Ave Maria

I was listening to Catholic radio the other night on my drive home from work and I am just astonished by the amount of evolution that the Catholic church has undergone in its theological framework or the last 1500 years.

There were a few callers who were asking about taking pilgrimages to various locations where alleged apparitions of Mary were taking place. I kid you not. There have been and are still many sites around the world where members of the Catholic church have allegedly received visitations by the Virgin Mary. In many of these places people have visions, dreams, stigmatas, and receive healing.

According to Wikipedia:

According to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, the era of public revelation ended with the death of the last living Apostle. A Marian apparition, if deemed genuine by Church authority, is treated as private revelation that may emphasize some facet of the received public revelation for a specific purpose, but it can never add anything new to the deposit of faith. At most, the Church will confirm an apparition as worthy of belief, but belief is never required by divine faith.^[1] The Holy See has officially confirmed the apparitions at Guadalupe, La Salette, Laus (France), during more than 50 years, Paris (Rue du Bac, Miraculous Medal), Lourdes, Fatima, Pontmain, Beauraing, Banneux, and Knock (Ireland). ^[2]

Not all claims of visitations are dealt with favourably by the Roman Catholic Church. For example, claimed apparitions of Our Lady, Jesus Christ and various saints at Bayside, New York have not been condoned or sanctioned in any way, nor those at the Necedah Shrine in Necedah, Wisconsin. The behavior of Ms Veronica Lueken and Mary Ann Van Hoof, who claimed these heavenly favors, was deemed not to compare favorably with the "quiet pragmatism" of St. Bernadette Soubirous — Church authorities are said to use Bernadette as a model by which to judge all who purport to have visitations. Indeed, both women seriously criticized the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, allegedly even harshly, and Mrs. Van Hoof is said to have subsequently left Roman Catholicism for an independent local Old Catholic Church.

Possibly the best-known apparition sites are Lourdes and Fatima.^{[citation needed]} Over sixty spontaneous healings, out of thousands reported at the Lourdes Spring, have been classified as "inexplicable" by the physicians of the Lourdes Bureau, a medical centre set up by the Church in association with local medical institutes to assess possible miracles. The so-called Three Secrets of Fatima received a great deal of attention in the Catholic and secular press.

It is all very interesting. I would be very curious to see psychological case studies of all who have had these experiences to see what the differences/commonalities are between them. Perhaps it is wishful thinking? Perhaps it is delusion? Maybe there's something in the holy water?