If nobody believed in superstition it
would be unable to hurt anyone
Are the Mary Apparitions Fake?
INTRODUCTION
This book is about the Marian apparitions in the Catholic Church and why they
cannot be accepted as having the right to tell us what to do and how we should
live. We will see how it is best to pay no attention to them and despise their
message. People find apparitions and the related miracles fascinating but the
truth about them is just as interesting. For not it is enough to say that the
Catholic Church boasts of having a faith that has not been added to since the
apostles and that these things do not add to divine revelation. But they do for
a miracle is a miracle and a revelation is a revelation. They are more
convincing which tells us how bad the evidence of the apostles for Christianity
was.
Some apparition sites honour vindictive visions. Read pages 208 and 209 of
Everything You Know About God is Wrong, The Disinformation Guide to Religion,
Edited by Russ Kick, The Disinformation Company, New York, 2007. There you will
see that The Glories of Mary by St Alphonsus de Ligouri that the Virgin Mary was
seen by people, who affirmed on oath, setting fire with torches to a house of
immoral entertainment at Montevergine in 1611. Her arson resulted in the deaths
of 1,500 people. Our Lady of Medous caused an epidemic of plague in 1648. The
Church later changed the story to make it seem the Virgin had halted the
epidemic. St Rita of Cascia prayed for God to kill her sons to stop them
committing serious sin and it worked and she later became a nun and was famed
for miracles and leaving a corpse that has been reported to move by itself since
her death.
Marian apparitions almost always induce a state of ecstasy upon the witnesses.
The witnesses hardly blink during the vision and stare upwards in a trancelike
state. They say they are enraptured in joy. But there is no authority for
ecstasy at all in the Bible. The resurrection witnesses did not claim - as far
as we know - to have gone into such a trance. Paul speaks of visions but does
not mention the trance. Jesus said we must do all the good we do to give God joy
and do it only for him. He is the ultimate value. Marian ecstasy have people
finding intense happiness in the presence of the Virgin and their focus is on
her alone. Thus the ecstasy is a sign that if the apparition is supernatural
then it is not from God.
The Church itself teaches that most apparition claims are probably not from God.
Apparitions such as Medjugorje and Garabandal have caused huge trouble for the
Church as has many others. Clearly it is best not to pay much attention to
apparitions at all!
LOURDES
The Virgin supposedly appeared to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes in 1858. The
spot was an infectious dump and this Lady had Bernadette eating grass from it
and her and the people drinking from a spring that was there all along according
to shepherds at the time (page 87, 222, The Appearances of the Blessed Virgin;
Mother of Nations, page 94). The Virgin asked them to do something dangerous
over appearances that were not checked for authenticity yet! She was a devil.
Bernadette lied when she said the Lady was the same size as herself and
Bernadette was too small for her age for she said that the girl looked 16 or 17.
The Lady promised to take Bernadette to Heaven which is against Catholic
doctrine which says nobody is to know that. The Lady never promised cures but
they are what Lourdes is famous for. Strange that there are no wooden legs lying
about it.
As for the allegedly proven miracles of healing at Lourdes which are 64 in
number they are not as above suspicion as the evidence says and as one would
think (page 177, Believing in God). Some of the people were examined too long
before their alleged cure and there is doubt about the diagnosis of others. The
Abbe Fiamma was cured of hideous ulcers on the skin in 1908. The healing was
reported to be instant but there is no proof that they were not healed between
the last examination the date of which is unknown and his dip in the bath of
holy water at Lourdes to which he attributed his cure.
In a small book called Spiritual Healing we read that the famous case of John
Traynor’s cure from epilepsy and paralysis at Lourdes was never recognised by
the Church (71-74). Traynor had problems recalling all about his sicknesses
after the cure which could have led to the medical experts being confused and
thinking there was a miracle where there was none. They would have depended on
his testimony more than on anything else. Traynor died in 1943. Delizia Cirollie
had a tumour that would kill her on her knee. She went to Lourdes in August 1976
and nothing happened and she was cured in December at home. The tumour
disappeared gradually. The Church recognised this as a miracle which was
strange. It did not look like a miracle. The cure was not at Lourdes nor was it
instant. The Church had decreed that a cure had to be instant. There are many
mysteries about cancer (89) and they are enough to prevent one being surprised
if cancer disappears. The Medical Bureau could not come to a consensus on what
was wrong with her. Years later it was claimed by some of them that she had
Ewing’s Tumour that nobody had been known to recover from (76). This disease is
so rare and obviously hard to diagnose as the Bureau’s problems with it show
that one wonders what grounds they have for declaring that once one has it they
are stuck with it until it kills them. Diagnoses after the event and when nobody
could come to a definite consensus at the time of sicknesses are not convincing.
On the Channel 4 documentary of 1998, The Miracle Police, it was revealed that
the disease could have been tubercular or a strange infection that burnt out for
the reports and x-rays are capable of different interpretations. The knee was
not examined properly between Lourdes and December. Also, the girl seemed to be
dying because the tumour was untreated. Would the Virgin Mary send a miracle in
a case where the child should have had the leg amputated and did not do it? Yes
she was right not to but only in hindsight. If you believe and have reason to
believe even wrongly that a limb should be removed that is what you have to do.
Our Lady implies approval for this carelessness and stubbornness. The girl’s
Archbishop as always got the medical reports and pronounced it a miracle. Now
what would a bishop know? Only scientists and doctors have the right to say if
something is a miracle. The miracle exploits science and then it disregards it
as if it were nothing. The miracle could be interpreted as satanic for all these
reasons if it was a miracle. And the Lourdes’ Bureau said it was the best case
they had examined which reflects badly on the other cures it declared
inexplicable. And all doctors know that what is inexplicable need not be a
miracle.
A book published in 1957 called Eleven Lourdes Miracles by Dr D J West showed
that the healed people probably had not been diagnosed right and it was not
certain that the cures were triggered by Lourdes and the role of suggestion was
not excluded for the records were kept in insufficient detail (Spiritual
Healing, page 79). I would add that if records are badly kept then there could
be outright blunders in which fiction is reported as fact.
The Lourdes Medical Bureau has proclaimed some cures to be impossible to
explain. Other medical bodies have checked its work and found explanations for
them (page 150, Looking for a Miracle). This is not surprising for medicine
requires a lot of interpreting and opinions. A woman was once found to be
miraculously free of a disease in one instance and yet some years later she died
from it so her being given the all clear was a mistake! The Encyclopaedia
Britannica reported that American doctors found the documentation in favour of
1976 inexplicable cure outlined earlier to be equivocal and unscientific (page
151). It is strange that God says miracles are signs meaning that he will ensure
they are verified and then does little about such false misleading claims. Most
people would believe them.
It is no wonder that the medical reports that verify healings that are taken as
miracles showing the Church should canonise people invoked for the cures as
saints are highly confidential in the Vatican. This dishonesty is terrible. The
cured people will talk about what happened so what is the Vatican hiding?
FATIMA
The Virgin Mary supposedly appeared six times to three children at Fatima in
Portugal in 1917. There wasn’t much written down about the visions before World
War Two which leaves considerable scope for Lucia the only surviving visionary
to exaggerate and tell lies (page 72, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin
Mary). The other children made no record having died soon after the visions.
Lucia kept some things back until 1941 as she admitted in her memoirs.
It is disturbing that she never mentioned the prophecy about a second world war
and a mysterious light that would be the sign that it was coming until after
both took place. Frauds always give prophecies after the event.
The most important secret of Fatima about Russia and the need for the whole
Church to consecrate the world to Mary and that Portugal will always have the
faith was hidden until 1942 (Fatima Revealed … and Discarded, page 134). Hiding
the secret was dishonest for the people and the Church have a right to know
everything to see if the apparition should be believed or not. She could have
made the visions up. Why reveal then and not before unless she was inventing the
messages? The Virgin told the children she would see them for six consecutive
months on the thirteenth. But on one occasion she did not appear for the
children were in custody so she appeared on a later day at Valinhos. The Lady
was a liar. She made a mistake in telling Lucia what day the First World War
would end and Lucia tried to make out that she misremembered what she had been
told. The real Virgin would not have risked letting the children forget. Lucia
was making up the messages and she was the leader of the trio.
Only part of the crowd, which could have been as large as 70,000 people saw the
famous solar miracle (page 78, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary, page
173, Believing in God,) and there were few written reports about it and no two
people saw the same thing. Hysteria and tricks of the light, which are
inevitable if one stares at the sun, and outright lies to abet the campaign
against the anticlerical government explain everything. Moreover, since even
Church approved visions are optional for belief what right would the real Virgin
have to ask people to risk eye-damage by looking at the sun to act upon the
evidence before the evidence was granted? Apparitions are supposed to remind
Catholics about the truths of their faith and do not add to that faith. Yet
apparitions like Fatima give new revelations about most people going to Hell for
sexual sin and about the need for the world to be saved by consecration to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary and gave prophecies. La Salette and Medjugorje and
Garabandal all made the same mistake.
KNOCK
In Knock, Co Mayo, on the 21st of August 1879 the Virgin Mary flanked by St
Joseph and St John the Evangelist and an altar with a lamb and cross on it
allegedly appeared on the gable wall of the Parish Church to fifteen people.
Beirne stated that the Virgin’s crown was somewhat yellow. A real miracle would
have had a gold crown.
There is a serious problem as to why the vision was only witnessed by the family
and friends of the first visionary though there were plenty of other people in
Knock. Did she know that there was something odd about the whole thing that made
her afraid to go to unbiased people?
Another interesting point is that Mary Beirne could have moulded the perception
of the others of what was seen at the gable for she quickly took on a leadership
role and was the first to suggest it was the Virgin Mary (page 206, The Cult of
the Virgin Mary). She seems to have been behind the acceptance by the witnesses
that the bishop was St John the Evangelist. It is interesting that God would
send John holding a book to suggest he wrote the Fourth Gospel when scholarship
shows that he did not. Anyway there could have been a strange light and she led
the rest to think they saw these figures inside the light. The illusion
hypothesis is a possibility.
Knock cannot be from God because the first commission was careless and did not
ask the right questions or work out why the witnesses were sometimes
contradicting one another (page 66, The Cult of the Virgin Mary). God would do
better than that. The first commission is the most important one. They did not
try to explain why there was a dispute about if there was a Lamb there or not or
if there were glittering stars or if the crown was somewhat yellow or gold or if
there were angels flying about or if there was a cross on the altar that
appeared in the vision with the Lamb standing on it. Patrick Hill was known to
have added a lot to his original description when he was interviewed in 1897.
The book, The Apparition at Knock, A Survey of Facts and Evidence by Fr Michael
Walsh is a good read. Page 20 tells us that the figures seemed to move out and
then backwards according to Patrick Hill’s testimony. That is what something
being projected from a machine would do. Some but not all the witnesses said the
figures moved, but it is a very easy thing to imagine. Bridget Trench said they
didn’t move (page 29). Page 47 has top witness Mary Beirne saying the vision of
Mary had a yellow whiteness. She didn’t see the vision’s feet but Bridget Trench
said they were visible and tried to touch them (page 29). She also said that the
images seemed to retreat into the wall when approached – maybe that was an
illusion. When you are far off a projected image it is easier to think it is
three dimensional but when you get close it is easier to see that it is on the
wall. She added that she saw attempts to recreate the vision using slides but
there was no comparison (page 50). In 1936, she said she couldn’t remember
seeing a lamb on the altar (page 52). She stated that close up the images seemed
painted on the wall (page 62).
The apparition led to people picking the cement out of the Church wall and
putting it in danger of collapsing (page 89). Would the Virgin knowing people
would do this have appeared at Knock and caused the desecration of a Church?
Strangely it got so bad that the stones were being pulled out before anything
was done about it. Apparitions of lights on the gable and even of the Virgin
herself were seen after the vision but the Church dismissed those stories.
How could God give us fifteen modern witnesses to a miracle when he only gave us
a handful of obscure and legendary witnesses to the resurrection? Why is Knock
more believable than the resurrection of Jesus though the latter is essential
for belief?
The vast majority of believing Catholics believe in their faith because of the
alleged miracles of Lourdes and Fatima and often because of the Turin Shroud.
This must be dangerous and sinful. They are basing too much on private
revelations. They are supposed to base their faith on the resurrection of Jesus
not apparitions. But they don't. The resurrection is not a sign for them for
they have less interest in it than in the apparitions and visions. They can't
even give good believable reasons for holding the resurrection to be fact. If
they saw the resurrection as a sign and as good evidence for the authenticity of
the Christian faith they would not be building their faith on private
revelations. The private revelations have bad fruits no matter how good these
fruits look.
It is foolish to believe that the private revelations are really from God.
BOOKS CONSULTED
Ballinspittle, Moving Statues and Faith, Tim Ryan and Jurek Kirakowski, Mercier
Press, Dublin, 1985
Beauraing and Other Apparitions, Fr Herbert Thurston, Burns, Oates & Washbourne,
London, 1934
Believing in God, PJ McGrath, Millington Books in Association with Wolfhound,
Dublin, 1995
Bernadette of Lourdes, Rev CC Martindale, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1970
Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York,
1985
Catholic Prophecy, The Coming Chastisement Yves Dupont, TAN, Illinois, 1973
Comparative Miracles, Fr Robert D Smith, B. Herder Book Co, St Louis, Mo, 1965
Counterfeit Miracles, BB Warfield, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1995
Cults and Fanatics, Colin & Damon Wilson, Siena, London, 1996
Divine Mercy in My Soul, Sr M Faustina Kowalska, Marian Press, Massachusetts,
1987
Eleven Lourdes Miracles, Dr D J West, Duckworth, London, 1957
Everything You Know About God is Wrong, The Disinformation Guide to Religion,
Edited by Russ Kick, The Disinformation Company, New York, 2007
Evidence of Satan in the Modern World, Leon Cristiani, TAN, Illinois, 1974
From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls, Walter Vandereycken and Ron van Deth,
Athlone Press, London, 1996
Fatima in Lucia’s own Words, Sr Lucia, Postulation Centre, Fatima, 1976
Fatima Revealed…And Discarded, Brother Michael of the Holy Trinity, Augustine,
Devon, 1988
From the Visions of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, Topic Newspapers,
Mullingar, undated
Garabandal, a Message for the World, Ave Maria Publications, Middleton, Co
Armagh
Introduction to the Devout Life, St Francis de Sales, Burns Oates and Washbourne
Limited, London, 1952
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM, London, 1969
Miracles, Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Mother of Nations, Joan Ashton, Veritas, Dublin, 1988
New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America and the
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Objections to Roman Catholicism, Edited by Michael de la Bedoyere, Constable,
London, 1964
Our Lady of Beauraing, Rev J.A. Shields, M.A., D.C.L., M.H. Gill and Son, Ltd.,
Dublin, 1958
Padre Pio, Patrick O Donovan, Catholic Truth Society, London
Please Come Back to Me and My Son R Vincnet, Ireland’s Eye, Mullingar, 1992
Powers of Darkness, Powers of Light, John Cornwell, London, 1992
Rosa Mystica, Franz Speckbacher, Divine Mercy Publications, Dublin, 1986
San Damiano, S di Maria, The Marian Centre, Hungerford, 1983
Spiritual Healing, Martin Daulby and Caroline Mathison, Geddes & Grosset, New
Lanark, Scotland, 1998
St Catherine Laboure of the Miraculous Medal, Fr Joseph I Dirvin C.M., Tan,
Illinois, 1984
The Apparition at Knock, A Survey of Facts and Evidence, Fr Michael Walsh, St
Jarlath’s College, Tuam, Co Galway, 1959
The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today, Rene Laurentin, Veritas,
Dublin 1990
The Appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Grotto of Lourdes, JB Estrade,
Art & Book Company Ltd, Westminster, 1912
The Autobiography of St Margaret Mary, TAN, Illinois, 1986
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Cult of the Virgin: Catholic Mariology and the Apparitions of Mary, Elliot Miller and Kenneth R. Samples, 1992
The Cult of the Virgin Mary, Michael P Carroll, Princeton University Press, 1986
The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary, Kevin McClure Aquarian Press,
Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, 1985
The Exaltation of the Virgin Mary, by Rev S.G. Poyntz, M.A., B.D., Association
for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Dublin, 1955
The Holy Shroud and Four Visions, Rev Patrick O Connell and Rev Charles Carty,
TAN, Illinois, 1974
The Holy Shroud and the Visions of Maria Valtorta, Msgr Vincenzo Celli, Kolbe
Publications Inc., Sheerbrooke, California, 1994
The Incorruptibles, Joan Carroll Cruz, Tan, Illinois, 1977
The Medjugorje Deception, E Michael Jones, Fidelity Press, Indiana, 1998
The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism, Fr Herbert Thurston, Burns, Oates &
Washbourne, London, 1952
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994
The Supernatural A-Z, James Randi, Headline Books, London, 1995
The Thunder of Justice, Ted and Maureen Flynn, MAXCOL, Vancouver, 1993
The Turin Shroud is Genuine, Rodney Hoare, Souvenir Press, London, 1998 Twenty
Questions about Medjugorje Kevin Orlin Johnson Ph.D, Pangaeus, Dallas, 1999
The Two Divine Promises, Fr Roman Hoppe, TAN, Illinois, 1987
The Virgin of the Poor, Damian Walne and Joan Flory, CTS, London, 1983
The Way of Divine Love, Sr Josefa Mendenez, TAN, Illinois, 1980
The Wonder of Guadalupe, Francis Johnson, Augustine, Devon, 1981
To the Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons, Fr Gobbi, The Marian Movement of
Priests, St Paul’s Press, Athlone, 1991
THE WEB
The Most Dangerous False Apparition in the World
www.unitypublishing.com/Apparitions/Garabandal2.html
False Visions Which Followed Knock
www.theotokos.org.uk
Critique: “Poem of the Man-God” Medugorje’s Gospel by Brother James,
http://members.lycos.co.uk/jloughnan/critique.htm
Saints Preserve Us!
www.forteantimes.com/articles/159_saintspreserved.shtml
PRIVATE REVELATION: UNRAVELLING MEDJUGORJE by Carey Winters
www.geocities.com/militantis/medjugorje.html
This excellent site outlines the errors of famous Catholic visionaries such as
Anne Catherine Emmerich and Marie de Agreda which they said their visions told
them. But it puts these errors down to the visionaries misunderstanding. This
excuse itself accuses God of being slack! It points out that when Satan speaks,
in the experience of the Church, he states 99% of the truth that God has
revealed and 1 % untruth because every little error helps his cause. In the
Church’s experience, that is the way it seems to be which means Carey and the
Church should not be accepting the visions of Emmerich and Agreda. The former
stated that there was a terrestrial paradise near Tibet and the psuedo-Dionysus
writings are authentic though they are universally recognised as heretical
forgeries advocating a Hindu piety. Thus she fell into heresy. Her miracles
defended those errors. Agreda insisted that all must believe her writings which
in Church doctrine can only be said of sacred scripture and the infallible
dogmas of the Church. Nostradamus claimed that his revelations were given to him
by the creator God. Like Agreda he claimed to be the producer of new scripture
and was a heretic. The site examines the proof that the apparitions of the Queen
of Peace in Medjugorje are not from God at all.
BIBLE QUOTATIONS FROM:
The Amplified Bible