BALDWIN PARK, Calif.—A 38-year-old Baldwin Park priest who experienced what the Catholic Church is calling a miraculous recovery from a basketball injury will be joined by Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez and other Catholic officials Monday in a news conference at his church.
According to the Archdiocese, Juan Manuel Gutierrez was training at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo in 2017 when he hurt his ankle playing basketball at a nearby gym. The injury worsened over the ensuing days and he was eventually diagnosed with a torn Achilles tendon.
Dreading the prospect of a long, painful and expensive medical regimen that could set his studies back, Gutierrez decided to do a “novena”—a set of nine prayers offered for nine consecutive days—and to offer the prayers to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Frassati was an Italian journalist in the early 20th century known for helping the poor, who died of polio at the age of 24. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.
Gutierrez began his daily prayers, and one day he felt “a warmth around the area of my injury” as he knelt, according to the Archdiocese newsletter Angelus News.
“It was gentle,” Gutierrez said. “But it would increase little by little, and at some point I thought that an outlet of the electrical was catching fire. And I was looking for the fire. And there was no fire there. So I just remember looking at my ankle and thinking, ‘That’s so strange’ because I could feel the warmth.”
He stopped wearing the brace used to keep his right foot immobilized after that day, and a subsequent visit to an orthopedic surgeon revealed that the gap displayed on an MRI where his Achilles had torn was no longer present.
“You have no gap,” the surgeon said, according to Gutierrez. “You must have somebody up there looking after you.”
Three years later, he was taking a class at St. John the Baptist Church in Baldwin Park taught by Monsignor Robert Sarno, an American priest who had recently retired after nearly 40 years at the Vatican’s Dicastery of the Causes of the Saints.
The subject matter was the diocesan phase of canonization causes, so Gutierrez shared his story.
“It was the last thing that I had expected, that in this course that I was teaching in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, there could be a potential miracle for the canonization of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati,” Sarno told the Angelus News.
The Vatican expressed interest, and Gomez authorized Sarno to lead the investigation of Gutierrez’s story. Two Los Angeles priests were appointed to help with the judicial process, and in fall 2023, Sarno returned to St. John’s to interview witnesses and gather evidence, including doctor’s notes, the initial MRI scan and other documents.
On Nov. 20, the Vatican announced that Frassati would be canonized next Aug. 3 during the 2025 Jubilee Year celebration for young people. Five days later, Pope Francis formally approved the second miracle attributed to Frassati’s intercession, though Gutierrez wasn’t named at that time.
“I think Pier Giorgio was a great role model for what it is to be a young Catholic in the world. Someone who takes ownership of our Catholic identity, someone who is involved in the lived experience of the faith, not only in the walls of your church, but even beyond that,” he told the church newspaper.
“He was known to have a heart for the needy and the poor. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal at the moment, but in my time of need, he drew near to me and he helped me. And there are a lot of people who have received graces from him. I’m not the only one.”
