For months she was known as the "mystery nun," an unidentified member of a religious order who told a Catholic Church investigator that she was miraculously cured of advanced Parkinson's disease after she and other nuns prayed to the late Pope John Paul II.
Her testimony -- describing the kind of medically inexplicable recovery that could help advance the pontiff toward sainthood -- was published anonymously on an Italian Catholic Web site. It bore the signature "A French Sister." Church officials, proceeding with a confidential inquiry into the claims, refused to name her.
On Friday morning, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, an unassuming 46-year-old who works in a Paris maternity clinic, stepped before a bank of microphones on French national television and, in a voice choked with emotion, declared that she was the nun.
She described going to bed one night barely able to write or walk and waking up at 4:30 a.m. fully cured. "All I can say is that I was ill and now I'm healed," said Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, smiling widely. "Now the church will decide if it's a miracle."
Church officials said Sister Marie Simon-Pierre's recovery from the advanced stages of a disease with no known cure could be instrumental in the canonization process, which can sometimes take centuries to complete but has been fast-tracked for John Paul.
In Rome on Monday, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre will take part in ceremonies commemorating the second anniversary of John Paul's death and the completion of the first phase of efforts to declare the pontiff "blessed," an intermediate step toward sainthood. This step, known as beatification, requires confirmation of one miracle brought about by the posthumous intercession of the candidate.
Calls of "Santo subito," or "Sainthood now," were shouted on the streets outside St. Peter's Basilica immediately following the death of John Paul on April 2, 2005. During his 26 years as pope, he traveled extensively and was among the most popular pontiffs in recent history. Pope Benedict XVI agreed to expedite the long process usually required to consider individuals for sainthood, in part because of the enthusiastic support for John Paul from his native Poland, where the church remains a vibrant institution in contrast to many other European countries.
Wearing a traditional black and white habit and wire-rimmed glasses, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre told her story after the newspaper Le Figaro revealed her identity on Wednesday.
The nun, a member of the order of the Little Sisters of Catholic Motherhood, said her Parkinson's was diagnosed in June 2001. She said she immediately felt an emotional kinship with the pope, who also suffered from the degenerative disease, which attacks the central nervous system.
Over the next four years, her symptoms worsened. By April 2005, she said, "I was wasting away, day by day." Her writing was barely legible because she could not control the shaking in her left hand, she stopped driving because she couldn't control her left leg, and she was constantly exhausted.
When John Paul died, the nun said, "my entire world fell apart. I had lost the only friend who could understand me and give me strength to go forward."
The nun and other sisters from her community began praying to John Paul to help heal her. But she only grew worse.
After 9 p.m. prayers on June 2, 2005, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre said, she returned to her quarters. "As I entered my room, I heard a voice telling me, 'Take a pen and write,' " she said. "I did so. It was weird because my handwriting was easier to read."
She went to sleep but awoke at 4:30 a.m., she said. She climbed out of bed and said she felt "completely transformed."
"It's hard to explain how I felt with words," she said, her voice cracking. "It's too strong, too big, it's a mystery. . . . An inner force urged me to go and pray. I walked outside, walking with no difficulties. I was convinced I was healed."
She walked to the chapel, her left arm swinging at her side, no longer immobile. "Look at my hand, it doesn't shake any more," she told another nun. "JP2 healed me!"
Five days later, she went to the neurologist who had been treating her for the previous four years. He, too, was surprised by the apparent disappearance of her symptoms, she said.
"We conducted a serious and objective investigation which led us to the conclusion that what had happened was unexplainable," Aix-en-Provence Archbishop Claude Feidt said. "We cannot understand why she is the way you can see her today."
Monsignor Slawomir Oder, a Polish prelate who is guiding the late pontiff's beatification process for the diocese of Rome, said Sister Marie Simon-Pierre's case was the most compelling of the many claims of miracles attributed to John Paul that church officials have analyzed.
He told reporters that the differences in her handwriting samples before and after the claimed intervention of John Paul were "amazing." He said she also underwent stringent psychological evaluations, a step not usually required during the investigations.
Oder said the nun's account was more appealing than testimonials from people who were cured of cancer. For them, it would take eight to 10 years to make sure the disease had not merely gone into remission.
On Monday, officials of the Rome diocese will present the Vatican with material concerning the beatification process, including the testimonies of scores of people describing the pope's qualifications for the status and a theological analysis of his published and unpublished works.
Authorities must still submit a position paper explaining how the pope "heroically" served Christian values, and the Vatican would need to accept at least one claim of a miracle. Confirmation of a second miracle is required for elevation to sainthood.
Delaney reported from Rome. Researcher Corinne Gavard in Paris contributed to this report.
