Nhá Chica of Baependi
Francisca de Paula de Jesus, called Nhá Chica, the daughter of an enslaved woman, lived as a lay devotee in Baependi, Minas Gerais, and was sought out for prayers and counsel until her death in 1895. She was beatified in Baependi on 4 May 2013.
1895 CE · -21.96, -44.89 · status: official
The account
The Church accepted the cure of a teacher's congenital heart condition as the miracle for her beatification.
The sceptical view
Church miracle commissions judge cures 'unexplained' by medicine of the time, which is not the same as impossible.
The researched reading
A real recovery examined by doctors, chosen from many to support a beatification. Natural variation in the condition explains most of it, and a modest share stays open.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | Congenital heart defects and the pulmonary hypertension linked to them can vary, be overestimated or change between tests. Small defects sometimes close or are re-read on later imaging. A heart problem that seems to disappear before surgery is unusual, but it does happen. |
| A cultural story | 25% | A beatification needs one approved miracle, so the cause looked for the most striking recovery among many prayers. The selection itself makes a cure look improbable. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 16% | A documented resolution confirmed by repeated tests is what remains once ordinary explanations are applied, but no outside panel has published the files. |
| Undetermined | 15% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 2% | A structural heart condition is not changed by belief. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 2% | The medical tests were reviewed by Church-appointed doctors; no sign of fabrication. |
Official position: The Holy See accepted the cure of Ana Lúcia Meirelles Leite as a miracle, and Nhá Chica was beatified in 2013.
Connections in the atlas
- Saint Paulina of Nova Trento
- Padre Reus, the stigmatic Jesuit of São Leopoldo
- Frei Galvão and his paper pills