The Vatican has radically reformed its rules for evaluating reported supernatural events comparable to weeping Madonnas and blood-dripping crucifixes which have for hundreds of years whipped up the Catholic faithful.
Its doctrine office has overhauled procedures, first issued in 1978, arguing that they were not viable in the web age. Nowadays, word about apparitions or weeping Madonnas travels quickly and might actually harm the faithful if hoaxers are attempting to make cash off people’s beliefs or manipulate them, the Vatican said.
The Catholic Church has had an extended and controversial history of the faithful claiming to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, of statues purportedly weeping tears of blood and stigmata erupting on hands and feet mimicking the injuries of Christ.
Church figures who claimed to have experienced the stigmata wounds, including Padre Pio and Pope Francis’s namesake, St Francis of Assisi, have inspired hundreds of thousands of Catholics even when decisions about their authenticity have been elusive.
Francis himself has weighed in on the phenomenon, making clear that he’s dedicated to the fundamental church-approved Marian apparitions, comparable to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who believers say appeared to an Indigenous man in Mexico in 1531.
But Francis has expressed skepticism about newer events, including claims of repeated messages from Mary to “seers” on the shrine of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, even while allowing pilgrimages to happen there.
When confirmed as authentic by church authorities, these otherwise inexplicable signs have led to a flourishing of the religion, with recent religious vocations and conversions. That has been the case for the purported apparitions of Mary that turned Fatima in Portugal, and Lourdes in France, into enormously popular pilgrimage destinations.
The revised norms acknowledge the true potential for such abuses and warn that hoaxers can be held accountable, including with canonical penalties.
That was the case when the Vatican in 2007 excommunicated the members of a Quebec-based group, the Army of Mary, after its foundress claimed to have had Marian visions and declared herself the reincarnation of the mother of Christ.
The recent norms reframe the evaluation process by essentially taking off the table whether church authorities will declare a specific vision or event supernatural.
Instead, the brand new criteria envisages six fundamental outcomes, with essentially the most favorable being that the church issues a noncommittal doctrinal green light, a so-called “nihil obstat”. Such a declaration means there may be nothing concerning the event that’s contrary to the religion, and subsequently Catholics can express devotion to it.
The bishop can take more cautious approaches if there are doctrinal red flags concerning the reported event. The most serious envisages a declaration that the event isn’t supernatural or that it needs a public statement “that adherence to this phenomenon shouldn’t be allowed.”
At no point are the faithful obliged to imagine in the actual events, said Argentine cardinal Vïctor Manuel Fernandez, the top of the Vatican doctrine office. “The church gives the faithful the liberty to listen” or not, he said at a news conference.
Despite the brand new criteria, he assured that the church’s past decision-making on alleged supernatural events – comparable to at Fatima, Guadalupe or Lourdes – stays valid.
“What was decided prior to now has its value,” he said. “What was done, stays.”
To date, fewer than 20 apparitions have been approved by the Vatican, in keeping with Michael O’Neill, who runs the net apparition resource The Miracle Hunter.
Associated Press
