Delco man's recovery yields newest saint

October 23, 2011|By David O'Reilly, Inquirer Staff Writer
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  • William Glisson Jr., from the Philadelphia area in the U.S., center, whose cure from a 2002 head injury was declared the miracle needed to canonize Rev. Luigi Guanella, holds a shrine with the relics of Rev. Guanella, during a mass celebrated by pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, HO)
William Glisson Jr., from the Philadelphia area in the U.S., center, whose cure from… (AP )
  • William Glisson Jr., from the Philadelphia area in the U.S., center, whose cure from a 2002 head injury was declared the miracle needed to canonize Rev. Luigi Guanella, holds a shrine with the relics of Rev. Guanella, during a mass celebrated by pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, HO) (AP )
  • William Glisson Jr., from the Philadelphia area in the U.S., whose cure from a 2002 head injury was declared the miracle needed to canonize Rev. Luigi Guanella, stands in front of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican at the end of a mass celebrated by pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. (AP Photo) (AP )
  • William Glisson Jr., from the Philadelphia area in the U.S., whose cure from a 2002 head injury was declared the miracle needed to canonize Rev. Luigi Guanella, places a shrine with the relics of Rev. Guanella on a stand next to the altar, during a mass celebrated by pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, HO) (AP )
  • William Glisson Jr., from the Philadelphia area in the U.S., whose cure from a 2002 head injury was declared the miracle needed to canonize Rev. Luigi Guanella, holds a shrine with the relics of Rev. Guanella during a mass celebrated by pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, HO) (AP )
  • William "Billy" Glisson Jr. was considered virtually a lost cause after his skating accident. Some attribute his recovery to the intercession of 19th-century priest Luigi Guanella. (   CHARLES…)

 

The 19th-century Italian priest Luigi Guanella was a saintly man, but he might not be getting his halo from the pope on Sunday had William "Billy" Glisson Jr. practiced safe skating.

On March 15, 2002, the 21-year-old Glisson was speeding backward downhill without a helmet along Baltimore Pike in Springfield, Delaware County. One of his inline skates caught on a dip in the sidewalk. His feet flew into the air. The back of his head smashed into the concrete.

At Crozer-Chester Medical Center, doctors worked to save a brain-injured patient they feared was doomed, removing the left, front, and right sides of his skull to relieve swelling and one-third of his left frontal lobe. On a 10-point coma assessment scale, they ranked him a 4, virtually a lost cause.

Story continues below.

Seven months later, Glisson was back to work at his family's roofing and insulation company in Folcroft - the result, the Vatican later concluded, of prayers to Guanella and the placement of a tiny bone relic in Glisson's hospital wristband.

It was the second miracle Guanella needed to ascend to sainthood, having waited 47 years since the church verified the first and declared him "blessed." On Sunday, his devotees will gather in St. Peter's Square for his canonization by Pope Benedict XVI.

Among the throng in Rome will be the Glisson family of Glen Mills. A casually observant Catholic who prefers rollerblading over Mass most Sundays, Billy Glisson, now 30, said last week he was "too nervous to even think" about the ceremony, in which he will carry the bread and wine up the steps of the basilica.

But as he stood with his father outside their shop on Chester Pike, he said: "You can't really make any sense but to call what happened to me a miracle."

"Happened to us," his 56-year-old father corrected.

A Methodist, the elder Glisson isn't sure what to make of the Catholic Church's fuss over his son. But, he said, the recovery does seem miraculous. "I can't think of any other way to describe it."

Though some non-Catholics take a dim view of the canonization practice, the Vatican says it does not "make" saints, but simply recognizes holy people and declares them to be with God.

Guanella, who lived from 1842 to 1915, devoted himself to the care of widows, orphans, and the disabled in northern Italy, and founded two religious orders, the Servants of Charity and the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence.

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