ROME, Standard Newswire
A baseball player may on the way to becoming the next saint. The idea may sound like it is out of left field, but the pitch thrown to Pope Francis by filmmaker Richard Rossi may turn out to be an unlikely strike.
What about the requirement for a miracle to greenlight the canonization of baseball icon Roberto Clemente beyond beatification? It may have been met today, as reported by Sports Illustrated and the Associated Press.
Olympian Jaime Nieto was paralyzed from the neck down in a backflip accident three years after Rossi's controversial film "Baseball's Last Hero" was released. Nieto starred in the lead role of Roberto Clemente. His stellar acting in portraying Clemente's Christlike decision to give his life to save others caught the pontiff's attention, inspiring the Clemente canonization campaign. Today in El Cajon, Ca., Nieto walked 130 steps at his own wedding to fellow Olympian Shevon Stoddart.
Sources say the miracle was predicted in a letter Rossi sent Pope Francis. (Rossi wrote and directed the film). He said Nieto's walking will be a "demonstration of the power of God."
"In meditation, it was revealed to me that Roberto Clemente was a saint," Rossi said in the letter to Pope Francis, sent a year ago. "I saw a miracle healing of Jamie Nieto. He will walk at his own wedding to show the grace of the sacrament of marriage. Jesus performed his first miracle at the wedding of Cana."
Pope Francis agreed if the miracle happened as Rossi predicted, the canonization of Roberto Clemente he would consider going forward, some church sources said.
Rossi visited Nieto after the accident and prayed for his healing. "You will come back and walk like the bionic man." Rossi said.
"I've never thought of him in terms of being a saint," said Mets second baseman Neil Walker, a devout Catholic whose father knew Clemente. "But he's somebody who lived his life serving others, really. So if it would happen, I wouldn't be terribly surprised by it."
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