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POSTED: Monday, Oct. 12, 2009

Ferndale boy's recovery could be final link to Blessed Kateri's sainthood

Finkbonner family prayed when Jake had flesh-eating bacteria

FERNDALE - His face was scarred by the flesh-eating bacteria that had invaded his body, her face by smallpox that killed her immediate family.

They are both American Indians and both Catholics.

And if the Vatican decrees that Jake Finkbonner's survival is a miracle that can be attributed to Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha's help, they also will be bound by the canonization of the first American Indian saint in the Catholic Church.

Elsa Finkbonner certainly believes her 9-year-old son's victory over necrotizing fasciitis is miraculous.

"There is no doubt in my mind that he is a miracle. He had everything going against him. There was a whole grocery list of things that should have happened against him, and he defied all of them," said Finkbonner, a Sandy Point resident.

What the Vatican will decide is whether Jake's recovery is a miracle that is beyond the explanation of medicine and that can be attributed to the intercession on his behalf by Blessed Kateri, who was born to an Algonquin mother and Mohawk father in 1656 near what is today Auriesville, N.Y. When she was 4, smallpox killed her parents and her brother, scarred her face and damaged her eyesight.

She was baptized into the faith in 1676, a conversion that led to persecution by tribal members, according to reports. In 1679, she took a vow of chastity. She died on April 17, 1680, near what is today Montreal, Canada, and eyewitnesses claimed that her scars disappeared soon after.

Known as the Lily of the Mohawks, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980, becoming the first American Indian to be so honored.

More than three centuries after her death, Jake was fighting for his life after falling and bumping his mouth in the closing moments of a basketball game on Feb. 11, 2006.

Necrotizing fasciitis, or Strep A, invaded his body and bloodstream through that small cut, and the aggressive bacteria raced across his cheeks, eyelids, scalp and chest as doctors worked desperately to stop its spread.

To save him, each day they surgically removed his damaged flesh. And every day for two weeks, they put the boy, who was then in kindergarten, in a hyperbaric chamber at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle to deliver oxygen to his body to help quell the infection's progression.

As Jake laid near death, the Rev. Tim Sauer advised his mom and dad, Donny, to pray to Blessed Kateri, who is the patroness for American Indians, for her intercession. That is akin to asking Blessed Kateri to pray to God to perform a miracle on Jake's behalf. The boy is of Lummi descent.

Sauer was at that time pastor of three Catholic churches in Whatcom County: St. Joseph in Ferndale, where he baptized Jake and where the deeply faithful Finkbonners attend, St. Anne in Blaine and St. Joachim on the Lummi Reservation.

Parishioners also were urged to ask Blessed Kateri for her help.

Some months after Jake recovered in 2006, Sauer sent a letter to the Archbishop in Seattle about a possible miraculous occurrence.

"Basically, I just put it in their hands," said Sauer, who is now the pastor at St. Bridget Church in Seattle. "His survival ... was an extraordinary event."

St. Bridget is five minutes from Seattle Children's hospital, where Jake spent nine weeks and Sauer spent much time with the Finkbonners during those terrible days when doctors prepared the family several times for the boy's impending death.

But he survived, though he bears the scars from that vicious battle. They are on his face and neck, across his scalp from ear to ear, and across his chest from shoulder to shoulder. Although he has undergone 27 surgeries and more are on the way, the fourth-grader at Assumption Catholic School in Bellingham is otherwise healthy.

Since Sauer wrote the letter, investigators from the Catholic Church have interviewed people including the priest, Jake's family and others who testified that they prayed for her intercession.

Elsa Finkbonner submitted information in 2006 about what happened to her son, along with requests for his medical records that were sent along. She also informed Jake's doctors of the process.

The family was interviewed on numerous occasions starting in 2007. Sauer said he submitted testimony four times, twice in writing and twice orally.

Sauer said there isn't much he's allowed to say about the process, which the Catholic Church keeps confidential to protect against undue influence.

Representatives from the Archdiocese of Seattle could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts.

Sauer said the investigation has concluded and the information sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome.

Blessed Kateri needs one more miracle that can be attributed to her intercession to be declared a saint. Neither Finkbonner nor Sauer know when the Vatican will make that decision.

In an Aug. 13 Canwest News Service story, Monsignor Paul Lenz said that evidence of a miracle, gathered over two years, was sent to Rome in July. Lenz did not say what the miracle was, though stories in Catholic publications dating back to 2006 note that Jake's survival and recovery would be presented as evidence in Blessed Kateri's canonization process.

If she is declared a saint, it means that she will be among those who stand before the presence of God and who serve as examples for Catholics, according to Sauer.

"They're the heroes, if you will, of the church and its history, for us to look up to and emulate. They are people who lived their Christian faith in an exemplary way, which is what a saint is, that ought to be mediated on and imitated," he said.

"We do not worship them. They do not replace God or Jesus," Sauer added.

No matter the decision, the Finkbonners said they already have their answer.

"Whether they attribute his healing to Blessed Kateri or not, that's up to the church, that's up to the Vatican," Elsa Finkbonner said. "But it doesn't take anybody to tell Donny and I what happened to him was, in fact, a miracle."