Lambertini Criteria

Catholic Church rules devised in the 1730s to determine whether an unexplained cure was miraculous.

In December 2008, The A.P. reported that the International Medical Committee of Lourdes would cease to describe unexplained cures as miracles, calling them instead “remarkable.”

Appointed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Committee has ruled on unexplained cures at Lourdes since 1954, using the Lambertini Criteriaestablished by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini (later Pope Benedict XIV) in 1734-38. The criteria are:

[1] The disease must be serious and impossible (or at least very difficult) to cure by human means; [2] The disease must not be in a stage at which it is liable to disappear shortly by itself; [3] Either no medical treatment must have been given or it must be certain that the treatment given has no reference to the cure; [4] The cure must be instantaneous; [5] The cure must be complete; [6] The cure must be permanent; [7] The cure must not be preceded by any crisis of a sort which would make it possible the cure was wholly or partially natural. (Patricia Treece, “Nothing Short of a Miracle,” 1994)

The Lourdes Medical Committee’s reluctance to describe cures as miraculous seems pragmatic and political. One official told The A.P. that the application of the Lambertini criteria is nowadays “almost always impossible,” and the Committee’s secretary said, “It’s a sort of rebellion, if you will, against laws that don’t concern us – and shouldn’t.”

See this PDF for a list of the 67 Church-approved miracles at Lourdes.