Now, Pope Leo XIV—who just made history as the first American and Peruvian to lead the Catholic Church—has officially attributed the miracle to divine intercession, pushing Valera Parra, the once-obscure rural priest, one step closer to sainthood.
“This is the kind of miracle that shakes the soul,” said Rev. Timothy Reilly of the Diocese of Providence. “It’s a blessing for Rhode Island—and for the world.”
The miracle is as remarkable for what it is as for what it isn’t: Valera Parra never visited the U.S., never claimed mystical gifts, and lived an unassuming life until his death in 1889. Yet his name, uttered in desperation in a neonatal unit over a dying child, now echoes in the halls of the Vatican.
And in a twist worthy of cinematic storytelling, the miracle comes just weeks after Leo XIV’s rise to the papacy—an American pope who grew up in Chicago, plays tennis, solves Wordle, and roots for the White Sox.
But his papacy may now be defined by this single decision: the power to name a saint.
Alongside Valera Parra, Pope Leo is also advancing the canonization of Carlos Acutis—a tech-savvy British teen who died in 2007 and cataloged Eucharistic miracles online before passing from leukemia. His body, astonishingly incorrupt, lies in a glass tomb in Assisi.
Faith, it seems, is not dead. It just needed a pulse.