Bosnian Roman Catholic women pray on the occasion of the feast of the Assumption in Medjugorje, south of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, on Aug. 15, 2000. The Vatican on Friday overhauled its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, weeping statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena that have marked church history, putting the brakes on making definitive declarations unless the event is obviously fabricated.
When confirmed as authentic by church authorities, these otherwise inexplicable signs have led to a flourishing of the faith, with new religious vocations and conversions. That has been the case for the purported apparitions of Mary that turned Fatima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France, into enormously popular pilgrimage destinations.
"I prefer the Madonna as mother, our mother, and not a woman who's the head of a telegraphic office, who sends a message every day at a certain time," Francis told reporters in 2017.The new norms reframe the Catholic Church's evaluation process by essentially taking off the table whether church authorities will declare a particular vision, stigmata or other seemingly divinely inspired event supernatural.
The most egregious case was the flip-flopping determinations of authenticity by a succession of bishops over 70 years in Amsterdam about the purported visions of the Madonna at the Our Lady of All Nations shrine. And at no point are the faithful ever obliged to believe in the particular events, said Argentine Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, the head of the Vatican doctrine office.Despite the new criteria, he said the church's past decision-making on alleged supernatural events -- such as at Fatima, Guadalupe or Lourdes -- remains valid.
Robert Fastiggi, who teaches Marian theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and is an expert on apparitions, said at first glance that requirement might seem to take authority away from the local bishop. For nearly three months, Amanda Huska has been in an Ontario hospital, part of it on life support, because of severe liver failure. Her history of alcohol use is getting in the way of her only potential treatment: a liver transplant.A Canadian epidemiologist is warning the measles presents a 'very real threat' to public health if Canada doesn't maintain a high vaccination rate.
Adopted daughter in the Netherlands reunited with sister in Montreal and mother in Colombia, 40 years later
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