La maladie de Thérèse Martin et la Guerison par la Vierge Marie

The sickness from which Therese was suffering when she was ten years old was diagnosed by physicians as neurosis. She diagnosed it herself as an effect of a demon’s attack. Are these two different opinions so contradictory that they exclude each other? No necessarily so. John Paul II, in his Fides et ratio, says that truth acquired through natural reason does not render useless the truth of faith. While appreciating the medical point of view, a theologian should not be satisfied with this level of interpretation. It is so in this case because Therese dedicated seven pages of her autobiography to recounting her difficult experience in order to express, above all, her faith.The sickness from which Therese was suffering when she was ten years old was diagnosed by physicians as neurosis. She diagnosed it herself as an effect of a demon’s attack. Are these two different opinions so contradictory that they exclude each other? No necessarily so. John Paul II, in his Fides et ratio, says that truth acquired through natural reason does not render useless the truth of faith. While appreciating the medical point of view, a theologian should not be satisfied with this level of interpretation. It is so in this case because Therese dedicated seven pages of her autobiography to recounting her difficult experience in order to express, above all, her faith