Boca priest may hold key to sainthood for cleric
A Boca Raton priest’s stunning recovery from a deadly skin cancer could become the case that clinches sainthood for a fellow Catholic cleric killed by the Nazis during World War II.
The murdered cleric, Titus Brandsma, was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1985, a step that must be taken before he can be elevated to sainthood. A miracle that can be verified by panels of Catholic experts must be attributed to Brandsma before he can become a saint, and the Rev. Michael Driscoll thinks his unexplainable cure qualifies.
An investigative committee for the Diocese of Palm Beach spent almost a year and a half checking out Driscoll’s claims and sent its findings to the Vatican last month. It could take months or even years before Rome makes a decision on Brandsma, diocese spokeswoman Dianne Laubert said.
But whatever the Vatican decides, Driscoll, 76, said he is convinced it was the intervention of Brandsma, an outspoken Dutch priest and fellow Carmelite killed in the Dachau concentration
camp, that saved him.
“He was a brave, bold Dutchman who advocated for the Catholic Church, for freedom of the press, for schools, for an end to the persecution of the Jews,” Driscoll said. “He was a hero.”
The Catholic Church has more than 10,000 saints, who Catholics believe can intervene with God to aid people. Pope Francis, who became the church’s leader in 2013, has canonized 42 people, or made them into saints after their deaths, and beatified 84, the step before sainthood.
The Rev. Mario Esposito, a Carmelite priest from New York who is promoting the cause of Brandsma’s sainthood, said he knows of no other miracles attributed to Brandsma that are being investigated.
“We hope this could be the one, but there are very exacting standards, and Rome is going to go over this case with a finetoothed comb,” he said.
Driscoll said he has developed a special connection to Brandsma over the decades, cultivating his own outspoken voice for Catholic causes, including speaking against abortion and in favor of immigrant rights.
When Driscoll contracted advanced skin cancer in 2004, a fellow priest gave him a relic of Brandsma’s habit — a tiny piece of black cloth — which he applied to his head each day as he prayed to the martyred Carmelite. The Diocese of Palm Beach also asked its parishioners to pray to Brandsma for Driscoll’s recovery.
Driscoll, a gregarious native of the Bronx and the son of Irish immigrants, began the path to priesthood as a teen, enrolling at 14 in a high school seminary in Middletown, N.Y.
Parishioners say his face resembles the “map of Ireland,” with its fair skin, blue-green eyes and rosy cheeks. His face has also been the site of numerous cancer scares. The skin is filled with spots and scars from biopsies and surgeries.
As a boy, he spent many summers in the sun with his family on the beaches of Rockaway and Belle Harbor, N.Y., and is now paying the price, he says.
“I got it all as a teenager,” Driscoll said.
During the most serious cancer, in 2004, doctors extracted an advanced metastatic melanoma from his head that had spread into his neck. They also removed 84 lymph nodes and a salivary gland and took a graft from his thigh to replace the lost skin above his right-side forehead. The surgery was followed by 35 days of radiation.
Driscoll’s cancer, Stage 4 melanoma, has a five-year survival rate of only 15 percent to 20 percent, and at 10 years, the rate falls to 10 percent to 15 percent, according to Dr. Adam Friedman, associate professor of dermatology at George Washington School of Medicine and spokesman for the American Academy of Dermatology.
Driscoll has withstood these odds. Fourteen years after his surgery and radiation, he has no further signs of the advanced melanoma.
“It appears there is no medical explanation for his cure,” Esposito said.
The Diocese of Palm Beach’s investigation included interviews with 12 parishioners, five doctors and two priests. It was the first such inquiry performed under Bishop Gerald Barbarito, who began leading the diocese in 2003.
Dr. Anthony Dardano, associate dean of Florida Atlantic University’s medical school and a parishioner, is another believer in Driscoll’s cure.
“It’s a miracle he survived this,” said Dardano, who served on the diocese’s inquiry panel and prepared a final medical summary that was sent to Rome. “His cancer is usually fatal. Is there a scientific explanation for why he’s alive? No.”
As the diocese waits for an answer from the Vatican, Driscoll continues his work in retirement. He still serves Mass at St. Jude and St. Joan of Arc churches and presides at funerals, including six burials of parishioners who died of melanoma. His next dermatologist visit has not yet been scheduled.
He said he doesn’t fear the appointments. He recites the same prayer whenever the doctor is concerned about a new mark on his face. It begins: “Titus, here we go again.”
lsolomon@sunsentinel.com