A 19th-century Italian priest was named a saint Sunday because of the miraculous recovery from extreme brain injury of a man in suburban Philadelphia.
Pope Benedict XVI approved the canonization Sunday of the Rev. Luigi Guanella, a priest known for championing the poor and disabled in the 1800s.
Rev. Guanella’s sainthood came about after testimony and evidence of the incredible healing of 21-year-old William “Billy” Glisson Jr. was presented to Roman Catholic Church officials. Glisson suffered catastrophic brain injury after rollerblading in Delaware County in 2002 and while doctors expected the Edgmont man to live the rest of his days in a coma, Glisson’s family prayed to Rev. Guanella for divine intervention.
Glisson was comatose in intensive care when a family friend slipped his mother two bone fragments belonging to the Rev. Luigi Guanella.
One shard was placed in Glisson's hospital bracelet, the other in his mother's pocket. After two weeks of praying, Glisson woke up.
Perhaps just as miraculous as Glisson’s recovery was the fact that the brain surgeon who treated him humbly gave the credit to a higher power. Dr. Richard Buonocore of Newtown Square, the neurosurgeon who operated on the 21-year-old at Crozer Chester Medical Center, testified to Catholic officials about the miracle.
"I put it this way: Throughout the whole process there was divine intervention," Buonocore told the Daily News Sunday.
"There was nothing else I could do," the surgeon told the newspaper. "I had more than exhausted my ability for surgical intervention. I thought he was going to be in a persistent vegetative state and wouldn't wake up."
Glisson, now 30 years old, is married and living a normal life. He attended the Mass on Sunday where Pope Benedict XVI canonized Guanella.
"You can't really make any sense but to call what happened to me a miracle," Glisson, of Edgmont, told the Inquirer last week.
