Jake Finkbonner is bouncing about, teasing his sisters and playing basketball again. That is a miracle – not only to him and his family but also to the Pope Benedict XVI.

The 11-year-old Ferndale, Wash., boy’s stunning recovery from the flesh-eating bacteria that chewed up his face and nearly killed him in 2006 has been officially deemed by the Vatican as a miracle attributable to Kateri Tekakwitha, a 17th-century American Indian woman who converted to Catholicism at a young age.