Indiana priest says he was cured of brain cancer during pilgrimage to Lourdes France, after surgery

An Indiana priest claims he was cured of brain cancer after making a religious pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, in June 2022.

In a video posted on YouTube, Fr. John Hollowell claims how he was diagnosed with a brain tumor in February 2020 and underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation to treat it.

Despite the treatments, the tumor was starting to grow again, however after a visit to Lourdes, Hollowell says she felt physically stronger and cognitively improved upon her return to the US.

An MRI done in November 2022 later showed that the tumor, which had been removed after surgery, may never grow back, and that all that was visible was scar tissue.

Prior to his diagnosis, Hollowell, who serves the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, had offered his own grief as a form of redemptive suffering for victims of clergy sexual abuse, with approximately 170 survivors of Catholic clergy abuse reaching out to him. he.

“I was able to bring all the names with me to that surgery,” he explained. “So I made the video primarily for the surviving victims of Catholic clergy sexual abuse, just to let them know that I had been healed.”

He says that although he was willing to make the sacrifice, he claims that he realized that God used his suffering to help him further.

“When the scandals of 2018 broke, most of you know that they deeply affected me, as well as most of the church,” Hollowell wrote in a blog following his diagnosis.

“I prayed in 2018 that if there was any suffering that I could take on on behalf of all the victims, any cross that I could carry, I would welcome it. I feel that this is that cross, and I embrace it willingly,’ he stated.

He also notes that the anniversary of her diagnosis, February 11, is also the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes to Saint Bernadette Soubirous, a 19th-century French nun whose visions of the Virgin Mary eventually led to the foundation of the sanctuary of Lourdes.

“I just wanted to do a real quick video to let everyone know that I was actually cured of my brain tumor in Lourdes,” Hollowell said. “I had a pretty negative MRI about two and a half months before I went to Lourdes.

“The MRI showed that [the tumor] it was starting to grow again… The MRI they had done on me had also found a tumor on my pituitary gland, too,’ he said.

‘Like Naaman the Syrian in our first reading, who washed and cleansed himself of leprosy in the Jordan, I washed in the river of Lourdes and was cured and like the leper who returns to give thanks, I want to publicly thank Jesus for heal me,’ he wrote.

Lourdes is a well-known place of pilgrimage for many believers and has had 70 healings recognized as miraculous by the Catholic Church.

‘I want to thank Jesus for the gift of not only my healing, but also the gift of tumor surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy.

“Almost nothing in my life is the same since my surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy,” she also wrote, “and I have found that all those differences in my life since the surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy have been blessings.”

Hollowell says her cognitive ability also improved after her trip to France.

“I felt much stronger when I came back from Lourdes. Friends, family and parishioners told me that I looked much healthier,” she said. Fox News. ‘When I returned from Lourdes, I was able to preach without a newly prepared text.’ he explained to her, noting how she had been relying on passages written before her pilgrimage.

“It was okay if he died, he was willing to make the sacrifice for the victims of Catholic clergy abuse. But I thought, ‘Well, if I go to Lourdes and get healed there, that might have an impact on some of my fallen family and friends,’ he said in the video.

Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center, isn’t entirely surprised by his good news given that Hollowell had a 74 percent five-year survival rate.

“I believe in the power of prayer, I believe in miracle cures, and I believe in Lourdes, but with this particular tumor, there is a five-year survival rate of about 74%, depending on the grade,” explained Dr. Siegel. . .

“And Hollowell had surgery and chemotherapy, so I’m not surprised that the tumor is gone.”

Siegel also said that he did not have “the most serious of all brain tumors” and that he “could be cured.”

I don’t think it’s all Lourdes in this case. But I do believe that doctors have the hands of God, is a well-known saying. Great surgery, great chemotherapy, and the power of prayer.