Swampscott author’s latest book focuses on 1824 ‘miracle’ cure

SWAMPSCOTT – With politics, religion, a dying widow from a prominent political family, a prince, a miracle and many, many ghost stories, Swampscott author Nancy Lusignan Schultz might have been writing the latest fantasy or suspense thriller. But while “Mrs. Mattingly’s Miracle” contains supernatural elements, Schultz said that her fourth book, which is released today, is straight historical nonfiction.”It’s a true story, based on archival research and documented,” Schultz, chair of the English Department at Salem State University, said. “I’ve found that there are dramatic historic events that are more interesting than anything you can make up.”The story opens in March 1824, when Ann Carbery Mattingly, a widowed sister of Washington, D.C.’s Mayor Thomas Carbery, lay on her deathbed, partially paralyzed from advanced stages of breast cancer and covered with reeking ulcers. But after her friends and family prayed according to the instructions of a charismatic Austrian priest (and Hapsburg royal) Prince Alexander Hohenlohe, Mattingly “called for her stockings,” as Schultz said, and rose from her bed, her tumor and ulcers gone.”Miracle Ann” caused a sensation both in the media as well as in the country’s emerging Catholic Church. The Supreme Court and Congress held hearings, while elements of the nascent American Catholic Church disagreed on whether to promote the event to win converts or de-emphasize the “superstitious” elements of the faith for fear of stoking anti-Catholic sentiment from the Protestant majority.But, as Schultz said, “people knew about her miracle, but who was Miracle Ann?”That question drove the decade-long book project, Schultz said, combining her interests in women in the 19th century, religious culture and history, and her narrative writing and interviewing skills.”We do a lot of history books and Nancy’s written a story with a lot of crossover interest, and that’s a good thing,” said Publicist Alden Ferro of Yale University Press, which published the book.The portrait of Mattingly that emerged was that of a very devout and complex woman who unwittingly became a symbol of the American Catholic Church.Schultz said Mattingly’s first instinct after the cure was to enter a convent and retreat from society. But her priest and brother found her “too valuable as a lay person,” since many of Hohenlohe’s cures in America involved nuns, Schultz explained. Mattingly also experienced another miracle in 1831, using prayer to cure her gangrenous leg. Yet it “was unseemly,” Schultz said, (and not very pious) to seek publicity, especially as a woman in early-19th century America. Even as a prince, Hohenlohe was viewed alternately as a miracle worker and as a charlatan, and Schultz notes that he was actually traveling in Europe when he was supposed to be offering the Mass to cure Mattingly.Meanwhile, Mattingly’s already-public family life disintegrated. Schultz uncovered explanations for Mattingly’s estrangement from her son that reveal the taboos of the era.”After given a second and then third chance at life, you think would have a chance to do what you like,” said Schultz.But Schultz also said that, were the miracle to happen today, the country would have a similar reaction of mixed skepticism and devotion.”Religion is such an important underlying force in America? and it’s ultimately a book about beliefs,” Schultz said, rejecting criticism from a prominent review in the Wall Street Journal that she failed to include a modern scientific explanation for the cure. “I want to push readers to examine beliefs and their own feelings about religion and miracles.”And those beliefs are not just those familiar to the pious. Each chapter begins with a ghost story, which Schultz used to illustrate her belief that miracles represent “the celestial side” of supernatural intervention, while ghosts represent the “demonic intervention.”As for her own beliefs, Schultz said that she was raised by a Catholic father and Protestant mother and w