Vatican urged to declare British missionary John Bradburne a Catholic saint following brain tumour miracle

The Vatican is being urged to declare a British missionary a Catholic saint following reports that he miraculously cured a man of his brain tumor and that blood was inexplicably seen dripping from his coffin.

Supporters of John Bradburne are trying to raise £20,000 to fund efforts to beatify the missionary and poet, who died in Zimbabwe in 1979.

They say the formal process is about to begin and funds must be raised so a Vatican-appointed investigator can verify details of Bradburne's life and works, including miracles attributed to him.

Bradburne, the son of an Anglican rector who was born in Skirwith, Cumbria, became a Roman Catholic in 1947 after fighting in the Second World War

After wandering through Europe and the Middle East he became the warden of a leper colony in Mutemwa, Zimbabwe.

But at the age of 58, in the last months of the country’s war of liberation against white minority rule he was killed by guerillas when he refused to leave the colony to save himself.

Attendees at his requiem mass reported seeing drops of blood below his coffin, but when it was opened no blood was found inside the casket.

Several other miracles have been attributed to Bradburne since his death, including the case of a man in Scotland who supporters claim was cured of a brain tumour after praying to him a decade ago.

Over the years annual gatherings in Mutemwa to mark the anniversary of Bradburne’s death have attracted tens of thousands of pilgrims.

But to become a saint he would first have to be beatified by the church and this can only take place once the existence of a miracle has been established. This would be followed by canonisation, when a person officially becomes a saint.

The process would be initiated by Robert C. Ndlovu, the Archbishop of Harare, the diocese in which Bradburne died, petitioning the Holy See. Bishop Ndlovu is understood to be supportive of the campaign.

A Vatican-appointed "postulator" would then investigate Bradburne's life story in order to gather evidence about his deeds and build the case for his sainthood.

The campaign follows the beatification of Cardinal Henry Newman by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2010, during his visit to the United Kingdom.

Newman’s canonisation is dependent on the documentation of additional miracles attributed to the cardinal, who died in 1890.

In 1970 Pope Paul VI canonised forty English and Welsh Catholic martyrs who were executed between 1535 and 1679.

Leading the campaign to beatify Bradburne is his niece Celia Brigstocke, 63, the secretary of the John Bradburne Memorial Society, founded in 1995 to fund the leprosy centre where he worked.

She said: "People relate to John - they like the story, it's both sad, and also a very rewarding story.

"I think it's an inspiration to people."

Frank Cottrell Boyce, the novelist and screenwriter who wrote the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony and who is a lifelong Catholic, has donated £400 to support the effort.

He told the Sunday Telegraph that he was inspired by Bradburne's story after meeting a former soldier who had served with him during the Second World War, at church in his home parish in Liverpool.

"He hasn't tried to cure his weakness, he's taken it out there and given it to people. It's really beautiful," he said. "There's no big machine behind him - he's just a secular person, he's not a member of a religious order, he's not a priest as such, he's just a guy trying to live a good life. For logistical reasons those people are underrepresented in the canon as saints."

Professor David Crystal, a linguistics expert who has compiled and published many of Bradburne's 6,000 poems, has donated £250 to the cause.

He said efforts to beatify Bradburne had been held up by the fact that his canonisation would make Zimbabwe's first saint a white man.

"It is a sensitive issue out there. So it took a while for the groundswell of support for Bradburne to convince everybody that even though he was white, who cares - he was looking out for the lepers," he said.

A spokesman for the Archbishop of Harare said he was out of office and therefore unable to comment.