Fatima Miracle in Hiroshima, Japan

In the foreground is a photo of the Church of Our Lady's Assumption and up the road the presbytery where the eight German Jesuit priests survived and lived to tell the miracle.

In the final stages of World War II, at about 8:15 AM of August 6, 1945, an American Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber christened Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb in history over Hiroshima in Japan. The atomic blast generated an unimaginable ground heat of 6,000° C (10,832° F) and a tremendous wind at the sonic speed of 4.4 kilometers (2.7 miles) per second. Everything within a two-kilometer (1.2-mile) radius of the hypocenter was annihilated, instantly killing 140,000 people. Concrete buildings collapsed to pieces and broken glass flew as far as 16 kilometers (9.94 miles) away. The atomic radiation generated by the bomb was so unbelievably strong that many of those outside of the range who were exposed to it lost all bodily functions, their cells underwent apoptosis - a kind of cellular suicide, and died within days. Between the blast itself, the resulting fires throughout the city and the radiation burns, some estimate that 200,000 citizens of Hiroshima lost their lives.

Atomic bomb mushroom clouds over Hiroshima

Yet, in the midst of burned bodies, charred skeletons, and structural damage, just eight blocks from ground zero (exactly 1 kilometer or 6/10 of a mile), a two story Catholic presbytery miraculously remained intact with no apparent damage to it whatsoever, not even the windows were broken. When an investigation was made, it was discovered that there survived a community of eight German Jesuit priests who were all found unscathed, with only a few minor injuries.

Father Hubert Shiffer who headed the community was one of those Jesuit priests. He was 30 years old when the atomic bomb exploded at Hiroshima and lived another 33 years in good health to tell the miracle. The same is said of the other seven priests of the community. Aside from some slight surface abrasions or scratches, they all lived out their days in full health with no radiation sickness, no loss of hearing, or any other visible long term defects or cancer from radiation. 

Father Shiffer was thoroughly examined and questioned by more than 200 scientists who were unable to explain how he and his companions had survived the atomic blast. He attributed the miracle to the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He declared: "I was in the middle of the atomic explosion and I am still here alive and well. I was not struck down by its destruction." Furthermore, for several years hundreds of experts and investigators continued to study and investigate the scientific reasons as to why the presbytery house was not affected, and when asked, Father Shiffer remarked each time: "We believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home."

IN 1976, at the Eucharistic Congress held in Philadelphia (USA), Father Shiffer publicly testified and recounted his experiences at Hiroshima. At that time, all eight members of the Jesuit community were still alive. In an interview with Fr. Paul Ruge, he describes the horrific nightmare of August 6, 1945:

"Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunder stroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me 'round and round' like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind."

Fr. Ruge relates that the next thing he remembered was that he opened his eyes and found himself laying on the ground. He looked around and there was NOTHING in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were leveled to the ground. The only physical harm to himself was that he could feel a few pieces of glass in the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong with himself.

According to Dr. Stephen Rinehart, a nuclear physicist with the U.S. Department of Defense who had studied this phenomenon intently, they should have been dead in a flash. In his commentary on the Hiroshima blast he states:

"Their residence should still have been utterly destroyed (temp; 2000 F and air blast pressures; 100 psi). In contrast, unreinforced masonry or brick walls (representative of commercial construction) are destroyed at 3 psi, which will also cause car damage and burst windows. At 10 psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage, burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no residential or unreinforced commercial construction would be left standing. At 80 psi even reinforced concrete is heavily damaged and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350 F (probably at 275 F) and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute breathing air (even for a few seconds) at these temperatures.

"There are no physical laws to explain why the Jesuits were untouched in the Hiroshima air blast. There is no other actual or test data where a structure such as this was not totally destroyed at this standoff distance by an atomic weapon. All who were at this range from the epicenter should have received enough radiation to be dead within at most a matter of minutes if nothing else happened to them. There is no known way to design a uranium-235 atomic bomb, which could leave such a large discrete area intact while destroying everything around it immediately outside the fireball . . .

"From a scientific viewpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at Hiroshima still defies all human logic from the laws of physics as understood today (or at any time in the future). It must be concluded that some other (external) force was present whose power and/or capability to transform energy and matter as it relates to humans is beyond current comprehension."

The Fatima miracle that occurred at Hiroshima is well known and well documented and has been published in various journals since the war, and can be read today on several websites. Yet, to date no one has ever been able to offer any sound scientific explanation for this phenomenon.

Saint Catherine Labouré

This is the incorrupt body of Saint Catherine Labouré entombed in a glass coffin at the side altar of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal often simply called by its address, 140 Rue du Bac in Paris, France.

Catherine was born Zoe Labouré on the evening of May 2, 1806 at Fain-lès-Moutiers, Côte-d'Or, Burgundy, France to farmer, Pierre Labouré and Louise Labouré was the ninth of eleven children. The day after her birth, on the feast of The True Cross, she was baptized Catherine Madeleine Labouré.

From an early age felt a call to the religious life. When Catherine was nine years old, her saintly mother died on October 9, 1815. After the burial service, little Catherine retired to her room, stood on a chair, took our Lady's statue from the wall, kissed it, and said: "Now, dear Lady, you are to be my mother." Her father's sister suggested that she care for his two youngest children, Catherine and Tonine. After he agreed, the sisters moved to their aunt's house at Saint-Rémy, a village nine kilometers from their home.

On January 25, 1818, Catherine made her First Communion. One day she had a dream in which a priest said to her: "My daughter, you may flee me now, but one day you will to come to me. Do not forget that God has plans for you." Sometime later, while visiting a hospital of the Daughters of Charity at Chatillon-sur-Seine, she noticed a priest's picture on the wall. She asked a sister who he might be, and was told: "Our Holy Founder Saint Vincent de Paul." This was the same priest Catherine had seen in the dream. Catherine knew she was in the right place.

St. Catherine Laboure

Later, on January 1830, at the age of 24, Catherine began her postulancy at Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul at Chatillon-sur-Seine. On April 21, 1830, Catherine Labouré entered the novitiate located at their Mother House, in Rue du Bac 140, Paris taking the name Catherine. On the eve of the Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul, July 19, the Sister Superior spoke to the novices about the virtues of their Holy Founder and gave each of the novices a piece of cloth from the holy founder's surplice. Because of her extreme love, Catherine split her piece down the middle, swallowing half and placing the rest in her prayer book. She earnestly prayed to Saint Vincent that she might, with her own eyes, see the Mother of God.

On July 18, 1830, on the eve of the feast of St. Vincent 1830, Catherine woke up after hearing the voice of a "shining child," who she later took to be her Guardian Angel, calling her to the chapel, where she saw and heard the Virgin Mary say to her, "God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace to do what is necessary. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you. Times are evil in France and in the world."

Several months later in the same year, on November 27, 1830, Catherine again saw Our Lady in the chapel during the community evening meditation. The Blessed Virgin Mary shown herself inside an oval frame, standing upon a globe, wearing many rings of different colors, most of which shone rays of light over the globe. Around the margin of the frame appeared the words: "Ô Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous" (O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee). As Catherine watched, the frame seemed to rotate, showing a circle of twelve stars, a large letter "M" surmounted by a cross, and the stylized Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary underneath. Asked why some of her rings did not shed light, Our Lady replied: "Those are the graces for which people forget to ask." Catherine then heard an interior voice spoke, telling her to take these images to her father confessor, Fr. Aladel, a Vincentian priest, to have a medal struck on this model, promising that  "All who wear them will receive great graces."

Click [here] for Our Lady's Messages to Catherine in Rue de Bac.

Catherine did so, and in 1836, after two years of investigation and observation of Catherine's character and behavior, Fr. Aladel took the information to the Archbishop de Quelen of Paris without revealing Catherine's identity. The Archbishop initiated an official canonical investigation into the visions. The tribunal, basing its opinion on the stability of her confessor and Catherine's character, decided to favor the authenticity of the visions. The apparitions were approved as authentic by the Archbishop, confirming that the Miraculous Medal was supernaturally inspired and responsible for genuine miracles.

The design of the medallions was commissioned through French goldsmith, Adrien Vachette and the first medal was struck on June 20, 1832. The Medal was distributed, and rapidly earned the title of the "Miraculous Medal." She urged devotion to it, and, because of the power working through it, numerous documented answered prayers, conversions, and miraculous healing, including those of people for whom there was totally no hope, were attributed to the Miraculous Medal.

The Miraculous Medal

The Medal has since been reproduced, now over a billion times and distributed around the world. It was an important element in reviving Catholic belief in France. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception had not yet been officially promulgated by the Church at the time, but the Medal with its "conceived without sin" served in preparing the way for the proclamation of the dogma of Mary's Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX in 1854.

Catherine lived her remaining years as an ordinary nursing sister in the hospices of her Order. She was pleasant and well liked by patients and her fellow nuns. After receiving permission from the Virgin Mary, Catherine told Sister Dufes, the Mother Superior, of her visions and only a few people knew that Catherine was the one who brought the Miraculous Medal to the world. 

Catherine Labouré died on December 31, 1876 and her body was laid to rest on January 3, 1877 in a triple lined coffin  in the crypt of the chapel at Reuilly as a requirement back then for religious orders by Paris authorities. Her remains were interred there until the time of her beatification in 1933.

In 1895, her Cause for Beatification was introduced in Rome. On July 19, 1931, Catherine was declared venerable by Pope Pius XI (Decree of Heroic Virtues). 

On March 21, 1933, Catherine's tomb was opened and her body was exhumed after entombed for fifty seven years. The outer wooden coffin had already disintegrated but her body miraculously remained perfectly intact seen by several eye witnesses including representatives from the Archdiocese of Paris, the Daughters of Charity, the Congregation of the Mission, and medical examiners. A detailed medical examination of Catherine's exhumed remains concluded: "The body is in perfect state of preservation, and its joints are still supple." After a detailed examination, the body was taken to the Mother House of the Daughters of Charity in Paris. 

Months later, on May 28, 1933, Pope Pius XI beatified Catherine. After the celebration of the beatification, the body of Catherine was placed and now  lies in a glass coffin under the renovated side altar of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal (often simply called by its address, 140 Rue du Bac), Paris, one of the spots of the apparition, honoring the "Virgin of the Globe" where countless pilgrims have gathered close to pray for her intercession, and that of the Blessed Virgin, and where numerous miracles were reported at her tomb. 

On July 27, 1947, she was canonized a saint by Pope Pius XII. The Feast Day of St. Catherine Labouré is November 28 (it was formerly celebrated on December 31).

The Chapel of the Miraculous Medal in Rue de Bac in Paris, France where the incorrupt body of St. Catherine Laboure lies in the side altar shown in this photograph.

Miraculous Staircase of Saint Joseph

This is the miraculous staircase of Saint Joseph at Loretto Chapel in Santa Fé, New Mexico. U.S.A., which, after 134 years since it was built in 1878, still confounds architects, engineers, and master craftsmen in the physics of its construction and remains inexplicable in view of its baffling design considerations. The unusual helix shaped spiral staircase has two complete 360° turns, stands 20 feet high up to the choir loft and has no newel (center pole) to support it as most circular stairways have. Its entire weight rests solely on its base and against the choir loft - a mystery that defies all laws of gravity, it should have crashed to the floor the moment anyone stepped on it, and yet it is still in use daily for over a hundred years. The risers of the 33 steps are all of the same height. Made of an apparently extinct wood species, it was constructed with only square wooden pegs without glue or nails. At the time it was built, the stairway had no banisters. These were added 10 years later in 1888 by Phillip A. Hesch at the Sisters' request. 

Scale model simulation of how the Staircase looked
between 1877-1887 before the banisters were added

There are four mysteries that surround the spiral staircase in the Loretto Chapel: the identity of its builder; the physics of its construction which defies all laws of gravity; origin of the type of wood used which does not exist in the entire region or anywhere near it; and the staircase which has 33 steps, the age of Jesus Christ.

Over the years, many have flocked to the Loretto Chapel to see the Miraculous Staircase. The case had been investigated and studied. The staircase has been the subject of many articles, and re-enacted in TV specials, and movies including "Unsolved Mysteries" and the 1998 television movie entitled "The Staircase", starring Barbara Hershey and William Petersen.

According to the accounts of Mother Magdalen, Mother Superior of the Sisters of Loretto, when the Chapel was completed in 1878, there was no way to access the choir loft twenty-two feet above. Local carpenters were summoned to address the problem, but all concluded that access to the loft would have to be via ladder as a staircase would interfere with the interior space of the small Chapel. The Sisters of Loretto made a novena to Saint Joseph, the Patron Saint of Carpenters, and on the ninth and final day of prayer, a gray-haired man came to the convent on a donkey with a toolbox and approached Mother Magdalen. He asked if he might try to help the Sisters by building a stairway but he needed total privacy. Mother gave her consent gladly, and he set to work and locked himself in the chapel for three months. The only tools he had were a saw, a hammer, a T-square, and a few tubs of water for soaking the wood to make it pliable. 

When the staircase was completed, the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. The Loretto Sisters ran an advertisement in a local newspaper in search for the man but found no trace of him. They offered a reward for the identity of the man, but it was never claimed. But Mother Magdalen and her community of Sisters and students knew that the stairway was Saint Joseph’s answer to their fervent prayers.  Many were convinced that the humble carpenter was none other than Saint Joseph himself, as his silent, prayerful labors were precisely the virtues one would expect of the foster-Father of Our Divine Lord.

One of the most baffling things about the stairway, however, is the perfection of the curves of the stringers. The wood is spliced along the sides of the stringers with nine splices on the outside and seven on the inside, each fitted with the greatest precision. Each piece is perfectly curved. How this was done in the 1870's by a single man with only the most primitive tools is inexplicable to modern architects. Many experts have tried to identify the wood and surmise where it came from, but no one has ever been able to give a satisfactory answer to this mystery. The treads were constantly walked on for over a hundred years since the stairway was built, but showed signs of wear only on the edges. The wood was identified as an "edge-grained fir of some sort", but others say it is a long-leaf yellow pine, but the hard-wearing wood definitely did not come from New Mexico. Where the mysterious carpenter got this wood remains a mystery up to this day.

Brief History of the Chapel of Loretto

In 1610, the Spanish Catholic conquistadors and missionaries founded La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Assisi, or Royal City of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi, known today as Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico. It was occupied by Indians, Mexicans, and Spanish and was under Spanish control until a war which placed this area under the rule of the New Republic of Mexico for 25 years. Later, as a result of the US victory in the Mexican war, this southwest area was ceded to the United States in 1848. At the end of the Old Santa Fe Trail stands the Loretto Chapel.

The history of the Loretto Chapel began when Bishop Jean Baptisite Lamy was appointed Vicar-Apostolic by the Church to the New Mexico Territory in 1850. Bishop Lamy, seeking to spread the Catholic faith and bring an educational system to this new territory, began a letter writing plea for priests, brothers and nuns to preach and teach. In 1852, the Sisters of Loretto responded to Lamy’s pleas and sent seven sisters and opened the Academy of Our Lady of Light (Loretto) in 1853. The campus covered a square block with 10 buildings. Through tuition’s for the girls schooling, donations, and from the sisters own inheritances from their families, they built their school and chapel. Sisters Magdalen, Catherine, Hilaria, and Roberta made up the community.  At the direction of Bishop Lamy, Sister Magdalen was appointed Superior of the Sisters.

It was then decided that the school needed a chapel. Property was purchased and work began on July 25, 1873, with Antoine Mouly as the architect. Mouly and his son, Projectus Mouly, were brought in by Bishop Lamy from Paris, France initially to build what is known today as the St. Francis Cathedral. Bishop Lamy encouraged the sisters to utilize the Moulys to design and build their chapel. In the early 1800s, the older Mouley had been involved in the renovation of King Louis IX's Sainte Chapelle. It was the favorite chapel of Bishop Lamy from his early days in Paris, France. Hence, the Loretto Chapel was patterned by Mouley after the Sainte Chapelle in the Gothic Revival style, complete with spires, buttresses, and stained glass windows imported from France. It is reported that the sisters pooled their own inheritances to raise the $30,000 required to build this beautiful Gothic chapel.

The Loretto Chapel

The Chapel was to be 25 feet by 75 feet with a height of 85 feet. Stones for the Chapel were quarried from locations around Santa Fe including Cerro Colorado, about 20 miles from Santa Fe. The ornate stained glass was purchased in 1876 from the DuBois Studio in Paris, and was first sent to New Orleans by sailing ship and then by paddle boat to St. Louis, Missouri where it was taken by covered wagon over the Old Santa Fe Trail to the Chapel.

According to the annals of Mother Magdalen, the construction of the Chapel was placed under the special patronage of St. Joseph "in whose honor we communicated every Wednesday, that he might assist us."  Then she adds, "Of his powerful help we have been witnesses on several occasions."

The Chapel work progressed and it was not until it was nearly finished that they realized that there was no stairway to connect the Chapel to the choir loft. Moreover, the loft was so exceptionally high that there was no longer any space for a stairway. Mother Magdalen summoned many carpenters to try to build a stairway; but each, in his turn, measured and thought and then shook his head sadly saying, "It can't be done, Mother”. Mother Magdalen decided, "Let's wait awhile and make a novena." So the Sisters of Loretto made a novena to St. Joseph for a suitable solution to the problem. Then the gray-haired man came to the convent and built them the miraculous staircase.

The Chapel was completed in April 25, 1878 and has since seen many additions and renovations such as the introduction of the Stations of the Cross, the Gothic altar and the frescos during the 1890s. Bishop Lamy dedicated the Chapel and named it, Chapel of Our Lady of Light. It was, in many ways, a visible symbol of the courageous Bishop's opposition to "Americanism", which was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1899.

Tragically, in the devastating aftermath of Vatican Council II, religious vocations dwindled, and the Loretto "sisters" of the new post-conciliar religion, having first betrayed their Order by discarding their traditional religious garb and way of life, ended by betraying the faith and devotion of Mother Magdalen and her Sisters by selling the entire Academy grounds, including the miraculous Chapel, to a commercial property developer.  Most of the historical monuments of the love for souls, zeal for the Catholic Faith, and pious devotion of Bishop Lamy, Mother Magdalen, and the Sisters who established the Loreto Academy of Our Lady of Light were demolished to make way for monuments of secular "progress" (greed and materialism) upon their ruins. Sadly, what the secular government had been unable to accomplish for almost a century, the post-Vatican II church did in a matter of a few short years.

The Loretto Academy was closed in 1968, and the property was put up for sale. At the time of sale in 1971, Our Lady of Light Chapel was informally deconsecrated as a Catholic Chapel.

Fortunately, however, there was such an outcry from the devoted people of Santa Fe, including many of the alumni of the Academy, that the Chapel with the miraculous stairs was preserved as a national monument, albeit amidst the commercialism which surrounds it.

Loretto Chapel is now a private museum operated and maintained, in part, for the preservation of the Miraculous Staircase and the Chapel itself. To this very day, those who love and revere good St. Joseph, can still go and gaze upon that which is, without doubt, a visible testimony that Saint Joseph indisputably finds ways to provide for those who humbly and confidently place their needs in his capable hands.