SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) – In the drama that has been Kate Mahoney’s life, there’s one chapter she doesn’t remember at all.

That’s the three months she spent in Crouse Hospital – including six weeks in intensive care – after her liver, kidneys and lungs stopped working in December 1992. The aspiring actress’s unlikely recovery at 14 has cast her in a role that will forever link her with a former Syracuse nun who could be named a saint.

A papal decree says Kate was healed because people prayed to Blessed Mother Marianne.

According to the Roman Catholic Church, Kate’s recovery is a miracle: a divine act with no scientific explanation. But Kate considers her role no more than a bit part in the story of Mother Marianne, the Franciscan leader who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii in the 19th century.

This is the first time Kate’s role in the story of Mother Marianne, who died in 1918 and was beatified in May, has been revealed publicly. It is also the first time Kate has been willing to tell that story from her own point of view.

“There’s nothing miraculous about me,” said Kate, now 27. “I’m just the vehicle. I have no special power or authority. I have nothing but gratitude.”

Her story opened June 4, 1978, when Katherine Dehlia Mahoney was born two months early. Her parents, who are central New York natives, were then living in Washington, D.C. John and Mary Mahoney called their daughter Kate, after the feisty, independent character in William Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.”

John Mahoney worked as a congressional aide for Rep. James M. Hanley for 10 years. He married Mary Speno in 1973 at Syracuse’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Kate remembers a happy childhood in Alexandria, Va., playing soccer and hanging out with friends. She also carries memories of two years in Ireland, where she learned to ride horses and performed in a teen production of the musical “Godspell.”

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The story behind the miracle picks up when the family returns to Syracuse from Ireland in June 1992. One day about two months later, Kate doesn’t feel well.

“I couldn’t keep any food down,” she recalled last week. “I had abdominal pain. It was 90 degrees out and I had on a turtleneck. My father knew something was wrong.”

She was diagnosed Aug. 11, 1992, with germ cell ovarian cancer.

A few days later, surgeons at Crouse removed a basketball-sized, malignant tumor from her abdomen. On Aug. 25, 1992, she underwent the first of what was expected to be six inpatient chemotherapy treatments.

On Dec. 10, 1992, Kate had a cardiac arrest during a procedure at Crouse to remove fluid from her abdomen. That condition was a reaction to the drugs she was taking for cancer treatment, said the Mahoneys and Dr. Russ Acevedo, one of the doctors who treated Kate.

Doctors revived her after about 25 minutes, and she was moved to the intensive care unit. Her organs had begun to fail. She was there until Jan. 24, Acevedo said.

“We knew that every breath could be the last,” said Mary Mahoney. “I remember thinking, ‘If she needs to go, she needs to go. If that’s the will of God, it’s the will of God.”‘

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On Jan. 3, 1993, Sister Mary Laurence Hanley visited Kate for the first time and prayed for Mother Marianne to intercede with God on Kate’s behalf.

“Her poor condition was appalling to me,” said Sister Hanley, a cousin to the late Congressman Jim Hanley. “I never have seen anyone this ill anywhere at any time. Kate’s sad condition affected me much.”

Sister Hanley posted a prayer request in the Franciscan residence on Syracuse’s North Side. A man in Utica, where Mother Marianne grew up, encouraged prayers. During morning announcements at Kate’s school, students were asked to pray for Mother Marianne’s aid for their schoolmate.

By the second week of January 1993, Kate’s organs began to recover, Acevedo said, and doctors withdrew the drug that had kept her asleep for more than two months.

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On Jan. 22, 1993, Kate was awakened and her breathing tube removed, Acevedo said. She was released from the hospital March 18, the doctor said.

“We were out of the hospital but not out of the woods,” John Mahoney said.

Kate matter-of-factly recounts memories of the nearly two-year outpatient rehabilitation. She had to retrain all her muscles and relearn how to walk and talk.

“It was like baby steps,” she said. “‘See that pen. Pick it up.”‘

Meanwhile, Sister Hanley was gathering paperwork to initiate a church inquiry of a miracle. The Mahoneys said they consented to her request to release medical records in early 1994. Acevedo, contacted about the same time, said that was the first he had heard of the church aspect of the case.

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By 1998, Bishop James Moynihan, who had twice talked to the late Pope John Paul II about Mother Marianne’s cause, formally opened the church inquiry. A committee called a Diocesan Tribunal made up of three local priests, a doctor and a lay person met 20 times. They interviewed at least 15 people, including four doctors, and gathered 1,702 pages, which were sent to the Vatican.

Kate graduated from Bishop Ludden Junior/Senior High School in 1996 and attended Washington College, in Maryland, where she majored in drama.

Her health is fine. She’s been cancer-free for more than 10 years. She met with the tribunal for about 15 minutes in 1998.

“They asked, ‘Do you think this is a miracle?’ I said, ‘Well, yes, because I’m here.”‘

The Tribunal agreed, sending its report to the Vatican, where it eventually was unanimously approved by the groups of theologians, doctors and clergy who reviewed it. Less than six months before he died, Pope John Paul II signed a document decreeing that God had worked a miracle through Mother Marianne’s intercession.

The church’s affirmation of the powerful energy behind Kate’s recovery reinforced the Mahoneys’ belief that a miracle occurred.

“We never used those words because she wanted to be normal,” Mary Mahoney said. “We knew in our hearts what it was.”

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Kate’s not sure how the rest of her life will unfold. She wants to be an actor, and is applying to graduate programs in drama.

She plans to stay in Syracuse with her parents for now.

Within one week last December, her father was diagnosed with liver cancer and her mother learned she had breast cancer. Dad, 67, is improving, but still has one cancerous growth. Mom, 61, is in remission.

They supported her recovery, and she plans to support theirs.

One role Kate is clear she doesn’t want to play is that of trying to convince others a miracle occurred.

“I can’t tell people to believe. I can only tell them that I do,” she said.