KNOCK
HOAX
Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland, Eugene Hynes, Cork University Press, Cork, 2008
In the village of Knock, Co Mayo, Ireland, on the night of the 21st of August 1879 the Virgin Mary flanked by St Joseph and a bishop thought to be St John the Evangelist and an altar with a lamb and cross on it allegedly appeared on the gable wall of the Parish Church for a few hours. Fifteen people witnessed the vision including a child of five. This apparition seems very convincing on the face of it. Appearances can be so deceiving! It does not really matter how the hoax was performed. What matters is the evidence that something tricky was going on. The figures that appeared were Jewish and thus the statement of the Jewish Law that one witness isn't enough as evidence would have been endorsed by them. Jesus and God in the New Testament reaffirm that rule. And the bishop was holding a gospel book indicating approval for gospel teaching. Thus the apparition implies that we must not take any testimony as sufficient if there is only the one witness.
It was supposed to have been a very wet night. People don't notice and observe things very well when the rain is heavy. A hoax played on the witnesses is a possibility. I think the images could have been pictures made of fabric that were stuck to the wall. Then a light source shone down on them from the window sill of the chapel gable could have made them look very mysterious. It has been proven that a light source from a magic lantern could have been attached to the window sill and given off sufficient light. They were wet and excited and maybe they did not notice giveaways. The hoax could have been relatively crude.
What would have been needed was a light source that made three crude life size shapes. Faces and hands and feet pictures would all that would have been needed on the wall. The images were to the left of the gable and the light could have come down from the window sill. A magic lantern could also have been hidden in the ground to illuminate the image of the lamb and the altar. Two light sources would mean that if somebody touched the wall there would be no shadow visible. From a distance the images would have looked fairly impressive. A perfect display would have been unnecessary. People's imagination and the way their recollection of the apparition would be unwittingly embellished and made more seemingly supernatural over time would do the rest. A witness said to the Daily Telegraph that the figures "stood out from the wall like statues and we SEEMED to see around them" (page 65, The Apparition at Knock). People who looked at the apparition for two hours couldn't say anything better than it only seemed that the images were three dimensional! Imagination was helping make their apparition tale more eerie!
If you check youtube for magic lantern shows you will see that contrary to what pro-Knock books say and what the crafty witness Mary Beirne later Mary McConnell said, images as good as the reported apparition can be produced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzCNB6z4PUc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFQ8P_xzz9M&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL222E0939549DFDE3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fu3zFYgkcg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jCB4EfoiNo
Most of the testimonies state that the images were so like statues that they were mistaken for statues. Maybe they were statues for nobody seen them coming and nobody seen them going. It was only one testimony, that of Brigid Trench, an old woman, that claimed that the images could not be touched. (The fact that it was only her testimony would tell us that the New Testament itself would forbid us to consider it to be of any value. We have no record of how reliable she was mentally - was she forgetful, had she touches of dementia? Could her poor diet have affected her reliability? So we can say that her testimony though it may be true does not demand belief from us. It cannot. ) Also, if she thought she saw the Virgin she would have expected there to be a body there that could be touched. She reached out and touched the image stuck to the wall and reasoned that the body was there but miraculously couldn't be touched. If you intend to touch a three dimensional person and find a flat surface you could assume that.
Nobody else tried to touch the images. Given that the Irish are fond of touching holy surfaces that is strange. Today, thousands of people every year touch a panel of stones from the original gable at Knock Shrine. Even if the people who saw the alleged vision thought it couldn't be touched they surely would have wanted to touch the gable anyway? They would have wanted to take the magic away with them for a blessing.
The Trench testimony has a serious contradiction, "I remarked distinctly the lower portions of her feet (Mary's), and kissed them three times." Then she said, "I could not understand why I could not feel them (the figures) with my hands such as I beheld them with my eyes". She declared that when she first saw the apparition that she tried to kiss the Virgin's feet "but felt nothing in the embrace but the wall". She was very excited. At her age she would have been worried about the rain which would have made her more excitable. Perhaps she expected to touch warm fleshly feet and when she felt cold stone she assumed that it was the wall she was touching when in reality it was a statue. Or are we talking about bas relief "flat" type statues that were put on the wall? Brigid does not give us evidence that the images could not be touched. She gives us her interpretation. She was not cross-examined to see if she could think of another interpretation. There is no real evidence then that the images were ghostly and intangible.
The fact that only Trench seems to have kissed the wall is odd. You would expect several of the others to copy her when they would see her doing this.
The Knock apparition was just people looking at a sight they considered unusual and miraculous. In other apparitions, the witnesses go into a state of ecstatic joy and a trance. This might be significant. Or it might not be. The Bible speaks of great joy during visions from Heaven but never mentions the witnesses going into trances. It does condemn Mediums and mediums go into trances and ecstatic states to have visions.
We must remember that the first two alleged witnesses could have set the hoax up themselves and deceived the other witnesses who came later.
This picture of the apparition site shows that the investigators at the time who used projectors to see if the image could have been made that way should have considered the prominent window sill as the resting place for the hoaxer's projector. Instead they considered stupid scenarios such as the projector being put along the wall which was about 25 paces from the gable or the school house. The visionaries would have got in the way of the light had it been put at the wall. The schoolhouse was too far away and it wasn't possible for a magic lantern to make a good image from that distance. The investigators knew better than all this. Yet they did tests with magic lanterns to show that these were no explanation for the vision. They were seemingly influenced by people who wanted to prevent them from discovering a way it could have been done. So they got them to try out methods that could not have been used. It's a clever way of pretending to investigate in order to sway opinion in favour of the apparition.
Wouldn't you be suspicious say if somebody saw a bright light a UFO in the sky and an investigator came along and shone a torch up at the sky to see if that would explain it? Then when it doesn't he will say it must have been a spaceship. He wouldn't even bother turning the torch unless he had to do to silence fools.
Above is another shot of the apparition gable from 1879. It's striking how flat the land was. Why did the alleged bright light of the vision not get more attention than it did? It should have been visible for miles around. The light was less impressive than they made out!
The above photos show the gable. The window sill is very pronounced in the second picture which hails from 1879. We see the school house to the right hand side. A mystery wooden shed that nobody seems to have paid any attention to is depicted. The investigators assumed that if a magic lantern was used it was used from the schoolhouse. The shed might have been a better idea! But the window ledge is the best suggestion of all.
We wonder if any of the witnesses were themselves the hoaxers?
Possible Motive:
To create a pious fraud to halt the parish hostility to Archdeacon Cavanagh. Some time before the apparition, there had been a meeting in the parish to protest against him. Another motive could have been to create another Lourdes and to bring fame and employment and other improvements to a region in the grip of horrendous poverty.
The evidence for pious fraud is the contention of Mary Beirne that the apparition came to show that Archdeacon Cavanagh was a very holy man (page 165). The apparition depicted Mary to whom Cavanagh was extremely devoted and St Joseph and a bishop and a Eucharistic altar and a lamb - all symbols that indicate approval for the priesthood and indicating that priests must be respected. It is mad to think the vision can be read as anti-clerical or supportive of the priests critics. The notion that Cavanagh would not have thought of getting somebody to make a vision of St John is inconclusive for the bishop sound more like St Patrick. The vision is just what somebody trying to make a successful shrine would create for the Irish had great devotion to the Eucharist, St Joseph and the Blessed Virgin and St Patrick.
Page 26 of Margaret Anna Cusack, states that the Archdeacon had been threatened and an inhabitant of the village had been appointed to cut his ears off but this plan was thwarted by the apparition. The same page tells us the apparition enhanced the reverence of the people towards him. In shrine supporter William Coyne's book, Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh (Roscommon, 1953) we learn "It was resolved ... to have his ears cut off. However before the date fixed for the sacrilegious act the extraordinary events of the 21 August 1879 (the apparition) had occurred at Knock. There was a complete change ... even the hardest of hearts...regarded it as a direct sign through Our Lady that a crime of the kind contemplated was a desecration" (page 82-84).
In the latest version of Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh we read that Cavanagh was to be subjected to a number of threats before having the ears cut off. A member of those terrorists who lived near Knock if not in Knock was strenuously opposed to the impending maltreatment of the priest and was overruled and warned that he would die if he warned the priest. But the decision was leaked nevertheless and the parish denounced the evil plan. A support group was set up who vowed to protect their priest no matter what and were resolved to attack anybody who would attempt violence against him. This version also states that the night of the apparition was to be the night chosen for the attack on the priest (page 74). Cavanagh then knew of what was planned for him.
We see from this that there are more problems.
Why was the priest alone in the cottage that night? His housekeeper even went out visiting with not a care in the world.
Where were the men who were supposed to be guarding the priest?
Did the protecting the priest no matter what stretch as far as orchestrating a fake apparition or helping the priest to do it?
There is no evidence that Cavanagh was in his cottage when the apparition was first seen.
The witnesses were at the Campbell cottage when they supposedly left the apparition on its own at the gable. They went back and it was gone. There is no evidence that Cavanagh was in his cottage at that point. He could have left to set up the vision. He could have went back when the coast was clear to take his tricks away. The magic lantern being turned off would have been enough to make the people think the apparition had vanished.
After the apparition, the priests who investigated it went on the platform at Aghamore near Knock on October 26 1879. This was during a meeting to condemn clergymen hostile to the Land League. Cavanagh was completely opposed to the Land League. The priests of course went to uphold such opposition. The priests themselves then had a reason to want the evidence for the apparition which enhanced the authority and safety of Cavanagh to be convincing - they had the power to manipulate the witnesses and leave out anything disturbing from the record of the testimonies. They had the power to make the witnesses agree. This can be done by asking questions in such a way that the witnesses are led to think they had witnessed things they never seen at all. This would be leading the witnesses. Therapists are not allowed to use leading questions for they put things into the heads of the patients. The site was never examined for evidence of fraud so they didn't do their job as well as one would expect. And they probably didn't want to either . . .
Collusion a Possibility:
Collusion is possible because fifteen out of possibly twenty witness were selected for questioning by the commission of investigation and they were all connected. Five lived in the one house and were all relatives (page 165, Knock). Nine were related.
The Beirnes were very close to Father Cavanagh and would naturally have abhorred the treatment he got from his parish (page 165). They were sacristans of the Church. Most of the other visionaries were very devoted to the priest. Witness Mary McLoughlin was the priest's housekeeper and a friend of the Beirnes.
What were the visionaries set to gain from their tale?
The old woman who witnessed the vision, Bridget Trench, wouldn't like to say anything that contradicted the other witnesses because she depended on them to feed her (page 191, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland). Mary Mc Loughlin depended on her job as priest's housekeeper which was a restriction on her. The priest supported the apparition from the very morning after so that tied her tongue.
Lourdes was revitalised economically by the 1858 apparition. The witnesses would have seen the creation of a shrine at Knock as a means to get out of dire poverty. The Archdeacon having had a huge devotion to Mary would certainly have told them plenty about Lourdes during Mass. We read that when he first came to serve at Knock as priest, that the people in the parish barely subsisted on what they had (page 36, Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh). Another factor causing this dire poverty was the poor quality of the land (page 36, ibid). The year of the apparition 1879 was the worst year in Knock since the Famine (page 64, Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh). The parish was malnourished and on the verge of famine as blight had ravaged the potatoes. Typhus fever was rampant throughout the primitive cabin houses (page 63, Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh). These were people that needed a miracle. And in the month of the apparition, the area was left devastated because thanks to the heavy rains the autumn potato crop failed (page 68, Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh). We read that Archbishop Lynch of Toronto went to Knock and wrote in 1882 that he saw great misery in Knock and remarked how many families were evicted from their humble homes as three failed harvests had meant they didn't have the rent money (page 80, 82, Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh). All the witnesses were set to indirectly gain a lot from the vision.
Page 62, The Apparition at Knock, alludes to the fact that some of the witnesses did gain from the vision directly
These things do not prove that they were dodgy. They do weaken the evidence for the apparition. For example, if you say you see a supernatural being and you turn that to your financial advantage, that suggests you may not have seen the being at all for you don't have much respect for it or fear of it.
Story Straight:
The witnesses who were investigated had from August 21 to the date of the investigation October 8th 1879 to get their stories straight and "remember" it in a way that fitted what the others were saying.
In Ballyhaunis, there was a stained glass image of Mary and two others standing in a pose reminiscent of the pose of the figures at Knock.
The temperance medal image of a lamb on an altar with a cross behind matches what some the visionaries supposedly saw on the gable.
All the seers had to do to remember what to say was to recall the images on the stained-glass window at the Roman Catholic Church at Ballyhaunis and the altar and cross lamb on the temperance medal. These depicted the images at Knock very closely - before the apparitions took place. There was a close connection between Ballyhaunis and Knock (page 236, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland).
The Archdeacon was one of the three or four priests chosen to investigate. He was the chairman (182). The commission never took the testimony of the seers word for word but changed it (page 182, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland).
Margaret Beirne thought it was her job to lock the Church at a certain time on the night of the apparition while Mary thought it was hers to do it at a different time. One of these ladies was lying because they lived in the same house and would not have had this confusion.
Another problem is that most of the Beirne visionaries lived in the same house and yet you have Mary going to tell Dominick about the vision at 8 and Catherine to tell Margaret at 8 and Margaret going back to tell her mother at 8.15? (page 248, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland).
The commission was dishonest. One of the priests forged Judith Campbell's signature (page 185, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland) on a witness report.
There is no reason to rule out the chance that Cavanagh lied about what the witnesses testified to (page 186, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland). So little is known about how the commission worked that it is possible that Cavanagh wrote their testimonies to please himself and read back to them the bits they gave him because they couldn't read. He could have left out the conflicts. Then he got them to sign their mark or name.
Mary O Loughlin's testimony has her explaining that she saw a cross behind the lamb on the altar and how it was a bit behind the lamb. Yet when this testimony was published in a newspaper she decided that a mistake by the newspaper was made for she never saw any cross (page 191, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland). Cavanagh could have altered her testimony to suit his wishful thinking (page 191, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland).
It is inexplicable that the witnesses who knew of pictures of St Patrick holding his hand in blessing and wearing a mitre didn't think the bishop figure was him. Someone manipulated the seers into thinking it was St John the Evangelist. This person was Mary Beirne later Mary Mc Connell. That they agreed when it should have been so unnatural for them to, shows how she was getting into their minds. She was very effective.
The Knock apparition is certainly the best attested miracle of all time. Minor details are used to persuade people that this apparition was really miraculous. One witness said the ground was dry beneath the apparition. Another said that the apparition was crisp and clear and not like an image made by a magic lantern. The main details do nothing to show that the apparition was not a trick. But the minor details are insufficient as evidence for we know that if you have people witnessing some event and ask for their testimony, they will all give the same rough outline and the details will contradict one another. For all we know, cut outs may have been put on the gable and a light source shone on them. No wonder the priest Cavanagh was so keen on letting people pull pieces off the Church wall the next day. It helped get rid of the evidence for tampering. The excessive importance given to minor details is fatal to the reliability of the evidence for a real miracle at Knock.
Cavanagh's Lies:
Cavanagh pretended that he didn't believe Mary McLoughlin when she came to him about the vision at the gable and asked him to go and see it. Witness Mary Beirne testified in 1936, "Mary McLoughlin, housekeeper to Archdeacon Cavanagh, went to the parochial house to acquaint the parish priest, of the occurrence. He, however, did not visit the scene, believing, as he told his housekeeper, that it was a reflection from a stained-glass window erected some time before." She gave the same testimony during the 1880 interview with the Weekly News.
Cavanagh told McLoughlin that he thought it was a reflection from a stained glassed window knowing fine well he had no window that could do that or that resembled the apparition and it was dark. He wouldn't go to the apparition site as he feigned scepticism and disinterest.
Mary McLoughlin testified soon after the apparitions that when she told the Archdeacon of the vision "he appeared to make nothing of what I said." And the next day he heard "all about the apparition from the others who had beheld it; and then it came to his recollection that I had told him the previous evening about it, and asked him to see it." It is impossible to believe that the Archdeacon was that uninterested. He was acting.
Here is Cavanagh's 1880 account of what he was doing when he heard about the apparition. It was published with his approval by McPhilpin.
"As to the visions, the Archdeacon said, in effect: " On the night of the first Apparition my housekeeper asked leave to visit a friend, and remained out unusually late. While wondering what had become of her, she made her appearance in a very excited state, exclaiming : 'Oh! your reverence, the wonderful and beautiful sight ! The Blessed Virgin has appeared up at the chapel, with St. Joseph and St. John, and we have stood looking at them this long time. Oh the wonderful sight !' Inferring that the vision had disappeared, and omitting to question my housekeeper on that point, I did not go up, and I have regretted ever since that I omitted to do so. On another occasion a messenger was sent down to fetch me : I was in bed after a fatiguing day, and, having a prospect of hard work on the morrow, did not rise." — This manifestly appears as a triumph of the flesh over the spirit. — " I shall ever feel sorry that a sight of the Apparitions has been denied me, but God may will that the testimony to his Blessed Mother's presence should come from the simple faithful and not through the priests. Though I have not witnessed the divine manifestation I have seen the light, and once, when standing at some distance from the chapel, in company with others, a most brilliant star flashed along the gable, leaving a train of radiance."
It is impossible to believe him. His housekeeper Mary told him that she was not the only one who saw the sight. Thus he would have taken what she said seriously for that reason alone. He lies that he thought she said the vision had gone and that was why he never went to see the vision. Mary asked him to go to the gable according to her own account. He went to bed and another person came to ask him to go to the gable. Why did he not go then? And he was in bed and would have been in the dark and if there had been a light at the gable it would have been visible from his bedroom window in the dark. And he must have looked out the window at the gable at some point at least out of curiosity. The Archdeacon talked like a man who was playing the innocent. Also, nobody knows where he was when the vision appeared. And he claimed to be in his bed at the time when it vanished. How significant might that be?
There is no mention in his own account of his scepticism. He might have feared that if he pretended to think there was no vision and that was why he didn't go to the gable that it might be construed as evidence by sceptics that there was indeed no vision.
Another account of his is interesting. He was interviewed by a correspondent of the Weekly News of 14 February 1880. He said, "When my housekeeper returned home that night, she said that she had seen the Blessed Virgin at the chapel. At first, I gave no attention to her words but afterwards when I began to think that a wonder may really have been witnessed, I concluded that the people did not leave the church until the Apparition was visible no longer. Ever since, this has been to me a cause of the deepest mortification. But I console myself with the reflection that it was the will of God that the Apparition should be shown to the people, not the priest. If I had seen it, and if I had been the first to speak of it, many things would have been said that cannot now be advanced with any fair shadow of reason or probability on their side". Then the correspondent observed, "The strong emotion of the good pastor was so evident that both kept silent for some time."
It is impossible to believe that he didn't at least consider what she said to be true. He knew her well. If there had been a light at the gable with the figures inside it, why didn't she go to the window looking that way and point out? Why didn't she tell him to at least look out the window?
He said he thought those who were at the gable stayed until the apparition vanished. Again if he was so interested why didn't he stand at his back door and look at the gable?
He said that the gossips would have had a field day had he seen the apparition. He was evidently worried that people would suspect that he had had something to do with the apparition and was part of a hoax. He said this in 1880 after the testimonies of the witnesses had been recorded so evidently he considered them to be inadequate as proof that he only saw the apparition and nothing untoward was taking place.
He said that the credibility of the apparition would have been ruined if he had been the first to say that it had happened. What an odd thing to say? Why would he have to be the first to state that it happened? If people report a vision and you say you can't go to see it for you don't want to be the first to speak of it then clearly you are trying too hard to make an excuse. You would only try that hard if you knew what was really going on ie a hoax.
Why would people automatically blame him? Why would he assume they would? He is evidently concealing the fact that he knew more than he let on. And again if the evidence is good enough, it wouldn't matter who saw the apparition or who told about it.
The Archdeacon was always embroiled in enough controversy to know that its best to let people say what they like. He was in the habit of doing so anyway. He had nothing to fear if he was not involved in a hoax. He talked like a man that had something to hide. He thought, "I am doing wrong by orchestrating this fake miracle and I will get found out if I am not careful." If you are overcautious in case you get accused of a hoax, then you are very probably guilty. If you assume people will think you did x if you do such and such, then you must have x on your conscience.
If the Archdeacon refused to go to the gable that night lest the credibility of the vision be diminished, that raises some questions. His reasons actually look like excuses.
The Archdeacon was silent and annoyed after he said the people would think he was behind the apparition hoax. That's important. And even more so when nobody accused him at all of being a hoaxer. That accusation has only been considered in recent decades. Poor guilty Cavanagh!
The light - if as bright as the witnesses said - would have shone in the windows at the back of his house. He must have noticed it. Even after been told about the apparition he pretended not to notice. The picture below shows the Archdeacon standing some distance in front of his house. The apparition gable can be seen just above his head. There was a clear unobstructed view of the apparition gable from his house.
If the Archdeacon had genuinely thought the apparition was an illusion or trick of the light he would have looked out. If you see a strange light you look out. His backdoor gave him a full clear view of the apparition gable as well. The Archdeacon knew more about the apparition than he was letting on. He was either conspiring with the witnesses to pretend that a vision had occurred or he had been involved in deceiving them.
The next day he set about promoting the vision and was even collecting rainwater that hit the gable into bottles to give to pilgrims. What a suspiciously fast conversion!
A priest who encouraged people to believe the mortar from the gable had occult powers could hardly be described as open-minded. He was biased in favour of the miraculous - that is, credulous. If the vision was a hoax, he was still able to make himself believe that it was real even if he was involved. People died from consuming the mortar (Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland, page 245). Also the mortar being taken damaged the gable sacrilegiously. If some trickery had been afoot, say if something had been fastened to the wall to deceive the people, then it was to the hoaxer's advantage to have the wall vandalised and the evidence of tampering eliminated and lost. For example, evidence of nails having being used to attach the images to the wall would have disappeared. The man who encourages credulity is a man without real integrity. When one encourages the risk of being deceived one would deceive.
The Story of My Life by the Nun of Kenmare was published in 1891. "While I was in the church one day I saw a bright light above the altar, and all the people were exclaiming, "There it is! there it is! Now we have seen it for ourselves." I was somewhat impressed myself, and hoped that at last I had seen a supernatural sight, even if it was only a bright light. I was kneeling when I first saw the light, but when I rose up from my knees the light disappeared. I at once knelt down again, and lo, the light shone once more as bright as ever. I tried this experiment several times, and was then convinced that it was some reflection. I had made up my mind to investigate everything thoroughly when I came to know, though my prejudices were in favour of believing everything. I now went near the altar, and at once found out the cause of what seemed supernatural. It was simply a very large glass stone, which had caught the reflection of the setting sun. I dare don't touch anything about the shrine, so I went at once to Father Cavanagh, whose house was quite near, and asked him to come and remove the vision, for I thought it was dreadful to have the people deceived, But to my amazement - and I must admit to my indignation - he would not remove it. This made me very skeptical as far as he was concerned" (page 268 to 291).
Cavanagh knew that the apparition made it look like Mary agreed with his antics and his unfair opposition to the Fenians and the Land League. He encouraged that thinking. A man who wanted the evils of the Landlordism to be maintained and who claims the Virgin Mary to be as bad is simply not to be trusted. Would Mary appear if people were going to take that interpretation of her action?
The nun stated in her other works how she was so anxious to have a vision. Yet she was far from easy led in the above story. Thus we must consider her story to be true and reliable.
This story tells us a number of things.
The people were easily led - were the original visionaries as bad?
Cavanagh had a stone that was able to make the fading light of the sun become very bright. A stone like that could have been used to make the light of the original magic lantern used on the gable wall far brighter than usual.
Cavanagh was open to letting the people be deceived. He could have let the stone stay and tell them the light was an illusion but he did not. The nun was right to feel her "indignation".
When Cavanagh was priest of Westport in Mayo, he said that a stranger had given him the exact amount of money needed to build a facility for young girls. The priest met the donor at Lecanvey near Croagh Patrick (page 32, Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh). It seems he did nothing to discourage the notion that the man was none other than St Joseph himself! The pious believed it was (page 32, ibid). It is obvious he wanted people to believe in visions.
In Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh page 113 we learn that two men on the run went to the priest's house for the sacraments. A stranger opened the door and he seemed to know what they were there for. He told them the Archdeacon was tired and asked them to come back in the morning for Holy Communion and Confession. They told the priest the next day and he said that they must say nothing about the man until after he is dead. Pious belief was that the man was an angel. From what we know today, he could have been a gay lover! We know that the Archdeacon when dying wanted young Father Reidy, a Curate in Claremorris, around all the time! The Archdeacon was trying to create a supernatural mystery!
The Archdeacon knew that if an apparition is reported, people can come privately and pray but official pilgrimages are wrong. The Church has to approve the apparition before they can be allowed. This is Church law even today for the Church bans official and public pilgrimages to Medjugorje for it is not an approved apparition. Devious Cavanagh welcomed the first organised pilgrimage to Knock in March 1880. Fifty members from the Holy Name Confraternity came from Limerick. He gave an address to them that was printed in the Munster News (24 March 1880) which asserted that Mary appeared with Joseph and John at Knock. A formal presentation of the pilgrimage banner took place - the Archdeacon put it beside the altar. Later in 1880, the Cork pilgrimage arrived with a grand new altar for the parish Church! (page 79, Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh). The Church looked very good in 1880 - a remarkable transformation from a plain church with few seats and a clay floor and flagstones in the sanctuary area and rough altar from the previous year!
Cavanagh was one of the three or four or five priests involved in the investigation which took place 8 October 1879. Even pious writers devoted to the apparition and the shrine admit that this investigation was careless and unprofessional (page 174, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland). Yet it must be assumed that the commission never made a final decision as to the apparition being authentically supernatural or otherwise (page 177, Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland). There is no evidence or record that it decided one way or the other.
The Archdeacon told the Weekly News of 14 February 1880 regarding his strange absence from the apparition at the gable, "If I had seen it, many things would have been said that cannot now be advanced with any fair show of reason or probability on their side." In other words, I would have been accused of fraud had I gone to see it. This is a bizarre thing to say. The Archdeacon had no concern for reason or probability for he accepted all the ridiculous miracle reports. Its staying away from the scene of the vision that should open the door to suspicion. More importantly, the Archdeacon was admitting that he was the target of rumour and insinuation. Cleary, there was a feeling among some that he was responsible for the fake miracle.
Cavanagh kept a diary of cures at Knock. He focused on the healings and never even considered the spiritual effects. True healings from God should be accompanied by greater holiness and peace of heart. The Archdeacon was only interested in the signs and wonders aspect. He wanted a God who magically shows off at Knock.
Did the Vision really stand two feet above the ground?
My name is Patrick Walsh ; I live at Ballinderrig, an English mile from the chapel of Knock. I remember well the 21st of August, 1879. It was a very dark night. It was raining heavily. About nine o'clock on that night I was going on some business through my land, and standing a distance of about half a mile from the chapel, I saw a very bright light on the southern gable-end of the chapel ; it appeared to be a large globe of golden light ; I never saw, I thought, so brilliant a light before; it appeared high up in the air above and around the chapel gable, and it was circular in its appearance ; it was quite stationary, and it seemed to retain the same brilliancy all through. The following day I made inquiries in order to learn if there were any lights seen in place that night; it was only then I heard of the Vision or Apparition that the people had seen.
The entities stood within the globe for the testimonies say they were within a light.
What we have here is a globe of light that was high up in the air. The light light up the gable by reflection. The globe itself was above and around the gable meaning the globe of light appeared so high up that part of it semi-obscured the top of the gable and the rest shone above.
Interestingly, Patrick Hill stated the following in 1879, "When we, running southwest, came so far from the village that on our turning the gable came in view, we immediately beheld the lights, a clear, white light, covering most of the gable, from the ground up to the window and higher. It was a kind of changing bright light, going sometimes up high and again not so high."
This contradicts Walsh - the only thing that agrees with Walsh is that the light did go up high. Even then there is an inconsistency. Walsh said the light stayed high and Hill says it moved up and down. Walsh said the light was golden and Hill said it was white.
Hill said, "I saw the figures and brightness ; the boy, John Curry, from behind the wall, could not see them ; but I did ; and he asked me to lift him up till he could see the grand babies, as he called the figures". The boy could not see the images though they were high up. Patrick Hill was baptised in 1868 meaning he was only 11. Hill would not have been very tall. His view would have been handicapped - unless the vision was higher up than generally believed. A vision near ground level is harder to see over a wall that's high for you.
Walsh was not too far away from the Church. It was half a mile. Nobody can say he was too far away and made a mistake in judging the height. He was a farmer who knew the landscape well.
His statement that the globe of light was high up makes liars of those who said the images were just two feet above the ground. This would be Patrick Hill, Mary Beirne and Bridget Trench. The images being very high up would mean that Bridget Trench did not try to touch Mary's feet. It would mean that Patrick Hill did not see as much detail as he pretended to. It would eliminate all the evidence for a miracle. The testimony of those three is the greatest block to attempting a natural explanation. Without it a natural explanation such as a magic lantern would suffice.
The vision being high up and out of reach accounts for the following information.
It would explain why the visionaries were standing far away from the vision. They were at the ditch leaning on the wall next the schoolhouse to look at the vision. The school house can be seen below. They stood where the wall meets the schoolhouse gable. Patrick Hill's testimony tells us that. Mary McLoughlin said she stayed at the ditch near the school house. Dominick Beirne also said that they gathered around the wall. You stand some distance away if figures are high up. If they are nearly ground level you go closer and you stay close.
They stood at an angle to the gable. It was as if the vision was not clear unless they stood at that angle. You would have expected them to stand between the wall and the gable facing the gable directly. Some would say that though they didn't admit it, they stood where they stood because standing at the more natural spot meant the image was being obscured by their bodies. This would happen if the projector was hidden in the wall and they were stepping in front of it.
The position they stood at is very strange. It is stranger though if the images were nearer the ground. It makes a little more sense if the images were higher up. If images are high up and out of reach you feel little inclination to go close or to look at them directly and not at an angle.
The picture below shows the position of the globe as Walsh saw it. We can still accept all the witness accounts and hold that the altar and the lamb were just below the window sill. All we contest is the three who said the vision was near the ground.
Walsh says he saw the gable in his testimony. "I saw a very bright light on the southern gable-end of the chapel ; it appeared to be a large globe of golden light ; I never saw, I thought, so brilliant a light before; it appeared high up in the air above and around the chapel gable." People who say he saw the chapel from the side and that was why the light seemed high up are fantasists. This is a lie they tell in the hope of making out that he saw the sight from the side and didn't see the gable directly so that they can make the excuse that from his standpoint the light looked high up. He saw it from a half a mile away. He should have seen the images if they were plain. Significantly, he didn't. This backs up Patrick Beirne who described them as like something cast by moonlight. That wouldn't be very visible from beyond a certain distance.
It is odd that if the light was so bright that he didn't get closer to investigate. A half a mile isn't a long distance. Was he misremembering?
According to Patrick Hill, "When we, running southwest, came so far from the village that on our turning the gable came in view, we immediately beheld the lights, a clear, white light". Though he was running in a direction that gave him a view of the gable it seems he saw nothing until he got closer. This too helps back up Beirne. The light was like moonlight. It was white too. It shows that Walsh was wrong to say the light was as brilliant as he claimed.
The vision being high up explains problems such as these better. Some witnesses saying there was a cross and others saying there was definitely no cross. Hill saying there was angels going around the altar while Mary Beirne said it was just flashing lights. Why Trench wasn't sure that the thing Mary wore on her head was a crown.
Patrick Beirne and Mary Beirne said in the 1930's that the vision was not far about the ground. Patrick said, "I saw three figures on the gable surrounded by a wonderful light. They appeared to be something like shadows or reflections cast on a wall on a moon-light night" (page 53, The Apparition at Knock). If that is not confirmation that some of the witnesses were making the vision sound more impressive than what it really was and that it was caused by a magic lantern then what is? Patrick Beirne's 1879 testimony was glossed over by the priest or priests who wrote it down for him. " I saw the figures clearly, fully, and distinctly — the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and that of a bishop, said to be St. John the Evangelist. Young Beirne then told what he saw regarding the Vision, just as it has been described already by several persons who were present." Very suspicious! This is clearly an attempt to paper over indications that the young lad saw limelight images. Patrick Beirne caused problems for the Church as he once stopped going to Mass. Perhaps the evidence of human gullibility in relation to religion was too much for him!
Patrick Hill in 1879 declared, "There was a line or dark mearing between the figure of the Blessed Virgin and that of St. Joseph, so that one could know St. Joseph, and the place where his figure appeared distinctly from that of the Blessed Virgin and the spot where she stood." Hill claimed he saw the vision close up and even saw Mary's irises. Here he slips up and shows that a shadow was needed to make Mary and Joseph look separate. He says without it you would not know it was St Joseph. This corroborates Patrick Beirne's assertion that the images were as unclear as shadows cast on a wall by the moon. Hill then was probably lying that he saw the vision close up. No other witness said he had managed that. If the vision was high up the blackness was needed to make it clearer.
There was a cross on top of the gable. Is it possible that as the vision was so high up that the witnesses who said there was a cross meant that cross? It would have been illuminated. Did the witnesses who said they saw no cross mean that they didn't see a cross that was part of the vision?
Thanks to Mary Beirne, it was recorded in 1880 that the Archdeacon upon being told of the vision said it was a reflection from a stained glass window. That could indicate that he was told the light was high up and around the stained glass window and he thought or pretended it caused an illusion.
The vision being high up eradicates the following indications that the vision was supernatural. The rain not falling on the figures is one. It would look that way if one couldn't get close enough. And some of the witnesses did see flashing lights like tiny stars. Sounds like rain catching the lightsource causing the apparition. The witnesses did not say that no shadow could be cast over the apparition. This silence is used by believers as an excuse for arguing, "If the vision was caused by a projector somebody or something would have cast a shadow at some point. They would have got in the way of the light." This is an unfair argument from silence. Maybe they did make a shadow and we just don't know? But if there was no shadow, was that because the vision and the light source were too high up to be interfered with? Trench allegedly tried to feel the Virgin's feet but her hands just met thin air. This did not happen if the vision was higher up the wall. Would the others present have let her do that in case the Virgin would be offended or dirtied and disappear? The dryness of the gable could be explained by the fact that it may not have been raining all the time and the wind could have dried the gable.
There are errors in the vision that tell against supernaturality and indicate fraud.
Mary's crown according to Mary Beirne was only a little yellower than her robes which were supposed to be white. Are we to believe God struggled with the colours?
She testified in 1880 that Mary's face was a yellow white. She said the figures looked like statues.
In 1932, she testified that St Joseph was the most lifelike of the images.
A real vision would not have had such an artificial appearance.
The apparition being up higher than traditionally believed and being a trick solves all the data.
It could have been a projection from a magic lantern or two placed on the sill of the south window outside the Church.
It could have been large light dolls suspended on the wall with a magic lantern shone on them to make light.
It could have been luminous canvases with a magic lantern shone on them to make more light.
The McConnell Letter
In 1936, Michael McConnell, Knock villager residing in Belfast, went to talk to a priest, Father Clenaghan. The priest took what he had to say very seriously. The priest wrote down his direct speech as part of a letter that he sent to Archbishop Gilmartin, of the Archdiocese of Tuam of which Knock is a part. The letter recorded that McConnell was repeating what he learned from a man who had been a policeman in Knock at the time of the alleged apparition. The Constable stated that knew a Protestant policeman at Knock in 1879 who worked a magic lantern to make the apparition. McConnell claimed that he had been told that the policeman had been projecting images from the Barracks in Knock on to the wall of the Church and some people saw the images and took them for visions. The priest sent another letter in 1936 this time to Father Fergus the Archbishop's secretary. However, in 1947 McConnell put pen to paper and wrote his own letter to the Archbishop. This letter is still in the archives of the archdiocese. He claimed that his informant was McDermott. This time he did not mention that the policeman said the image was projected from the Barracks. McDermott apparently said that a Protestant policeman who was good at making projector images trained religious images on the gable for practice. Some people saw them and thought it was an apparition. He said that this picture making was done more than once. The policeman realised that what he had done was being taken very seriously and he could lose his job. So he urged his comrades to tell nobody and he asked for a quiet transfer from Knock to somewhere else.
The latest edition of the book, The Apparition at Knock by Father Walsh dismisses this claim for there is no corroboration and mainly because an image cannot be projected to the gable wall from the Barracks. The Catholics agree that this claim is mere hearsay. They say Mc Connell waited decades before revealing this. But that cannot be proven. He may have chatted about it for years before talking to a priest and writing the letter. He was serious enough to write a letter about it. He would only have done this if he had felt it was the truth and that hard evidence could have come up. Plus we know now that the policeman would have had a motive. The motive was to protect the priest and pacify a turbulent parish and thus make his own job easier. McConnell and McDermott's story would have been less accurate over time. But the main thing is the claim that a policeman had been making the vision.
The letter was not written to cause trouble. At that time it was doubtful that Knock was going to become a major shrine.
The claim was written a long time after the event. Mr McConnell may have confused the information he received. He may have been told that a policeman had been projecting images from the Barracks with a magic lantern and that he projected them unto the gable. He may have taken it to mean the images were projected from the Barracks. He misunderstood or misremembered. The error certainly does not make him a liar for he knew being a Knock resident that experiments had been done in attempts to see if the vision was the product of a magic lantern or not. He said he thought he was told the images were projected from the Barracks because he really did think that. How else could you explain him saying the image was projected on the church from the Barracks when he must have known it was impossible? Michael McConnell was known as a decent man. He was not a liar.
Archdeacon Cavanagh at the time was not very popular in his parish. If people were going to speculatively gossip that someone performed the apparition hoax then why didn't they blame the Archdeacon? Why pick a policeman of all people?
The Daily Telegraph claimed shortly after the apparition that a projector could not have been used for it would have got the attention of the "observant policemen" (page 65, The Apparition at Knock). The policemen were suspiciously and conspicuously absent from all that happened. They did not go to the gable. They did not do foot patrols to protect the Archdeacon from those unsavouries who wanted to cut off his ears that night. They did not notice the fire like light that Patrick Walsh spoke about. What is more - the barrack was only 400 yards away from the Church (page 66, The Apparition at Knock). What is worse - there was a clear view of the gable from the barrack! Either the police were involved in the hoax or a lot of lies were being told by the visionaries.
On the night of 5 January 1880 a number of people including two policemen says that lights that went dim and got bright again appeared on the gable. The policemen stated that they checked the area for lights and decided there was no trickery. This information was got from www.theotokos.org.uk
"There's the light," and then both I and my comrade saw the end of the church covered with a rosy sort of brightness, through which what seemed to be stars appeared. I saw no figures, nor did my comrade ; but some women, who were praying there, declared that they beheld the Blessed Virgin, and one went nearly frantic in consequence. We stood and watched the light for some time before starting again on our rounds." "How do you explain the light ?" " I can't explain it." " Did you look around to see where it came from ?" "I did ; but everything was dark. There was no light anywhere, except on the gable." Thus the policeman, who offered to produce his comrade in corroboration.
The police endangered their professional credibility with this claim and they were not even Catholics. Not all the people standing together at the gable saw lights - only some did. That is indicating imagination. Could this have been an attempt by the policemen to mislead people to think that there had been no magic lantern used at the previous year's apparition? Were the police trying to hide the fact that they faked the 21 August apparition? It shows the policemen were open to encouraging belief in the miraculous. It backs up the possibility that one of them may have engineering the apparition of 1879. If you cause a fake vision, you may need people to imagine they see visions too so that people will think, "Sure how could a magic lantern have been used for the first apparition when we know apparitions are still happening when there is no lantern?" Or was the policeman who allegedly made the original apparition with a magic lantern up to his old tricks again?
Also people imagining visions in the light makes us wonder if some of the official witnesses might have experienced that too.
A hearsay report was made to researcher David Berman. A top member of the Irish judiciary said that he had a solicitor friend who maintained that during the week the apparition happened, Archdeacon Cavanagh hired a magic lantern from his grandfather (page 96, Why Statues Weep). I believe this for Berman never noticed how shifty the Archdeacon had behaved on the night of the apparition. And a liar would be more likely to say that the policeman had been involved not the Archdeacon so there is something to this story. The policeman report was known then and also to accuse the beloved Archdeacon was risky and people didn't want to believe he was that devious. How do we reconcile the Archdeacon being involved and the policeman? I think the policeman projected the image for the Archdeacon and then pretended to his comrades that it was only an experiment to hide the Archdeacon's role. The Archdeacon might have given him the projector.
The apparition appeared on the south gable of the Church. The sacristy in those days was in the south end of the Church. The Archdeacon could have had a hole made in wall. The magic lantern could have been operated inside the sacristy and mirrors used to project the image through the hole and down the wall. The hole could have been filled in the next day or that night even. The gable wall was soon damaged by people stealing the cement and pulling stones out. The evidence of the hole would soon have vanished. The perfect cover! No wonder the Archdeacon was incredibly liberal about letting people do that to the Church!
Eoghan Harris was a journalist who wrote in the Irish Newspaper, The Sunday Independent. He stated that his grandfather was a farmer from near Knock. He with many other Knock locals believed that at the time of the 1870 vision that the vision was a hoax engineered by two policemen in the area. They used a magic lantern. It had a small lightbox that could throw a glowing image on the gable wall. It was surmised by many as well that the magic lantern was brought from America by an Irish American. Magic lantern shows were popular in the British Isles at the time. For that reason, I think the Knock vision had to be set up to look different from them. That is why I think the lantern was used to make shapes made of light while images of the faces and the lamb and the altar were stuck to the wall and illuminated. This was necessary in case a visionary would see a magic lantern show and realise what had went on. The vision needed to have features that did not seem to tally with a magic lantern projection.
And the policemen could never tell what they did! That a gullible miracle eating community would accept a rational explanation speaks volumes.
The image could have been very crude and the shape of
Joseph and Mary and the Bishop and the Altar and the Lamb could have been
mere shapes. The crudeness would explain why the witnesses stood at a
distance from it - the reports about a few going up close are dubious.
It looked better from afar. Patrick Beirne stated in the 1930's that
the images were like the reflection of the moon on a wall. Most of the
witnesses were evasive in relation to detail. The human mind sees
bodies and faces in clouds and on toast to give a couple of examples.
They are not really there but its just the way the mind tries to make sense
of mess. Crude images could then have been projected from the
schoolhouse.
Imagination played a role in making the apparitions seem convincing
On February 10 1880, John McCloskey of Claremorris reported an apparition. He stated,
"I, John P. McCloskey, a native of Claremorris, remember the night of the 9th February, and the morning of the 10th. Simon Conway, MacGeoghegan and I left Claremorris at 10 o'clock p.m. We arrived at Knock sometime after midnight; our desire was to behold the apparition. After we had arrived, we continued to pray for some time. At about three and a half o'clock on the morning of the 10th February, while I was praying before the gable of the Knock chapel, I saw a light, like a white silvery cloud, move in a slanting direction over from where the cross stands, on the apex, and overspread the gable. In this bright cloud I saw distinctly the figure and form of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so clearly and fully that I perceived the fleshy colour of the feet. Her dress resembled that made of white satin, and it contained numerous folds. The light had hardly settled on the gable when it began to grow less bright, and to seem to fade or darken in colour, leaving a wreath of its own brightness still around the head of the Blessed Virgin, while the rest of the gable became the colour of white paper stained with pencil strokes. Every now and then a red tongue of flame used to shoot down from the heavens and cross the gable. During the momentary brightness resulting from these flashes, the figure of the Blessed Virgin was each time fully seen. In the absence of such flashes she was seen too, but not so distinctly, only in subdued tones of colour. What attracted my attention to the gable at first was small stars of an emerald clear greenish colour, that appeared to go in and out through the gable, and at different parts of it. A star continued at intervals to twinkle right over the region of the Blessed Virgin's heart, and a little group of four or five stars were seen on the left side of the head. At no time did I see the countenance of Our Blessed Lady so clearly and distinctly as to be able to describe accurately the feature or the expression of the face. It was usually shrouded in light, and only at certain moments did I get a glimpse of full features."
The Church does not believe in this vision. It is dismissed as false. But it is more credible than the original vision. At least when only he saw the apparition, we can look for an explanation other than a magic lantern! The story shows that even if the original visionaries had just seen a light, desire and suggestion and imagination and self-deception would have made them see figures in it that were not there. We do know that Mary Beirne could have shaped the perception of the others.
Martin Hession of Tuam, who witnessed the strange sights on February 10th also saw something on February 12th.
"I visited Knock again on the following Thursday, 12th February. It was dark when I reached there, and at about a quarter past 8 o'clock, went out from the chapel and looked at the gable. I was there but about ten minutes when I saw three figures of the shape of, but much larger than, those which I had seen on Monday night. The central figure was considered to be that of the Blessed Virgin. It was very brilliant. The other figures were not quite visible. After about five minutes they all disappeared. I went to the Archdeacon, met him on the road, and spoke to him about what I had just seen, and what I had seen on Monday night. Whilst speaking to him there appeared a beautiful star which illuminated the whole place. The Archdeacon saw it, and he took off his hat, and asked me and a few others if we saw the light." Rev. M. Walsh, The Apparition at Knock, (Leinster Leader, Naas, 1955).
There is actually no real evidence that these experiences were hallucination. The people wanted to see visions yes but that does not prove they hallucinated. And the apparitions though described as a feeble imitation of the original 1879 visions are far from feeble. It is argued that if people want to see a vision at a vision spot, they will tend to see what the original visionaries report. But this is not necessarily correct. The apparitions were different enough from the original to be regarded as more than just imitation and imagination.
We must remember that there other indications that these stories are true. Hearsay is not necessarily always wrong. After all, the witnesses depositions are hearsay too because they were worked over by the priests. And they had a long enough time to process their memories of the apparition meaning that the story improved over time. Memories deceive.
Reasons to Believe that there was nobody at the gable that night
The closeness of the "witnesses".
The Archdeacon did not see the light - at least that is what he said.
Patrick Walsh should have thought the Church was on fire when he saw the light from a half a mile away. Why did nobody else from that distance or more see it from their houses? Would he have really been out in the fields in the dark on such a wet night? Indeed its claimed from oral testimony ie gossip that he thought somebody had lit a fire beside the Church (page 73, The Apparition at Knock).
The fibs told by the Beirnes don't mark them out as very honest.
Mary Mc Loughlin told the commission a lie that there was an apparition of a cross. She denied it later and blamed the newspapers.
The way every account given to the commission is based on the framework of Mary Beirne's testimony.
Did they pick a wet night when nobody neutral would be likely to have been about so that they could lie about having been at the gable?
Irish people would not have let one of their number leave her mother unattended in a house when she was dying. Judith Campbell did not leave her mother and lied that she did.
Why was the priest not summoned that night to the bedside of dying Mrs Campbell if she had made it out to her front door in an effort to see the apparition and collapsed so that she was mistaken for dead?
Why didn't the police seem to know of the light? The barrack was only 300 yards away!
Evidence that God was not behind the Knock Experience
If Mary appeared at Knock, she would assume that the witnesses would take it as confirmation that the Catholic Church was the one true religion and provided by God for healing sinners with the truth and the sacraments. And it would imply that Catholics should continue with such devotions as the apparitions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St Margaret Mary Alacoque in France. This devotion was very popular in Ireland. However, this devotion is based on a twisted Jesus who can only be described as brutal and evil. In The Gospel According to Woman we read the proof of this. Jesus told her she was to be the plaything of his love and for her to surrender to him so he could gratify himself at her expense (page 154). Jesus told her on her profession day that she must be insensible to all that was earthly (page 154). Jesus in a vision got her to drink the blood from his side (page 154). Once before Lent she had a vision of Jesus in which he was plastered in blood and covered in wounds crying that nobody seems to have pity on him (page 155). The implication is that he was expecting her to respond and nobody else. She was glorifying herself by recording this incident. Her revelations and the spirituality of the Church informed her that her anorexia was holy and was not a sickness. These problems can be evidence that Catholicism is a false religion. The Devil had no need to fabricate the Knock apparition for the people were as Catholic as could be reasonably expected. So we must assume that what happened there was a hoax.
In interpreting the non-verbal message of the apparition, it is vital that we put ourselves in the shoes of the visionaries. Jesus said the world was about to end. Today's liars in the Church say that he only meant that it was near from his viewpoint and with him a thousand years would be just like a day. But Jesus said that to ignorant and badly educated people in a climate of last days predictions. When he said it to them knowing what they would take it to mean it shows he meant it in the way they understood it. Apply the same principle to the Knock witnesses. Thus the Knock apparition would have intended to support and provide evidence for the authenticity and divine authority of the Catholic Church.
The women testifying to the apparition have their testimony invalidated by the Bible itself. The Bible forbids women to teach religion. There is no verse allowing it at all. There is nothing to encourage it. But what about Mary you may say. Mary teaches in Luke's gospel. But that gospel accepts visions and apparitions so its possible that some man reported a vision about Mary's activities. The bishop in the apparition held a book containing Bible readings indicating the validity of the Bible.
Roman Catholicism has doctrines that are very serious and important and they give little or no evidence to justify them. You would need stronger evidence that adultery deserves everlasting torment than you would that a man should be put to death! Roman Catholicism also teaches doctrines so absurd that they are unworthy of refutation. The doctrine that the body and blood of Jesus are physically (really present) in Holy Communion is against commonsense. It would mean you could claim that you have pure gold coursing in your veins instead of blood. These problems make it hard for the seemingly good priest and theologian to be genuinely sincere. It is easy to mistake the practice of religion which can become habitual for real religion. The doctrines of the Church pave the way for pious fraud for they force a person to simulate belief and imagine they believe. It has them practicing pious fraud before they even start faking miracles. The Church condemns pious fraud but we cannot expect that condemnation to be taken very seriously. The absence of credibility paves the way for it.
BOOKS CONSULTED
Margaret Anna Cusack, The Nun of Kenmare, by Catherine Ferguson CSJP, Gaelbooks, Co Down, 2008
Knock The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland, Eugene Hynes, Cork University Press, Cork, 2008
Knock: Some New Evidence. The British and Irish Skeptic, Berman, David. Vol 1, no. 6, November/December 1987
Knock 1879-1979, Rynne, Catherine. Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1979
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Our Lady of Knock, John MacPhilpin, Tom Neary, London: Catholic Truth Society, 1976
Our Lady of Knock. William D Coyne, New York: Catholic Book Publishing, 1948
The
Gospel According to Woman, Karen Armstrong, Pan Books,
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at Knock, A Survey of Facts and Evidence, Fr Michael Walsh, St Jarlath’s
College, Tuam, Co Galway, 1959
The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock, also Official Depositions of the Eye-Witnesses. Tuam, Ireland, 1880. 2d ed. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1894.
Mother of Nations, Joan Ashton, Veritas, Dublin, 1988
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Cult of
the Virgin Mary, Michael P Carroll, Princeton University Press, 1986
The Evidence
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Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, 1985
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Justice, Ted and Maureen Flynn, MAXCOL, Vancouver, 1993
The Wonder of Guadalupe, Francis Johnson, Augustine, Devon, 1981
Why Statues Weep, Editors Wendy M Grossman and Christopher C French, The Philosophy Press, London, 2010
The Gospel According to Woman, Karen Armstrong, Pan Books, London, 1987
Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh, Liam Úa Cadhain, Knock Shrine Society, Roscommon Herald, Boyle, Roscommon, Ireland, 2004