Dear Melissa:

Personally, I would not ever seek out this person's help. As I understand his method, despite its claims to science, it appears to still include the Chinese cosmology concerning meridians and non-existent energy flows. The question then arises whether or not his "healing gift" is from God. The devil has no problems facilitating an apparent healing if it will advance his cause. I say apparent healing, because the devil cannot perform miracles, but he can facilitate psychogenic effects.

But, regardless of that, all so-called "faith healers" need to be scrutinized very closely. 

Many conditions can be relieved through a placebo effect (though sometimes only temporarily). The only way to verify whether a faith healer is really from God is to have scientific evidence, not anecdotal reports, of healings. The condition must be of the type not subject to placebo or any other psychological effect. This condition must be well documented in advance of the healing. The healing must be immediate and complete, scientifically proved, with no relapse later. As one medical doctor suggest:

(1) the ailment must be one that normally doesn't recover without treatment;

(2) there must not have been any medical treatment that would be expected to influence the ailment; and

(3) both diagnosis and recovery must be demonstrable by detailed medical evidence.

Pope Benedict XIV, in the 18th century, laid down strict criteria to assess the veracity of alleged miraculous healings. This criteria is used at the Lourdes Shrine by the Lourdes International Medical Committee.

The Committee created a 16 query scheme, which among other things, requires:

1. ruling out any psychopathic component
2. ruling out other subjective pathologic states or manifestations
3. including only accounts of recovery from serious and provable affections, the only ones that could be deemed as “scientifically inexplicable”.
4. a medical report  supporting a “certain and medically unexplainable” recovery, only when:

• The diagnostics and authenticity of the disease has been preliminarily and perfectly assessed;
• The prognosis provides for an impending or short-term fatal outcome;
• The recovery is sudden, without convalesce, and absolutely complete and final;
• The prescribed treatment cannot be deemed to have resulted in a recovery or in any case could have been propitiatory for the purposes of recovery itself. These criteria are still in use nowadays, in view of their highly logical, accurate and pertinent nature.

When applying these criteria used by the Church, the veracity of the vast majority of faith healers will be lacking.

The heat experience of your friend's husband is easily photogenically created. Even the relief from asthma can be psychogenic. And remember, for a healing to be from God, the healing must be permanent. There can be no relapses even years later. For example, in Lourdes a healing from leukemia is not considered verified unless the person healed remains disease free for ten years.

With all that said, even if a faith healer's gift is not from God, that does not mean that healings cannot happen. Jesus said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease" (Mark 5:34). God can heal someone in honor of their faith even if the "healer" is not legit.

Secondly, It is also possible for a faith healer to have a legitimate gift from God, but still make mistakes in his thinking on other things, or even have wrong motivation.

St. Paul speaks of this principle, which can be applied to healers too, that we ought to praise God that His message is preached even when the people doing the preaching are questionable:

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of partisanship, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in that I rejoice. (Philippians 1:15-18)

BOTTOMLINE: If Dr. Nemeh is facilitating genuine healings, even if he is wrong-headed concerning the meridians and such, we need to praise God. Certainly we can rejoice that people have been freed of their afflictions, even if that freedom was psychogenic and not miraculous.

The question is whether or not he is really facilitating genuine miraculous healings. That can only be determined by careful scientific scrutiny per Church criteria, which to my knowledge has never been determined.

Without verification of these healings based on the criteria of the Church we must, in my opinion, look skeptically at this man and be very cautious about allowing him to attempt a healing on us. If this man's "gift" is not from God, then the spiritual consequences on those who follow him, and especially upon those who are "cured" by him can potentially be serious.

In our Deliverance Apostolate we have had clients who eventually become demonized after having hands laid upon them for healing. This consequence is not rare.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary