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This paper deals with the noun "faith" and the verb "to believe" that appear in the Acts of the Apostles. The noun "faith" appears for the first time in the context of a healing miracle -- Acts 3:16 -- identical to St. Paul's miracle at Iconium (see Acts 14:8-10). Miracles are wrought by people filled with faith. There are persons who by faith accept the message of the Gospel, who also do miracles, but there are also persons who persecute them. The verb "to believe" shows us not only the assumptions of faith, but also identifies who the people who believe were, who or what they believe in, and what the consequences of their beliefs are. "Believers" are all people who have accepted the message of Jesus Christ and lived as "saved souls" in the community -- the Church. This is the realization of God's plan of salvation and of His Kingdom, as announced by the Scriptures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article follows in the footsteps of oral tradition and literary sources, Blessed Ottone of Pola by O. Zvonko Zlodi in particular. It presents in broad lines the hagiography of an Istrian charismatic and Franciscan friar Ottone of Pola, one of the early disciples of St Francis of Assisi to arrive in Istria. Scarce sources about his origin and life evidence that he lived in Pola (Pula) in the first half of the 13th century, where he was buried in the Church of St Francis. Tradition has it that in addition to exceptional goodness and absolute virtue he also performed fourteen healing miracles that have been described in detail by several church chroniclers. Even though he was not officially beatified, the Church approved of his worship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of this article presents in detail the life of the Croatian Capuchin St Leopold Bogdan Mandie (Herceg Novi, 1866 - Padova, 1942). Follows a discussion about the relation between his disability and medicine, including paranormal phenomena recorded during his life on earth. The article concludes with a note that the Holy See has recognised an outstanding number of healing miracles performed by Leopold Mandie, and describes the two most fascinating. The extraordinary attendance to his funeral in 1942, beatification in 1977, and canonisation in 1983 evidence that this saint has been one of the most revered personalities in the recent history of the Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from the definition of the stigmata as the wounds which, temporarely or permanently, manifest in some cases of extasy following a selected model of suffering (Jesus, Mohammed etc.), the present paper analyzes the phenomenology of stigmatization on several most famous historical and actual examples: Francis of Assisi, as the first stigmatized at all; Catherine of Siena, the only one beside Francis whose stigmata have been recognized by the Church as supernatural; Rita of Cascia (14th c.); Marie de MOrl (1812-1868) from Tirol; the Belgian Louise Lateau (1850-1883); Izabele Hendricks (1844-1874), who died from bleeding; Gemma Galgani (1878-1903), who presented stigmata and the traces of flagellation; the Bavarian Therese Neumann (1898-1962), of whom probabely the most has been written; the popular mendicant father Pio from Pietrelcina (1887-1968); Giulio Massa (b. 1970) from Montecorvino near Salerno, already known as the "Father Pio of the 21st century," who speeks out in Aramaic during extasy; and the first Croatian stigmatized, Zlatko Sudac (b. 1971). Considering some older and more recent interpretations of the stigmata, a more precise definition of that phenomenon is suggested. Acording to it, the stigmata might be considered spontaneous, isolated cases of the localized deautonomization of influence upon superficial blood vessels, mediated by altered consciousness. Pointed out are the potential enormous benefits which medicine might provide by finding out the regularity and methods by which that phenomenon would be initiated in a controlled way, at full consciousness, without external help and at any place on the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]