Rome Newsroom, May 20, 2023 / 08:42 am (CNA).
An institution has been formed in Rome to study alleged Marian apparitions and other supernatural phenomena in the Catholic Church.
The International Observatory on Marian Apparitions and Mystical Phenomenon (OISA) was established in April and is part of the Pontifical International Marian Academy.
The objective of the observatory is to research alleged Marian apparitions and other phenomena, such as the apparent crying or bleeding of Marian statues and images, whose authenticity have not yet been declared by the competent authority.
Sister Daniela del Gaudio, a Franciscan sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is the director of the observatory.
The task of the observatory is not “to judge or intervene in alleged apparitions or phenomena, but to study how these events take place and to give information and support to the bishops of the various dioceses who need to conduct investigations in this field,” she said in a press conference earlier this month, as reported by Italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana.
A diocesan bishop is responsible for giving official recognition to an apparition that took place or is taking place in his diocese according to a specific process and criteria outlined by the Vatican. A diocesan commission will also be involved.
One of the most important criteria for approving an apparition, Del Gaudio said according to Famiglia Cristiana, is “the consistency of the message transmitted by the visionary or visionaries with that of the public divine revelation contained in Sacred Scripture.”
She explained Marian apparitions do not introduce new revelation; they bring “a spiritually fruitful actualization of the Gospel in human history.”
The new observatory will take a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of Marian apparitions with scholars from the areas of sociology, culture, psychology, medicine, and theology, Del Gaudio said.
The observatory began its activities on April 15 and is headquartered in the offices of the Pontifical International Marian Academy in Rome.
The head of the academy, Father Stefano Cecchin, OFM, told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that “it is important to provide clarity, because often the alleged messages [from alleged Marian apparitions] generate confusion, spread anxious apocalyptic scenarios or even accusations against the pope and the Church.”
“How could Mary, Mother of the Church, undermine its integrity or sow fears and opposition,” he said.
One goal of the group is to form national commissions, or branches, of the observatory in different places around the world, he said.
The observatory also has plans to provide training to media and to dioceses on how to handle alleged apparitions or other phenomena.
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How can we help ?
Maybe we can help each other . In complete fear and trembling I attest to the truth of the very same . Just like in all for Gospels. He showed up
I’ve been taking photos and fear I’m not supposed to have so many . My partner in witness for seven years is now somewhere else as she knew I must return : We must return to our first family my name is DARRYL Joseph Spears and I could use some help with what I have witnessed to and never will change my Spirit or my beliefs in the Holy Family JESUS Joseph and MARY
With GOD the HOLY FATHER
( The one and only Nucleus )The very same GOD Jesus Christ and his Family pray to
So I’m Catholic and I’m a TODAY WAY WALKER He said I have no council and I believe what GOD says every single word HE is my witness and my council and keeps me from loosing my mind and corruption from my spirit for his timing is perfect I visit other Christian churches and find myself returning to the Catholic sacrament
I’m sure there are ways to fellowship and having some of the most difficult times finding this without signing up for a class among so many other things in my life and just today Was giving some information about serving two GODs ,” Money and Career or GOD
No wonder I’m not able to work at my ripe age of 59
I have so much to offer in ways however I also have worn myself out trying to keep up Sometime I feel as if I really dense and then the word and straightens me back out
I’m not liking worldly things anymore nor the persiut of and I want to follow Christ in every way possible I believe in the power of the living written word and the power of prayer and fasting ( Isiah 58 )
I also understand why Aron wanted to be like Moses He just didn’t understand why he Moses could hear GOD and he could not
Two must Witness
Two – one hears the other imparts knowledge Or one hears and the other sees etc like Paul said in the book of Corinthians also
CHRIST IMMANUEL said he spoke in parable and then had to explain them even to his beloved friends the disciples
Poor, poor Mary.
It’s not enough for her to have her Son taken from her so cruelly and brutally by the likes of us.
She now has to suffer the indignity of having her supernatural appearances and consoling words submitted for validation by a panel of “experts.”
Never mind that there is no possible way to assure that anyone acquires an expertise on such a rare and utterly irreproducible phenomenon as visitations from a heavenly personage.
I cannot help but wonder why the Vatican didn’t learn its lesson about “experts” after their “experts” assured us that priests who molested children could be fixed with therapy and a change of venue.
Does anyone remember how that worked out?
Someone should write a prayer: “A Petition for Divine Protection from Experts” and have it mailed to every cardinal, archbishop, bishop and pope.
At least every other week.
I’m sorry, but no good will come of this new bureaucracy of experts.
A legitimate focus is not only on the content of possible apparitions, but also on the seer and his or her backstory, and the critical role of early interactions with others. Two points, and a question (scroll down!):
FIRST, this hypothesis has already been professionally and fairly explored in connection with the full range of authentic and inauthentic Marian apparitions in the Catholic world, by Sandra L. Zimdars-Schwartz, an associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas (Sandra L. Zimdars-Schwartz, Encountering Mary, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991).
She found that tangible definition to an initial experience is often given by others (!) to what can be the vague and subjective experience of the possible mystic. She also found that an added role can be played by earlier instances of personal suffering and rejection (!) and the occasional tendency to “project into their post-experience environment the negative aspects of what they have experienced for example, paranoia leading to racism, anti-Semitism, hyper-nationalism” (p. 270).
SECOND, on these points, and in a separate and ambitious work dealing with self-image and political outcomes, Alan Bullock examined the psychological influences behind Hitler and Stalin (Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, New York: Vintage Books, 1993, pp. 3-17). In the life of Hitler, early family tensions and a sequence of rejections (dismissal from a Vienna art school) contributed to his fantasies and Wagnerian self-image, his strong resentment for German victimization at Versailles, and his racial ideology.
In the case of Stalin, his only systematic education was ten years in a particular monastic setting where a dogmatic, suspicious and watchful environment earned his lifelong disdain. Based carefully on Freud, Erik Erickson (on adolescent development) and Erich Fromm (on narcissism), Bullock found that when Stalin discovered Marxist ideology this reinforced his already acquired personal dispositions (a monastic-like police state?). However, this interpretation seems to downplay the fact that under the czar, Stalin himself spent four years as a prisoner in a Siberian camp near Turukhansk from 1913-1917 (a point alluded to in cynical camp folklore from the Gulag period—reported in Mihajlo Mihajlov, Moscow Summer, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giboux, 1965, pp. 76-85).
QUESTION: The role of experts is not to verify apparitions, but to filter out what are only shaped and amplified subjective experiences. (Hitler’s mother erred early by taking her son to Vienna instead of a psychologist.) And, in any event, today, the apostolic succession and the role of local bishops should not be replaced eventually (?) by sociologists and such.
So, wondering here if the same rigor is being applied by synodal “experts” to “aggregated, compiled, and synthesized” (NOT filtered?) utterances–not from Mary, butt from nothing less than the God Almighty: the Holy Spirit!
We can know through both Faith and Reason that this message is not from Our Blessed Mother but from those seeking a globalist ecumenical religion where we will be “like gods declaring what is good and evil”, and thus declaring, in essence, The Blessed Trinity, The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage does not exist.
https://www.neverthirsty.org/bible-qa/qa-archives/question/what-do-messages-lady-of-medjugorje-mean/
What a lot of rubbish! There are no ghosts, boogymen, or “apparitions” in this world! The Church has fed off people’s religious gullibility for centuries AND made a tonne of money from it! Lourdes springs to mind! This is why the Church is struggling in the Western world as we have to suspend relational thought and accept this stupidity. Next thing you’ll tell us that the Shroud of Turin is authentic.
Don’t forget the appearance of the blessed Virgin Mary in, of all places, Holy Scripture, where observers discovered her heart revealed in the Magificat, where she clearly stated “My soul doth magnify the Lord, AND MY SPIRIT REJOICETH IN GOD, MY SAVIOUR…”
To be sure, it’s a sighting of Mary that is timeless, not limited to only a few children, but to all of God’s children who are willing to open up their codes of The Holy Bible, and realize that Mary has a timely message for our generation as well as those who came before us: In no uncertain words, Saint Mary declares that, like us, she too was in need of a Saviour. For her, like the rest of the Bride of Christ, the Church throughout the world, but also the Church throughout time, God in His great mercy, sent Messiah Jesus into our world, to pay for all the sins of the world, including her own. For “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, which would include Mary, Joseph, you and I. Scripture does not call her without sin. “But if we confess our sins, God, who is Holy and just will forgive our sins, and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” She, too was forgiven. Mary, full of grace, because Almighty God infused such grace within her. God chose her, not the most popular, rich, influential woman of her time, but, like David, physical traits and outer beauty is not what our God highly prizes. Almighty God worked through her mightily, including those childhood years we hear so little about. But meek, humble Mary was obedient to God, by His strength, and she did not seek to overshadow Christ Jesus our Lord, the God-man, but was willing to fill a supportive life of service to our God and of our Christ, in the company of the Holy Spirit. Mary does not seek to be worshipped, like a goddess. But she is not worshipped, she is venerated. Surely, respect and admiration is due her, for God worked mightily through her. Yet she would mot seek titles such as “Queen of Heaven.” Instead, she would rightly redirect the gory and the thanks and the praise to God Himself, not to present and future ambitions due to rewards. Instead of clinging to pride or a sense of entitlement, St. Mary would cry out SOLI DEO GLORIA! To God Alone be the Glory. Rather than seeking novena said about her role, she, like Mother Theresa, would be more concerned with intercession and aid to those who are hungry, friendless, and “unimportant.” Rather than rejoicing over the Church catholic repeating Hail Mary’s ad infinitum, she would be much more concerned with the widow’s and orphans, and those oppressed by drug cartels, and those living in lands where even today, Christians must worship in secret, as the early Church did.
Jesus once declared, “An evil and wicked generation seeks after signs and wonders…” Must we place our faith in apparitions of Mary, when she revealed her very heart in the beautiful Song of Mary? It is not a weakness, that Mary, like us, was in need of salvation provided by the most precious sacrifice of Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, given and shed for you, for me, for Mary, and for the World (St. Jn. 3.16,17). God has Sanctified her as true and perfect Holiness can come from God Alone.
“Why do you call me ‘good’. Only God is good.” Should we not seek Mary where we know we can find her, in Holy Scripture. The Church Fathers reinforce what we learn from the Word of God, where they agree with these timeless words.
I agree. Thank you.
But meek, humble Mary was obedient to God, by His strength, and she did not seek to overshadow Christ Jesus our Lord, the God-man, but was willing to fill a supportive life of service to our God and of our Christ, in the company of the Holy Spirit. Mary does not seek to be worshipped, like a goddess. But she is not worshipped, she is venerated. Surely, respect and admiration is due her, for God worked mightily through her. Yet she would mot seek titles such as “Queen of Heaven.” Instead, she would rightly redirect the gory and the thanks and the praise to God Himself, not to present and future ambitions due to rewards. Instead of clinging to pride or a sense of entitlement, St. Mary would cry out SOLI DEO GLORIA! To God Alone be the Glory. Rather than seeking novena said about her role, she, like Mother Theresa, would be more concerned with intercession and aid to those who are hungry, friendless, and “unimportant.” Rather than rejoicing over the Church catholic repeating Hail Mary’s ad infinitum, she would be much more concerned with the widow’s and orphans, and those oppressed by drug cartels, and those living in lands where even today, Christians must worship in secret, as the early Church did.
Jesus once declared, “An evil and wicked generation seeks after signs and wonders…” Must we place our faith in apparitions of Mary, when she revealed her very heart in the beautiful Song of Mary? It is not a weakness, that Mary, like us, was in need of salvation provided by the most precious sacrifice of Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, given and shed for you, for me, for Mary, and for the World (St. Jn. 3.16,17). God has Sanctified her as true and perfect Holiness can come from God Alone.
“Why do you call me ‘good’. Only God is good.” Should we not seek Mary where we know we can find her, in Holy Scripture. The Church Fathers reinforce what we learn from the Word of God, where they agree with these timeless words.