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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The unsuspected healing properties of Group A blood, February 12, 2001
THE THIRD MIRACLE opens with an Allied air raid on a Czech town late in WW II. The sequence focuses on a little girl praying as the bombs fall, and on a wounded German soldier who sees her and the pigeons. Fast forward to 1979 in Chicago. Father Frank Shore, played by Ed Harris, is a Roman Catholic priest undergoing a crisis of faith regarding his God, his Church, and his role as a cleric. Yet, he's also the diocesan postulator, i.e. the priest who investigates the life of any individual being popularly acclaimed for sainthood, and who makes a subsequent recommendation (thumbs up or down) to the bishop preparatory to the possible involvement of Rome. Fr. Frank is known as "The Miracle Killer" for his previous work debunking potential sainthood. Thus, the bishop tasks him with scrutinizing the life of one Helen O'Regan, who is, after her death, being proclaimed a saint by the members of a local parish at which she worked. Ostensible evidence for her special relationship with the Lord is the blood that drips from the eyes of a parish statue of the Virgin Mary during November when it rains. (Helen died in November during a rainstorm.) One miracle has already been reported, the complete cure of a little girl with fatal lupus erythematosis, Maria Witkowski, after she comes into contact with the blood while praying to Helen at the foot of the statue. This is more a story of Shore's search for renewed faith than that of O'Regan's possible eligibility for sainthood, though the latter serves as the vehicle for the former. Shore is desperate to revitalize his life, and seems ripe to do so with Helen's daughter Roxanne, vivaciously played by Anne Heche. The scene between the two on Helen's grave is positively effervescent. Will Frank compromise his priestly vow of celibacy? As the probe into the reported miracle and Helen's life continues, Shore comes into conflict with Archbishop Werner, played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, an arrogant, contemptuous, German prelate who believes that America doesn't need another saint, or at least one whose elevation is predicated on such evidence as presented in the O'Regan case. Werner is a member of a tribunal sent by the Vatican to hear that evidence, during which process miracle #2 occurs, again involving Maria. Even then, Werner's adamant opposition is not softened. All actors in this film are splendid, especially Ed Harris, whose Fr. Frank is likely to be an enormously sympathetic character, especially with Roman Catholics, who are well acquainted with priests, bishops, saints, and the concept of miracles. I would even go so far as to say that only a Catholic could appreciate this movie. Those of other faiths might consider it a fairy tale about superstitious nonsense. Be that as it may, the film's "gotcha" is the plot twist surrounding THE THIRD MIRACLE. For Catholics, the film is a must-see, along with those gems from the past, CATHOLICS and AGNES OF GOD. All three serve to remind that, in the Age of Science, Faith cannot be absent.
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DVD ~ Ed Harris
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