New guidelines.
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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Holy Office) is expected to release updated instructions for bishops on the discernment of alleged supernatural phenomena such as visions, mystical charismata involving stigmata, locutions - messages from heaven, and so on. What follows is a portion of the news report I found on Pewsitters:
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The Pope is said to be deeply concerned by the explosion in the number of pseudo-mystics who, claiming a direct line to God, set themselves against the bishops and lure the Catholic faithful out of the Church and into disobedient cults.
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When a claim of heavenly apparitions occurs, the local bishop will need to set up a commission of psychiatrists, psychologists, theologians and priests who will investigate the claims systematically.
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The first step will be to impose silence on the alleged visionaries and if they refuse to obey then this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false.
The first step will be to impose silence on the alleged visionaries and if they refuse to obey then this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false.
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Benedict XVI plans to publish criteria to help them to distinguish between true and false claims of visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, messages, stigmata, weeping and bleeding statues and Eucharistic miracles.
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In some cases exorcists will be used to determine if a credible apparition is of divine origin or whether it is demonic. - Telegraph
In some cases exorcists will be used to determine if a credible apparition is of divine origin or whether it is demonic. - Telegraph
Thanks for this great news. It seems like everybody and his brother are having visions and divine messages these days. I am NOT a skeptic of authentic appraitions (matter of fact the marian visions of Beauraing and Banneux had a great deal to do with my embracing the Catholic Faith of my baptism)but there has to be some real serious action in this regard.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Some of the false ones are funny however. I know, I'm not supposed to laugh at such stuff.
ReplyDeleteTerry, are you saying you don't believe in my visions and locutions? Watch out, or my stigmatic wounds will start bleeding!
ReplyDeletelol
"The first step will be to impose silence on the alleged visionaries and if they refuse to obey then this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false."
ReplyDeleteIf this is true, that's the end of Medjugorje.
Reading from MD. :>
Adoro - I know you are kidding - I accept the approved apparitions.
ReplyDeleteSF - I thought of that myself regarding Medj - it would be nice to have some conclusion regarding that apparition in particular. I think Medj has spawned numerous other alleged apparitions and locutions as well.
I think that the Church should charge an investigation fee.
ReplyDelete(I know)
Then much of this would stop.
Although , as evil escalates, I would also expect good or revealations to escalate as well.
About Medj, the Bishop of Mostar-Duvno has spoken magisterially about this yet people disobey him. The authority of declaring the authenticity of apparitions is with the local Bishop by Canon Law, so officially Medj is disapproved. Try telling that to a Medj head though.
ReplyDeleteNot trying to start a fight with Medj heads, just saying what the rules are.
OH,my stars - Leo just threw a chair into the room like they do over on the "Jerry Springer" show.
ReplyDelete:0
Your cracking me up!
From the Medjugorjites, deliver us, O Lord.
ReplyDeleteLord, save your people.
:)
Worked in a independent Catholic book store for nine months. If I ever said anything remotely questioning of the big M or simply stated fact such as the Church has not spoken definitively about M or, when it happened, that it was said that the Church may be coming out against the big M the M'ites would have a fit. I learned just to be silent. However when I was given an opportunity to choose books for the store I usually did not select or even deselected big M titles.
ReplyDeleteThe 3 most important words in Real or Fake: locution, locution, locution.
ReplyDeleteLarry...ha ha ha
ReplyDeleteOwen...I trust then you can and will believe when I say that I lost what I thought was a good Catholic friendship back in the late 80s when I told the "pal" that the big M did NOT exhibit the traditional signs of authenticity and the bishop was not favorable. I mean...alleged visionaries traveling the "supernatural circuit" of conferences as compared to the real visionaries who sought to avoid the limelight was more than enough for me. But that is onnly ONE reason.
Well...this friend went on to become a BIG name in the USA and even international M movement. And me? I still stand by what I thought 20 years ago and agree that (at least in the past) daring to speak ANTYHING remotely negative about the M was to invite anger, ostracization and rudeness into one's life.