Antonietta declares herself cured after a stay in Lourdes / Reproduction authorized
CV NEWS FEED // The healing of an Italian woman’s multiple debilitating symptoms due to primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) became the 72nd official miracle of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes April 16 when her home diocese, Tursi-Lagonegro, proclaimed that she was miraculously cured.
The sanctuary’s website states that Antonietta Raco’s symptoms began in 2004, when she started experiencing severe migraines, weakness, and difficulty walking. The next year, she started struggling to swallow and speak, leading to her PLS diagnosis in 2006. By the following year, she was partially paralyzed.
In August 2009, she went on a pilgrimage from her home in Basilicata, Italy, to Lourdes, France. When she was immersed in the baths, “she reported feeling an unusual sense of well-being and being able to walk again,” the sanctuary’s website reports. “She did not speak about it until she returned home.”
Despite an appointment afterward confirming her PLS diagnosis, all of her symptoms disappeared. She declared her cure to the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations in July 2010, prompting the sanctuary’s medical bureau to immediately open an investigation.
In 2013, the Neurology Department of the University of Milan confirmed Raco’s diagnosis.
In 2017, the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations met for their final meeting regarding Raco’s healing.
The sanctuary’s website states, “The members of the Bureau who were present collegially observed Antonietta Raco’s cure, qualified as unexplained according to medical knowledge.”
The International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL) voted in November 2024 that Raco was “cured of Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS), in accordance with the 2020 consensus, validated in 2024, in an unexpected, complete, lasting and unexplained manner according to medical knowledge,” and Diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes Bishop Jean-Marc Micas informed Bishop Vincenzo Carmine Orofino of the Diocese of Tursi-Lagonegro of the decision.
On April 16, 2025, the feast of St. Bernadette of Lourdes, Bishop Orofino announced Raco’s miraculous healing.
