Jake Finkbonner: Flesh-Eating Bacteria Arrested After Kateri Tekakwitha Relic
Illustration: AI-generated dramatization (Gemini Flash Image)
Genuinely contested — both whether it happened and whether nature explains it.
The account
A five-year-old Lummi boy's rapidly progressing necrotizing fasciitis stopped spreading and he made a full recovery after his family placed a relic of Kateri Tekakwitha on his body.
Read the full account →Collapse the account ↑
In early 2006, Jake Finkbonner — then five years old and a quarter Lummi — cut his lip on a baseball field in Ferndale, Washington. Within days, Group A Streptococcus necrotizing fasciitis was spreading across his face and head. Surgeons performed daily debridement to remove dead tissue. His prognosis was grave; his parents consented to last rites.
A Lummi elder brought a relic — a small piece of Kateri Tekakwitha's bone — and placed it by his bedside. The following day, the medical team observed that the infection had stopped spreading. Jake survived and ultimately recovered, though the surgeries left significant facial scarring. He has since met Pope Francis and spoken about his faith.
Throughout his illness, Jake received the standard of care for necrotizing fasciitis — IV antibiotics and surgical debridement.
Pope Benedict XVI approved the miracle on December 19, 2011, declaring it "medically inexplicable." Kateri Tekakwitha was canonized on October 21, 2012, as the first Native American saint. Jake attended the ceremony in Rome.
Jake's Lummi Native American heritage and facial scarring paralleled Kateri's own story — something noted by his community as significant.
Reviewer Notes
We weigh a claim on two things, kept separate from the story above.
Assessed by Miracles Jar AI
Compelling personal story and well-documented timing, but ongoing intensive medical treatment prevents clean isolation of a supernatural cause.
The verdict. Compelling personal story and well-documented timing, but ongoing intensive medical treatment prevents clean isolation of a supernatural cause.
The Vatican approved the cure in December 2011 and Kateri was canonized October 21, 2012. Necrotizing fasciitis (Group A strep) is life-threatening, and Jake's prognosis was extremely poor by the time he was at last rites. The infection's arrest coincided with placement of the relic. Against: necrotizing fasciitis does occasionally stabilize with aggressive surgical debridement and antibiotic regimens already in place; the treatment record is not publicly detailed enough to establish that the standard of care was failing at the precise moment of claimed healing.
The complication for clean causal attribution. Jake was receiving the standard of care for necrotizing fasciitis — IV antibiotics and surgical debridement — throughout. Occasionally, this regimen does produce dramatic turnarounds even in severe cases. Without knowing where the treatment response curve stood at the moment of relic placement, separating treatment effect from an extraordinary event is not possible from published sources.
Evidence weighed.
- Necrotizing fasciitis with prognosis of death; family received last rites; infection halted after relic placement. The temporal correlation between relic and infection arrest is clear in the account — moderate support for authenticity.
- Vatican approved the cure as "medically inexplicable" in December 2011 — moderate support for authenticity.
- Jake was receiving daily surgical debridement and IV antibiotics; these treatments can occasionally produce rapid turnarounds. Cannot determine whether the infection was already beginning to respond to treatment — moderate natural-direction point.
- Jake's Lummi Native American heritage and facial scarring paralleled Kateri's own story — noted by his community as significant. Cultural resonance is meaningful to the community but not evidential for the healing — neutral, weak.
Net assessment. The temporal correlation between relic placement and the observed arrest of the infection is the strongest signal favoring authenticity, reinforced by the Vatican's formal "medically inexplicable" determination. But the concurrent, ongoing standard of care (IV antibiotics plus daily surgical debridement) is a live natural-direction confound that the published record cannot rule out — there is no public detail establishing that the standard of care was failing at the precise moment of claimed healing. That unresolved confound is what holds the case well short of settled despite the well-documented underlying facts.
Evidence ledger — what the verdict rests on
Necrotizing fasciitis with prognosis of death; family received last rites; infection halted after relic placement.
Temporal correlation between relic and infection arrest is clear in the account.
Vatican approved the cure as 'medically inexplicable' in December 2011.
Jake was receiving daily surgical debridement and IV antibiotics; these treatments can occasionally produce rapid turnarounds.
Cannot determine whether the infection was already beginning to respond to treatment.
Jake's Lummi Native American heritage and facial scarring paralleled Kateri's own story — noted by his community as significant.
Cultural resonance is meaningful to the community but not evidential for the healing.
What would raise this score: Long-term follow-up documenting permanence, in a condition with a near-zero spontaneous-resolution base rate, would raise the meter.
What would lower it: A documented relapse, or case literature showing the condition fluctuates or remits on its own, would move it down.
How this works
We keep two questions apart on purpose — so a thin record can’t make an impossible thing look proven, and a strong record can’t dress up an ordinary one as a miracle. First: Could nature explain it? (taking the account as true for the moment.) The question is whether nature could produce this at all — assuming, for the moment, the events are true as described. Second: is there real evidence it happened? A claim only stands out when both hold up — and we never call anything certain either way. How ratings work →
The natural explanation
The leading natural account for this case is spontaneous remission & the body's own recovery. Read what it explains — and where it stops.
Sources
Tagged by proximity to the event. Primary sources are direct or contemporaneous; tertiary are downstream retellings.
- 1.Secondarynews
Aleteia, "St. Kateri's Miracle and How She Healed a Child", 2017· no public link
Narrative account with update on Jake's continued health.
- 2.Secondarynews
NBC News, "Kateri Tekakwitha Named First Native American Saint", 2012· no public link
Major secular outlet; covers canonization context.
- 3.Secondaryinvestigation
"His Healing Was the Final Miracle Needed for Kateri's Canonization", 2012· no public link
Detailed account of the relic placement and hospital timeline.
Cases like this
Nearest on the map — similar in how miraculous they’d be, and how strong the evidence is.