It's a Miracle!

Well, maybe not in that case...

Something got me thinking the other day in regards to miracles. Perhaps someone out there has some insight on this.

One of the things that I admire about the way the Church deals with claims of apparitions is that it is both very careful in investigating them before declaring them "worthy of belief" and that it also only declares apparitions to be "worthy" not definately true. Thus, the Church does not teach that the apparitions at Lourdes did take place, merely that there is not reason why faithful Catholics cannot believe that they did.

Now, when the Church goes through the process of canonization, she definatively declares a saint to be in heaven. One of the inputs to this decision is looking at miracles performed through the intercession of the potential saint.

So what that leaves me wondering is, does the Church solemnly declare the miracles examined in the canonization process to be miracles, or does she use the fallible judgement that there is no reason to believe that an event was not a miracle as one input in making an infallible "binding and loosing" declaration as to whether the person in question is in heaven?