“A miracle is an event which creates faith”

“A miracle is an event which creates faith” is the maxim around which competing interpretations of Banfield’s reported cures begin to gather. Attributed to Shaw by George Southworth, it recasts the alleged miracle not only as a question of whether particular cures can be proved, but also as a possible occasion for renewed belief—and for the town’s revival.

Formulation and use

Southworth introduces the saying while speaking with Gerry Fenn about the events at St. Joseph’s Church. He argues that something divine may have occurred and suggests that its purpose could be Banfield’s rebirth: the town might be saved from oblivion while its people regain their beliefs. The maxim gives this proposal a concise logic. An event’s religious significance, in Southworth’s account, may lie not only in what happened to the sick but in the faith the event awakens in others.

The line also supports Southworth’s request that Fenn write more about what would become known as the Banfield Miracle. Fenn has already generated enormous interest through his story, and Southworth presents further reporting as a way to extend the event’s reach. The appeal is not disinterested: Fenn recognizes that Southworth would benefit financially from Banfield’s revitalization, while Rodney Tucker is comparatively open about his interest in money. Southworth appears sincere to Fenn even as he acknowledges the material opportunity. The maxim therefore joins spiritual hope to civic promotion without resolving the tension between them.

Faith and institutional caution

The claim that a miracle creates faith gains urgency from the scale of the reported cures. Bishop Caines counts five other cures alongside Alice Pagett’s recovery, making six cases that could attract attention well beyond the local parish. He anticipates that people will visit the site out of curiosity whether or not the Church declares it a holy shrine, and argues that the Roman Catholic Church must control the situation from the beginning. In this setting, the maxim describes a possible effect of the event while the bishop considers how to manage that effect.

Caines also connects the reported blessing of Alice with possible consequences for the Church in England and says he wants to see the child and her mother. Yet the existence of faith or public excitement does not settle whether the cures are miraculous. In his public statement, Caines calls them extraordinary cures, then qualifies them as alleged cures, and says they will be examined by a specially formed medical bureau before findings go to the International Medical Committee. The Church’s procedure thus places a boundary around the maxim: the creation of faith may be meaningful, but it does not substitute for an investigation into what happened.

Meaning in the Banfield story

The saying holds together two measures of the reported event that the narrative keeps distinct. Southworth sees the possibility of renewed belief and a town rescued from decline; the bishop sees an influx of public attention that requires institutional oversight. Fenn, meanwhile, is uncertain what Southworth and Tucker want from him, even as his reporting has helped produce the interest they hope to build on. The phrase is therefore both a statement about faith and a practical argument for continuing to tell the story.

Its significance remains prospective rather than a Church judgment. Caines says that the cures must be investigated and that no judgment can yet be made; the land beside St. Joseph’s Church is already being purchased, but that step does not amount to a declaration of a shrine. The maxim offers one interpretation of what Banfield’s events might accomplish, while the public and ecclesiastical response shows how quickly that interpretation becomes entangled with curiosity, institutional authority, and the town’s hopes of renewal.