Pope's blessing doesn't bring miracle

LONDON -- Jan Lavric got up from a wheelchair and walked after receiving a blessing from the pope, but he says it was no miracle.

Some nuns at a Vatican audience thought otherwise, but a slightly embarrassed Lavric said from his home in the English midlands Tuesday that he had never been disabled.

'I just found an empty wheelchair and sat down in it,' said Lavric, a medical adviser for a recent pilgrimage by a group of handicapped Britons. 'Suddenly a nun wheeled me off,' the pope entered and 'what was I to do?'

Lavric said he rose from the wheelchair after the pope had blessed everyone, including himself, and left. 'They said 'it's a miracle.' They were all very surprised.'