Prayers to Mother Mary cured my cancer, claims Oz woman

London, Jan 12 (ANI): An Australian woman has claimed that she was cured of lung cancer through prayer and the wearing of a holy relic, which had belonged to a nun.

Kathleen Evans, 66, from New South Wales, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in 1993, and she had been given only months to live.

But the faith she had in prayer and the relic of Mother Mary MacKillop, which had been given to her by a friend, cured her of the disease, and she did not need any other treatment.

Evans revealed that the prayers from her, her family and friends to Mother Mary resulted in tumours in her lung and brain disappearing, leaving medical experts baffled when subsequent X-rays showed the only evidence of her cancer was scarring.

"There was quite a few (doctors) that examined me, but there was just no explanation. I didn't have any treatment," Sky News quoted her as telling reporters in Sydney.

The Roman Catholic Church has refused to reveal any medical evidence to support Evans' claims of a cure, and she says she wants to keep her records private.

But Pope Benedict XVI last month approved her recovery as Mother Mary's second miracle, one of the final steps in a complex and often years-long process before sainthood can be bestowed.

Evans, a mother of five and grandmother of 20, says it is a privilege to know she had been part of a proposed canonisation.

"It makes me very humble to be a part of Australia's first saint - it's pretty big," she added.

Mother Mary's first miracle had been the curing of a woman who had leukaemia in 1961, and the Vatican approved it in 1993.

No date has been set for her canonisation ceremony, which is expected to take place some time in 2010. (ANI)