In 1978, CDF wrote a document of norms to guide bishops in judging alleged apparitions and other private revelations. While the document has never been published, copies were sent to bishops after Pope Paul VI approved it, and they have used it in cases of alleged private revelation since then.
While it is not permitted to publish the Latin text, some authors have published translations of the text in books and on the Internet, and have contributed to understanding the Church’s thinking on the issue of private revelations.
Those translations, due to their writing style, or due to inconsistencies, have made me wonder about what the original text says. In some cases, there are translations based upon other translations, adding an additional layer of possible imprecision.
For this reason, I was happy to join the efforts of writer Kevin Symonds and a priest colleague a few weeks ago to produce a new translation of the Norms from the Latin text. I’ve posted a copy on Scribd, and I hope it will be of use to pastors and interested readers.
Category: Apparitions and Mystical Phenomena
A well-organized thinker lands on the skeptical side
Wade St. Onge has been reading about the alleged Medjugorje apparition for some time, and has written a seven-part series about the case for his theology blog.
He reviews commonly posed arguments for and against the phenomenon and makes distinctions among the stronger and weaker elements in each case. St. Onge does not always put emphasis where I would, but is trying to be balanced. For readers not familiar with the controversy, I think his article will be a good introduction to the subject.
From Petrus: the Medjugorje ‘seers’ will have to report their ten secrets
The informative web site Petrus (www.papanews.it), directed by Gianluca Barile, is looking ahead at the work of the investigating Commission on the phenomena of Medjugorje.
To summarize: Official meetings of the new commission will begin after the summer, with the six visionaries summoned to Rome for interviews. Petrus expects that they will be asked to disclose the ten “secrets” which they have refused to give up in previous investigations. The article also reports a suggested compromise idea floated in Rome: that CDF could reject the claims of an apparition, but grant approval to the messages (thousands of them?) as “interior locutions”. Is it just a last-ditch attempt to salvage the phenomenon?
Related link:
- How the visionaries dealt with past investigations:
“Questionable games surrounding the ‘Great Sign'” (Diocese of Mostar)
My translation of the article follows.
Trickery, interior locutions, or apparitions? The ‘seers’ of Medjugorje will have to report to the Ruini Commission and submit the ten secrets received (?) from the ‘Gospa’
VATICAN CITY – Vicka Ivanković, Mirijana Dragičević, Marija Pavlović, Ivan Dragičević, Ivanka Ivanković and Jakov Čolo, the famous pseudo-seers of Medjugorje, will have to report to the Vatican, probably right after the summer, to respond to questions from the Commission of inquiry – instituted by Benedict XVI, under the presidency of Cardinal Camillo Ruini – assigned to shed light on the alleged Marian apparitions that they have reportedly witnessed uninterruptedly since June 24, 1981. At the same time, the six will be called on to submit to that body, created at the Pope’s will, the ten secrets which the Madonna is said to have entrusted to them.
Official meetings have not started yet, but the tendency among the members of the Commission is to meet and ‘interrogate’ the protagonists of that bruited event in person. The Commission, which took office last March and is eagerly at work to shed light on the supernatural events that call millions of pilgrims from all over the world to the little town of Bosnia-Herzegovina, has already been informed by the Bishop of Mostar on the disobedience of the pseudo-seers to local ecclesiastical authority. Casting shadows on the apparitions, notoriously, are the theological inconsistency of the messages, their contradictions, and the infinite number of the apparitions.
Besides Cardinal Ruini, participants in the Commission are the Cardinals Juliàn Herranz, Jozef Tomko, Vinko Puljic and Josip Bozanić; the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Monsignor Angelo Amato; Monsignor Tony Anatrella, psychoanalyst and specialist in social psychiatry; Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri, Lecturer in Fundamental Theology at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy; Fr. A. David Maria Jaeger, Consultor for the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts; Fr. Józef Kijas Zdzislaw, Relator of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints; Fr. Salvatore M. Perrella, Lecturer in Mariology at the Pontifical “Marianum” Theological Faculty; the Rev. Achim Schütz, Lecturer in Theological Anthropology at the Pontifical Lateran University (in the role of secretary) and Monsignor Krzysztof Nykiel, official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (in the role of assistant secretary). When the Ruini Commission has completed its investigations and expressed its own opinion, it will report to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, from which the final word is expected.
The establishment of the Commission represents an exception in the history of the Church, in consideration of the complexity of the phenomena that are allegedly happening at Medjugorje. It is naturally too soon yet to know or foresee what the Vatican will ratify in its regard, but in the ‘Sacri Palazzi’, many among the Cardinals and Bishops of the Curia are certain that at the end the Holy See may recognize these events ‘only’ as interior locutions of the seers and not as true and proper apparitions. In that way, the pilgrims would be able to continue to go to the little town in Bosnia-Herzegovina to venerate the ‘Gospa’ (as they call the Virgin there), knowing well, however, that our heavenly Mother is not appearing in that place.
Medjugorje supporters: defense by distraction
Kevin Symonds went to work today on one of the internet spin-meisters for Medjugorje. On his blog Desiderium, Kevin fisks a pretty typical piece written in defense of the dodgy apparition in Herzegovina.
I have to wonder if the supporters realize how weak their case is: they seem to have little defense to any critique about the visionaries and their messages.
When somebody points to problems at the core of the phenomenon, the defenders rush to distract attention by pointing to “fruits” on the periphery.
The people experiencing those “fruits” are outsiders: visitors with little involvement in the phenomenon. But when you look at the core of the phenomenon and stick to the core, you find a bunch of alleged seers, all of whom make a living off the alleged apparition. You find so-called messages that, due to their content, can never be plausibly be called celestial.
There are cases of so-called seers passing off their own thoughts and imaginings as messages and visions from Heaven: for example, in the cases where the visionaries at Medjugorje had “apparitions” of their associates who were away, such as Ivan at seminary or Fr. Zovko in jail. In both cases, the visions were accompanied by messages about the status of those persons, but facts later contradicted those claims.
When you look at the core group, you find manipulation, self-editing, refusal to cooperate in official theological investigations and unofficial medical tests, and even some clear cases of lying.
The hard-line supporters pretend not to see that — but look at these nice seminarians over here! but look at these nice people going to confession! but look at the good deeds this person did in the US after he went to Medjugorje! but look at these foreign bishops who think it’s real!
This is pretty dense, and disappointing when all this evasion comes from someone who’s supposed to be a grad student studying religion.
Patrick Madrid, Fr. Neil Buchlein, and Al Kresta talk Medjugorje on the radio
Patrick Madrid discussed the Medjugorje case today on Ave Maria Radio’s “Al Kresta Show” today. Speaking from a favorable point of view on the alleged apparition was Fr. Neil Buchlein, a pastor from West Virginia. You can hear a replay of the show over at Patrick’s blog.
While Fr. Buchlein got much more air time than Patrick did, he did seem to back off in his approach as the conversation progressed. He eventually resorted to saying that, for people who have good experiences at Medjugorje, Church approval really isn’t all that necessary. I had to wonder if that might have been his first exposure to the skeptical case, brief as it was.