes in 1998.

“They asked, `Do you think this is a miracle?’ I said, `Well, yes, because I’m here.”’

The tribunal agreed, sending its report to the Vatican, where it was unanimously approved by the groups of theologians, doctors and clergy who reviewed it. Less than six months before he died, Pope John Paul II signed a document decreeing that God had worked a miracle through Mother Marianne’s intercession.

The church’s affirmation of the powerful energy behind Kate’s recovery reinforced the Mahoneys’ belief that a miracle occurred.

“We never used those words because she wanted to be normal,” Mary Mahoney said. “We knew in our hearts what it was.”

The credit, Kate insists, belongs to Mother Marianne.

“It’s my responsibility to acknowledge her great works,” she said. “If that’s my only piece of this, so be it.”

MO/RB END RNS

(Renee K. Gadoua covers religion for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y.)

Editors: To obtain photos of Kate Mahoney, including some of Mahoney in front of Blessed Mother Marianne’s casket, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.