Did a Catholic Relic Help Save a Baby?

ByABC News
April 21, 2005, 3:17 PM

April 21, 2005 — -- Christopher Ian Frederic Chadwick looks like any other 5-year-old today.

But in 1999, his mother, Jill Chadwick, went into labor four months early, and she fears things might have turned out differently if her mother hadn't brought her a medallion and locket from a blessed French Canadian priest.

The items came from tiny St. Anthony's chapel in a working-class neighborhood on Harpster Street in Pittsburgh, which is home to more than 2,500 sacred Catholic relics -- second only to the Vatican.

The faithful believe these actual pieces of bones, drops of blood or preserved organs carry divine power.

When doctors at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh started administering emergency medication to Chadwick in order to delay delivery, Chadwick's mother, Gerry Kovalchick, visited St. Anthony's to pray for her pregnant daughter.

After she got there, the Rev. David Schorr, the pastor, gave her a relic to take back to the hospital. He'd never done that for anyone else before, but he said, "I think there are things that happen sometimes you just feel it's just the right thing to do at a particular moment."

What appeared to be a jewelry box held a medallion and a locket, containing strands of white hair from a French Canadian priest, blessed Frederic Janssoone. It had just arrived the previous week.

Kovalchick said she was "overwhelmed because nothing leaves this chapel ever." She said she didn't know what it would do, but she added, "I just really felt this was going to help Jill."

Most of St. Anthony's collection was brought over in the 19th century by a German priest. At the time, relics had fallen out of favor in Europe so he was able to rescue thousands of them, including: