(OSV News) -- Alessandro de Franciscis is anything but an ordinary doctor.
For the past 17 years, the 70-year-old Italian American physician has headed the Office of Medical Observations at the Lourdes Sanctuary in France. As he retired on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on Feb. 11, the entire congregation -- including bishops -- burst into applause at Mass for the feast day.
He will be succeeded in April by Italian surgeon Giada Monami, who currently practices in Venice.
De Franciscis studied medicine and pediatrics in Italian Naples, before continuing his education in the United States at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he earned a master's of science in epidemiology in 1985.
In 2009, he became the first non-French permanent physician at the Lourdes Sanctuary and president of the Lourdes Medical Bureau, which investigates cases of reported cures among pilgrims.
"The medical and scientific verification of cures has been fundamental in Lourdes since the Virgin's apparitions to Bernadette," de Franciscis told OSV News. "As early as 1858, there were reports of supposed miracles. The first cures were recognized as miracles in 1862 by the bishop of Tarbes" -- Lourdes was under his jurisdiction -- "on the very day he officially recognized the apparitions."
In 1883, Dr. Dunot de Saint Maclou of Normandy settled in Lourdes at the bishop's request to serve as its permanent physician.
"He was the one who founded the Lourdes Medical Bureau," de Franciscis said. "Lourdes attracted a great many people, and people should not be allowed to claim they had been 'miraculously cured' without a rigorous medical verification."
Since then, a succession of physicians has served in the role. De Franciscis was the 15th. He often emphasizes that "miracles do not exist in medicine."
"Our role as doctors is solely to determine whether a person has been cured, and whether that cure is unexplained given the current state of scientific knowledge," he explained. "We do not deal with miracles. That is not our field."
According to de Franciscis, tens of thousands of people have reported being healed since 1883, including nearly 1,500 since his arrival in 2009. "Very few have been followed by a full investigation," he said. "Most of them had undergone medical treatment, about a third of them for cancer, which could explain their recovery. We conduct in-depth investigations into about 30 of the 100 cases we receive on average each year."
In such cases, the process is lengthy and collaborative. "The criteria are very strict," de Franciscis explained. "They were established by Cardinal (Lorenzo) Lambertini, future Pope (Benedict XIV), in 1734, with a view to recognizing miracles in Rome for beatifications or canonizations. They have been updated since then but remain relevant."
Lourdes' outgoing chief doctor explained to OSV News that "the illness must have been the subject of a precise and clear diagnosis, and it must have a severe prognosis. The return to health must be sudden, instantaneous, complete and lasting over time. It cannot be a temporary remission."
"The cured patient must also agree to undergo a whole series of examinations, the results of which we analyze scrupulously," de Franciscis said. "Then, if the cure appears to be genuinely unexplained, I convene a meeting of the members of the bureau, with the person presumed to be healed, and the bureau issues an initial 'certificate of cure.'"
"After that," he added, "I present the cases of healing to the International Medical Committee of Lourdes at its annual meeting."
Established in 1947, this committee is composed of some 30 researchers from medical universities around the world, including several Americans. "Its members must vote by a two-thirds majority for a cure to be recognized as 'unexplained given the current state of medical scientific knowledge,'" de Franciscis clarified.
Then, it is up to the Church to judge whether a miracle has occurred or not. "The bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes may forward the case file to the bishop of the diocese where the cured person resides, who will in turn conduct an investigation to decide whether a miracle has occurred or not," de Franciscis explained.
"Lourdes is full of stories of healing," David Torchala, director of communications at the sanctuary, told OSV News. "But there are cases of cures that are recognized as medically unexplained, which the bishops do not declare to be miracles. In addition to the findings of medical research, they take into account the personal testimony of the person involved, who will then be sent out on a mission to share their story. This will change their life."
"Out of the approximately 8,000 cases of healing recorded since 1858, only 72 cases have been recognized as miraculous by the Church," de Franciscis pointed out. "There have been five since I started serving here in Lourdes."
The last miracles recognized by the Church involved a French nun, Sister Bernadette Moriau, who was cured in 2008 -- the miracle was recognized in 2018. In 2024, the cure of the British soldier John Traynor was recognized.
Seriously wounded during World War I, he was cured in Lourdes in 1923. His cure had been officially recognized by the Medical Bureau in 1926, but the news was not conveyed to the bishop of his diocese until nearly a century later.
Finally, in April 2025, the cure of an Italian woman, Antonia Raco, was announced. She suffered from primary lateral sclerosis and found herself suddenly cured in 2009 after a pilgrimage to Lourdes.
According to Torchala, "Doctor de Franciscis often joked that he was the most useless physician in the world, because people would come knocking on his door to tell him, 'Doctor, I am cured.'"
"But he did a tremendous job," he said. "He brought together an entire international medical community around Lourdes through the International Medical Association of Our Lady of Lourdes, which he chaired. It now has nearly 8,000 members worldwide. The fact that he was both American and Italian was a great help in this regard."
In April, Dr. Monami will take over from de Franciscis. She will be the first woman to hold this position. Her medical career includes extensive research experience that led her to work at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia from 2003 to 2007.
A Catholic, Monami "has had a special connection with Lourdes since childhood, particularly through her father's involvement as a doctor accompanying pilgrimages," the sanctuary's website said.
For the past 10 years, she has been a volunteer doctor with UNITALSI -- or National Union of Italian Medical Transportation of the Sick to Lourdes and other sanctuaries -- "accompanying sick and frail people to the Sanctuary," the Lourdes Sanctuary said.
