Up to this time, the medal had received only the verbal approbation of the Archbishop of Paris; a formal authorization was necessary to assure the faithful of its authenticity, and to conform moreover to the laws of the Church, which exact a canonical judgment, before permitting the introduction of new images in the liturgical worship. A juridical examination was consequently requested, in order to confirm the origin of the medal.
Mgr. de Quélen willingly complied, and by his order an investigation was begun February 16th, 1836, under the direction of M. Quentin, Vicar General, Promoter of the diocese; it was prolonged into the month of July, and had not less than nineteen sittings.
We still possess the verbal process of this inquiry. Various witnesses appeared, the principal of whom was Sister Catherine's Director, M. Aladel.
In the course of the process, the Promoter asked, why God had chosen the Daughters of Charity for so rare a favor, and not one of those convents noted for the observance of an austere rule, such as rigorous fasts, mortifications, etc. For it was not in a contemplative order, but in the Mother House of this modest institution so useful to humanity, in the chapel which for a long time contained the mortal remains of St. Vincent, the father of the poor, that the apparition, which was the model of the medal, took place.
We believe the reason of this preference is to be found in the two usages observed among the Daughters of Charity, from the beginning of their Society; the first, an act of consecration to the Blessed Virgin on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception; the second, the ending each decade of the chaplet by the following profession of faith: "O Most Holy Virgin! I believe and confess thy Holy and Immaculate Conception, pure and without spot! O Most Pure Virgin! by thy virginal purity, by thy Immaculate Conception and thy glorious quality of Mother of God, obtain for me of thy dear Son, humility, charity, great purity of heart, body and soul, holy perseverance in my dear vocation, the gift of prayer, a good life and a happy death."
The proofs admitted in the inquiry to establish the authenticity of the vision of the medal, are:
1st. The Sister's character—she is a poor young country girl, uneducated and without talent—of solid but simple piety, good judgment, and calm, sedate mind; we perceive at once that everything about her excludes all suspicion of deceit or illusion. The better to preserve her incognito, she will not allow her name to be mentioned, and she even refused to appear before the Promoter of the investigation.
2d. The wisdom of the Sister's Director, who took all possible precautions to guard against deception, and who yielded to his penitent's reiterated entreaties, only from fear of displeasing the Blessed Virgin, and by the advice of his Superiors.
3d. The apparition in itself, contains nothing, either in its character or object, opposed to the teachings of the Church, but is, on the contrary, conducive to edification. Being several times renewed and always in the same manner, we may conclude, that the Sister's imagination had nothing whatever to do with it.
4th. The wonderful circulation of the medal, confirmed by the testimony of the first engraver, M. Vachette, and the extensive sales of copies of the notice, reaching 109,000 in sixteen months, as attested by the publisher, M. Bailly, must be regarded as a confirmation of its supernatural origin.
5th. The extraordinary graces obtained through the instrumentality of the medal, cures and conversions, several of which are legally attested by the deposition of reliable witnesses, who appeared before the Promoter and signed the verbal process, give a last proof to the fact it was sought to establish, namely, that the Miraculous Medal must be of divine origin. Such is the formal conclusion, in the report addressed to the Archbishop by the Promoter, at the end of the inquiry.
Unfortunately, the ecclesiastical authority did not pronounce judgment; we know not why the inquiry did not receive the sanction to which it apparently led. The death of Mgr. de Quélen, at the end of the year 1839, caused all proceedings to be abandoned. Everything remains still in the domain of private devotions, and the model of the Immaculate Virgin, with its symbolical attributes, is not yet authorized as an object of public veneration in the churches.