So long story short: a lot of people have, for the 40ish years that this has been promoted (mostly against the censure of the Church), have reported fruits connected to Medjugorje. That's it.
All the many concerns and problems of the alleged apparitions and messages remain present and unresolved. And the apparitions are still not declared…
So long story short: a lot of people have, for the 40ish years that this has been promoted (mostly against the censure of the Church), have reported fruits connected to Medjugorje. That's it.
All the many concerns and problems of the alleged apparitions and messages remain present and unresolved. And the apparitions are still not declared Marian in origin, the messages are still not approved, and some visionary writings still remain on the Index of Forbidden Books. Or am I reading this wrong?
Just a clarification on terminology: "Supernatural" in common parlance would refer to entities such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, etc. In strict theological terms as used in this note, "supernatural" refers solely to the action of God. So a message of the BVM, strictly speaking, would not be considered to be of "supernatural" origin in and of itself. However, of course it is impossible to imagine Mary operating apart from God.
Wasn’t the Index discontinued in the 1960’s? If not, which specific writings are Forbidden by this Index?
Medjugorje has been the place of (nearly) unbelievable conversions of many, many people. I say nearly unbelievable because for a long time I simply didn’t believe the stories until I heard them from people who had been radically transformed by God’s grace in Medj and I have no other reasonable explanation. Private revelation is complicated but for some reason, God has chosen to pour a waterfall of graces on this place, and I don’t think it’s good for us to keep such a skeptical attitude. I say “us” because for a long time I thought it was a bunch of bunk. And yes, technically, we as good Catholics can think that Lourdes, Fatima, Champion, Knock, and Medj are all not supernatural and that’s fine. I’m ranting but I think that your post gives off the wrong perspective, I apologize if I am being too harsh.
The Index is long gone but that didn't automatically "sanitize" works that were on it. Two modern visionary writings that, in my opinion, ought to stay condemned are the Divine Will "revelations" of Luigia Piccaretta and The Poem of the Man-God by Maria Valorta. The latter got a huge international audience via Medjugorje. A canonization cause has been opened for Piccaretta and there are people who would like to do the same for Valtorta. Anna Catharina Emmerich was beatified by simply ignoring her writings.
Some Individual recent "seers" were found to be frauds (ex.:Theresa Lopez) or simply judged non-supernatural. Vassula got an individual warning from Cardinal Ratzinger at the CDF. I read a lot of apparitionist literature back in the 1990s and sat through presentations by Vassula and Nancy of Conyers. Much of it was pious bibble-babel from women with overactive imaginations (Cyndy Cain), some was flatly ludicrous (Patricia Talbot). But the eagerness of the public for such questionable stuff reveals a hunger for direct access to the supernatural that they weren't getting elsewhere. In the most extreme cases, "seers" function as an alternative Magisterium. Look at the histories of Necedah and Bayside.
Read Emmerich the way one reads The Proto-Evangelium or other pious legends. Her books are cozy and sentimental wherein Jesus and other personages speak and act with dignity. But they are most certainly not accurate accounts of life in New Testament Times! (ex: the Apostles baptize their early converts by loading them in skiffs and poling out the the center of the pentagonal Pool with Five Porticoes where their heads are sprinkled with water spurting from a fountain! This "proves" NT witness for Catholic baptismal practice but has nothing to do with primitive Church ritual or the actual Pool.)
Personally, I would place the "revelations" in the same general category as the "high and holy meditations" of Margery Kempe. Anna Catharine was beatified on the basis of her personal virtue and positive impact on other people, but the process put aside her writings. It isn't possible to distinguish what she composed and what was embellished by her secretary, Clemens Brentano, a leading Romantic poet and editor.
Brentano's only polished work is The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, basis of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.. But his notes were re-worked by Fr. Carl Schmoeger as The Life of Christ and Biblical Revelations, which are replete with so many ridiculous and impossible elements, it's a wonder the Beata's friends don't try to suppress or disown it. (ex: the Prophet Elias awaits the end of the world in the Early Paradise atop Mt. Everest where albino woolly mammoths gambol.) But Schmorger also records elsewhere a pre-Brentano statement by Emmerich claiming that a Jewish woman's soul in Purgatory told her that the Blood Libel was real.
I did a long article about Emmerich decades ago but Google can't find it. Maybe I can get someone to republish it.
The Cause for Luisa Piccarrreta has been stopped, because her writings have been thoroughly discredited by the Dicastery for the Cause for Sainthood. Piccarreta has sunk without trace and her weird, ridiculous writings are out with the garbage. Good riddance. But her tenacious followers will continue to hold prayer meetings and find some twisted reason to defend her, just as Father Gobbi's fans continue with their cenacles, even though he was told in a letter by the CDF to stop saying his silly predictions (none of which eventuated) came from Our Lady. It's easy to see the devil's horny claw in all these false visions, etc" he wants Catholics to do the very thing he cannot hide in himself: disobey the lawful authority of the Church.
I'm relieved to hear that Piccarreta's cause was stopped. Her writings are indeed ridiculous. Most of Fr. Gobbi's "messages" are unobjectionable meditations that I think came from his own mind. But then there are ventures into prophetic numerology and fears of "ecclesiastical Freemasonry" that are embarrassing. Back in a 1988 article for the National Catholic Register, I pointed out that Fr. Gobbi's prediction that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart would be "complete" by October 1988 had not happened. Six months later, the paper was still publishing angry letters to the editor attacking me for saying this.
I know lots of lovely, devout Catholics who get snarky if you tell them their favourite apparitions/seers have been discredited by the local Ordinary or by the Holy See. This is a huge victory for the devil, who wants nothing more than for Catholics to be disobedient to the lawful authority of the Church. I fear that when they die, they will be enticed into hell by demons disguised as Fr Gobbi, or Piccarreta or the mad Valtorta, etc. They have no trust or respect for the bishops because of the various false seers who always plant the seeds of doubt and rebellion. My hope is that people whose faith is reignited at Medj is because they have made good confessions or have become devoted to Our Real Lady, but have lost interest in the messages of the "Gospa" because they are interminably boring and mostly silly and repetitive.
So long story short: a lot of people have, for the 40ish years that this has been promoted (mostly against the censure of the Church), have reported fruits connected to Medjugorje. That's it.
All the many concerns and problems of the alleged apparitions and messages remain present and unresolved. And the apparitions are still not declared Marian in origin, the messages are still not approved, and some visionary writings still remain on the Index of Forbidden Books. Or am I reading this wrong?
Just a clarification on terminology: "Supernatural" in common parlance would refer to entities such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, etc. In strict theological terms as used in this note, "supernatural" refers solely to the action of God. So a message of the BVM, strictly speaking, would not be considered to be of "supernatural" origin in and of itself. However, of course it is impossible to imagine Mary operating apart from God.
Yes, a preternatural vs. supernatural distinction, roughly.
Wasn’t the Index discontinued in the 1960’s? If not, which specific writings are Forbidden by this Index?
Medjugorje has been the place of (nearly) unbelievable conversions of many, many people. I say nearly unbelievable because for a long time I simply didn’t believe the stories until I heard them from people who had been radically transformed by God’s grace in Medj and I have no other reasonable explanation. Private revelation is complicated but for some reason, God has chosen to pour a waterfall of graces on this place, and I don’t think it’s good for us to keep such a skeptical attitude. I say “us” because for a long time I thought it was a bunch of bunk. And yes, technically, we as good Catholics can think that Lourdes, Fatima, Champion, Knock, and Medj are all not supernatural and that’s fine. I’m ranting but I think that your post gives off the wrong perspective, I apologize if I am being too harsh.
The Index is long gone but that didn't automatically "sanitize" works that were on it. Two modern visionary writings that, in my opinion, ought to stay condemned are the Divine Will "revelations" of Luigia Piccaretta and The Poem of the Man-God by Maria Valorta. The latter got a huge international audience via Medjugorje. A canonization cause has been opened for Piccaretta and there are people who would like to do the same for Valtorta. Anna Catharina Emmerich was beatified by simply ignoring her writings.
Some Individual recent "seers" were found to be frauds (ex.:Theresa Lopez) or simply judged non-supernatural. Vassula got an individual warning from Cardinal Ratzinger at the CDF. I read a lot of apparitionist literature back in the 1990s and sat through presentations by Vassula and Nancy of Conyers. Much of it was pious bibble-babel from women with overactive imaginations (Cyndy Cain), some was flatly ludicrous (Patricia Talbot). But the eagerness of the public for such questionable stuff reveals a hunger for direct access to the supernatural that they weren't getting elsewhere. In the most extreme cases, "seers" function as an alternative Magisterium. Look at the histories of Necedah and Bayside.
So, Anna Catharina Emmerich writings are not to be trusted?
Read Emmerich the way one reads The Proto-Evangelium or other pious legends. Her books are cozy and sentimental wherein Jesus and other personages speak and act with dignity. But they are most certainly not accurate accounts of life in New Testament Times! (ex: the Apostles baptize their early converts by loading them in skiffs and poling out the the center of the pentagonal Pool with Five Porticoes where their heads are sprinkled with water spurting from a fountain! This "proves" NT witness for Catholic baptismal practice but has nothing to do with primitive Church ritual or the actual Pool.)
Personally, I would place the "revelations" in the same general category as the "high and holy meditations" of Margery Kempe. Anna Catharine was beatified on the basis of her personal virtue and positive impact on other people, but the process put aside her writings. It isn't possible to distinguish what she composed and what was embellished by her secretary, Clemens Brentano, a leading Romantic poet and editor.
Brentano's only polished work is The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, basis of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.. But his notes were re-worked by Fr. Carl Schmoeger as The Life of Christ and Biblical Revelations, which are replete with so many ridiculous and impossible elements, it's a wonder the Beata's friends don't try to suppress or disown it. (ex: the Prophet Elias awaits the end of the world in the Early Paradise atop Mt. Everest where albino woolly mammoths gambol.) But Schmorger also records elsewhere a pre-Brentano statement by Emmerich claiming that a Jewish woman's soul in Purgatory told her that the Blood Libel was real.
I did a long article about Emmerich decades ago but Google can't find it. Maybe I can get someone to republish it.
Thank you! I didn’t know any of that!
The Cause for Luisa Piccarrreta has been stopped, because her writings have been thoroughly discredited by the Dicastery for the Cause for Sainthood. Piccarreta has sunk without trace and her weird, ridiculous writings are out with the garbage. Good riddance. But her tenacious followers will continue to hold prayer meetings and find some twisted reason to defend her, just as Father Gobbi's fans continue with their cenacles, even though he was told in a letter by the CDF to stop saying his silly predictions (none of which eventuated) came from Our Lady. It's easy to see the devil's horny claw in all these false visions, etc" he wants Catholics to do the very thing he cannot hide in himself: disobey the lawful authority of the Church.
I'm relieved to hear that Piccarreta's cause was stopped. Her writings are indeed ridiculous. Most of Fr. Gobbi's "messages" are unobjectionable meditations that I think came from his own mind. But then there are ventures into prophetic numerology and fears of "ecclesiastical Freemasonry" that are embarrassing. Back in a 1988 article for the National Catholic Register, I pointed out that Fr. Gobbi's prediction that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart would be "complete" by October 1988 had not happened. Six months later, the paper was still publishing angry letters to the editor attacking me for saying this.
I know lots of lovely, devout Catholics who get snarky if you tell them their favourite apparitions/seers have been discredited by the local Ordinary or by the Holy See. This is a huge victory for the devil, who wants nothing more than for Catholics to be disobedient to the lawful authority of the Church. I fear that when they die, they will be enticed into hell by demons disguised as Fr Gobbi, or Piccarreta or the mad Valtorta, etc. They have no trust or respect for the bishops because of the various false seers who always plant the seeds of doubt and rebellion. My hope is that people whose faith is reignited at Medj is because they have made good confessions or have become devoted to Our Real Lady, but have lost interest in the messages of the "Gospa" because they are interminably boring and mostly silly and repetitive.