Marian apparitions: Age-old phenomenon or modern-day hoax? iafrica.com
Rebekah Kendal
Wed, 04 Jul 2007
Benoni has once again caught the attention of South Africa, not because Charlize Theron has won another Oscar, but because one of its residents, 17-year-old Francesca Zackey, claims to have repeatedly had visions of the Virgin Mary. Francesca, a charismatic Maronite Christian of Lebanese decent, who speaks in tongues and has purportedly had visions in the past, claims she first saw the Virgin Mary on 7 May during a family meal. “She had ice blue eyes, brown hair, long brown hair, and an ice blue cloak. Her hands were open, there was light coming out of her hands,” said Zackey according to Independent Online. Following her revelation, hundreds of devout Christians, and the occasional sceptic, have flocked to Zackey’s home to receive her blessing. Some claim to have been healed by her touch, while others – like 37-year-old Amal Nassif – have been blinded by following her advice and staring at the sun in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the Virgin. The message
The South African Council of Churches (SACC) is inclined to disbelieve Zackey’s claims according to Sapa, which quoted general secretary Eddie Makue as saying, “I doubt it very much…We know that people in desperate situations search for answers from God. The God that we know reveals himself in a meaningful manner.” According to the Sunday Independent, the Virgin Mary’s message to Zackey was to “pray the rosary, and to get others to pray it, as though it were the last day on earth” and to complete a book that is to be called ‘Doorlight to Heaven’. Johannesburg Archbishop Buti Tlhagale, while not dismissing Zackey’s claims outright, set a cautious tone during an interview on Carte Blanche. “I think one would be extremely cautious about the spiritual phenomenon, the invisible part of it, making claims. But I think one also wants to see as a practical outcome, if there is a message, how does it affect the community that believes? So one would be looking at whether there is anything that contradicts the official teaching of the church.”
According to the Archbishop, “people often have visions and we do not investigate every case”, however, a team of Catholic priests will undertake the investigation because of the massive public interest in this particular case.
So, just how do you go about investigating a Marian apparition and what does it take to get the Catholic Church’s stamp of approval?
Famous Marian apparitions During a Marian apparition, the Virgin Mary supernaturally appears to one or more persons. Apparitions sometimes reoccur at the same site over an extended period of time. In Zeitun, Egypt, for example, thousands of people claimed to have seen the Virgin over a three-year period. The first Marian apparition occurred in 40 AD while Mary was still alive. The apparition of Mary appeared to St James in Saragossa, Spain. She gave him a pillar and a wooden statue of herself and instructed him to build a church in her honour - Our Lady of the Pillar. The more famous apparitions include Our Lady of Lourdes in France, where Bernadette Soubirous (1888) claimed she saw the Virgin Mary 18 times. She was beatified in 1925 and canonised in 1933 by Pope Pius XI. Lourdes Spring, where the apparition took place has been the site of over 60 spontaneous healings (out of thousands) which have been classified as ‘inexplicable’ by the physicians of the Lourdes Bureau. At another revered site, Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, three prophecies (the three secrets of Fatima) were given by the Marian apparition to three children – Lucia Santos, Jacinta and Francisco Martos. The first secret foretold World War II, the second of the destructive nature of communist Russia and the third, which was only made public in 2000, apparently predicted the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. Seeing is believing
According to the website www.livingmiracles.net, percipients usually see the Virgin as a luminous figure, sometimes holding her son, dressed in a long robe and surrounded by a bright white light. Other than that, the apparitions tend to be rather personalised – she often takes on the ethnicity of the region in which she appears, speaks the language of the visionary and wears clothing of the particular period. The apparitions are often accompanied by other miraculous signs: the spinning of the sun, strange physical sensations, the scent of roses and the transformation of ordinary objects (rosaries from silver to gold and water to oil). Zackey’s apparition was allegedly accompanied by the spinning of the sun, a gentle breeze, the scent of roses and the household water supply has supposedly been mixed with holy oil. In the cases where apparitions have been approved by church authorities, huge shrines or churches have been built and millions of devotees have flocked to the sacred spots in search of blessings and miraculous cures. During the 20th century, which was nicknamed the ‘era of Mary’ due to the proliferation and frequency of alleged apparitions, more than 400 apparitions were reported from around the world. Of these, only seven have been fully approved by the Catholic Church. Contemporary apparitions tend to be serial in nature and often occur in the presence more than one person. Investigating apparitions
Apparitions are usually investigated by the local bishops at their discretion, but the Vatican can intervene at the request of the bishops or of its own initiative. In the 1970s the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith set out guidelines for evaluating apparitions. The evaluation is based on positive and negative criteria. Positive criteria include an evaluation of the personal qualities of the person in question; an evaluation of the content of the actual apparitions (it must not diverge from the morals or faith of the church); and finally, an indication that the revelation will result in healthy devotion and spiritual practices. Negative criteria include glaring factual or doctrinal errors, the pursuit of financial gain in relation to the alleged apparitions, any psychological disorders or gravely immoral acts committed at the time of the event by the percipient. Having completed their investigation, the Church deems the apparition ‘Not worthy of belief’, ‘Nothing contrary to the faith’ (not condemned but not endorsed) or ‘Worthy of belief’. Divine intervention or delusions of grandeur?
Considering that it is impossible to scientifically prove the existence of an apparition, it is not surprising that there are many that question the legitimacy of Marian apparitions. The most common critique is that they are not apparitions, but rather hallucinations. If Zackey has been visited by the apparition of a man called Bob, she would, no doubt have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Why then, is it different if she is visited by a virgin called Mary? Other critics suggest that apparition claims are in fact hoaxes, aimed at attracting attention or financial gain. Apparitions often occur in poorer areas - or in the case of Benoni, an area which has few other attractions - attracting pilgrims and with them money and trade. If indeed the Virgin Mary did appear to Zackey, instructing her to pray and complete a book, then surely these were private revelations, which have very little to do with the rest of Benoni, let alone South Africa? While it is not likely that Zackey’s alleged visions of the Virgin are part of a greater Benoni tourism conspiracy, one does need to question whether the publicity and blind faith given to her claims is productive.

Apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Mbuye are false sundayvision.co.ug
THOUGHT OF THE DAY - John Mary Waliggo
WHEN the alleged Marian visions began at Mbuye on November 29, 1987, the now retired Bishop of Masaka Diocese, the Rt. Rev. Adrian Kivumbi Ddungu, immediately appointed me and Rev. Dr. Dominic Kateregga to investigate the new phenomenon and come up with a report which would help him to guide the people of God.
We followed this Marian movement from December 1987 to the end of August 1990. We were present at all the alleged Marian visions from December 27, 1987 to August 1990. We observed everything from the afternoon before the claimed day for the apparitions, throughout the night and to the very end of the following day. We even remained there for a few days to observe the impact on the people. We interviewed many people, including Speciosa Mukantabana. We visited very many places where other claimed apparitions had occurred.
We interviewed several Catholic priests, religious sisters and brothers who had become supporters of this movement. We visited many Catholic parishes where groups of Mbuye visionaries belonged and observed how they were behaving.
Having obtained the necessary data, we analysed it in the light of the biblical teaching, the Catholic doctrines, the authentic Catholic devotion to the Virgin Mary, the Catholic theology and the Vatican II and post-conciliar teaching.
It is from all the above that criteria for discerning what is authentic and what is not are drawn.
A genuine Catholic devotion can be discerned on the following criteria:
It conforms with the biblical message as interpreted and explained by the Catholic Church.
It conforms with the Catholic Church teaching on the Virgin Mary or any other devotion.
It respects the liturgical worship of the Church and other prayers.
It gives due respect to the Catholic leaders, both local and universal.
It encourages people to work and meet all their responsibilities in life.
It does not lead to exaggerations in prayers and in wearing multiple religious objects.
The members of such a devotion are not secretive.
The devotion should be uniting the people of God and not causing disunity and tensions within the Church.
The leader of the devotion must have a clear historical record of loving and respecting truth in his or her life.
The leader of the devotion or the visionary who claims to receive visions must be humble and not aiming at personal honour and fame.
The devotion must not lead its followers to form another Catholic community.
The devotion must clearly show signs that it is not moving towards a satanic cult.
The alleged apparitions of our Blessed Virgin Mary at Mbuye and the devotion based on them did not, in our view as theological investigators, conform to the above criteria and many other criteria not mentioned above.
The claimed apparitions at Mbuye were diverting Christians from the true teaching of the Catholic Church and leading them into a cult that would become dangerous if the Church leaders left it to continue. We handed over our findings to Bishop Ddungu who wrote a pastoral letter: Okulabula ku By’okulabikirwa e Mbuye. (Warning on the Marian apparitions at Mbuye). Catholics were ordered not to go to Mbuye for the apparitions. The podium of cement where Mukantabana would stand and fall claiming talking to the Virgin Mary was dismantled.
The priests at Mbuye were ordered not to entertain such people, looking for Marian visions. Those groups of visionaries were to be counselled and guided back to the authentic veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. All the Catholic Bishops of Uganda supported this position.
Published on: Saturday, 30th December, 2006

Appearances can be downright deceptive www.timesonline.co.uk
By Simon Caldwell - February 11, 2006
A rash of dubious miracles and rival congregations is trying the Vatican’s patience
RELIGIOUS fervour swept southern California this winter when a statue of the Virgin Mary was claimed to be crying blood. A priest at the Church of the Vietnamese Martyrs in Sacramento tried to wipe away her tears but they reappeared, running down her face and on to her dress. While pilgrims dashed to the church, Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento was in no hurry to make a pronouncement. “I’m letting it sit for now,” he said. If the bishop was not as excited as everyone else, it is probably because this is not an isolated event. Last summer women visiting a church near Naples said that a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary had turned the “pinky” colour of human flesh and that it had moved. In May a statue of St Pìo of Pietrelcina wept blood in a church in Marsicovetere, southern Italy — although in this case the diocese excluded “supernatural intervention” when tests showed that the blood belonged to a woman.
Indeed, such “private revelations” have proliferated. Around the Millennium there was an explosion in claims of heavenly visions, messages, stigmata and Eucharistic miracles. But of the 295 such episodes reported since 1905, the Vatican has affirmed the authenticity of just 11, among them the appearances of the Virgin Mary to three children at Fátima, Portugal, in 1917, and the visitation of Jesus to St Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, in the 1930s.
While the faithful may accept or reject such revelations, most, according to the Vatican, involve false seers who are either deluded or on the make, and these are beginning to cause problems for the Church.
First, they create tensions between the faithful who believe in them and bishops who do not. Secondly, unauthorised cults often congregate around charismatic seers who claim a direct line to God but who teach in opposition to the Church.
In September, for instance, Dominic Sanchez Falar founded the “Mary is God Catholic Movement”, which claims that the third secret of Fátima revealed Mary’s divinity. This secret was covered up, he says, by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Rantings of this kind would be risible were they not gaining so much currency, particularly in the US.
Pope Benedict, for one, takes them seriously. Three years ago, while Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), he said that private revelations posed a threat to the unity of the Church and warranted an “exemplary pastoral response” from the Holy See.
By that time the future Pope had already ruled against claims that Mary appeared at Garabandal, Spain; forbade Catholics to go on pilgrimage to Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the Virgin Mary is also said to be appearing; warned the faithful against the apocalyptic murmurings of Vassula Ryden; and ordered Father Stefano Gobbi to stop using Our Lady Speaks to Her Beloved Priests as the title for books containing similar eschatological content.
Benedict is now already moving against private revelations in a way his predecessor did not. Two cases signal his intent. Barely a month after his election, the CDF issued two documents. One was a decree removing Father Gino Burresi from active ministry, and the other was a letter to the Filipino bishops effectively declaring as false the claims of Ida Peerdeman, a Dutch seer, that the Virgin Mary had revealed new truths about her status.
Burresi had founded the Congregation of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary which now numbers 150 priests, including Father Angelo Tognoni, an official in the Vatican Secretariat of State who was often seen by John Paul’s side during the weekly General Audiences in Rome.
He claimed to have received the stigmata and was compared by his followers to St Pìo, a 20th-century monk renowned for his piety. Burresi exuded the “odour of sanctity”, it was said, and had the ability to “read souls” and produce works of art miraculously.
But Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger thought that Burresi was a fraud, was guilty of “pseudo-mysticism” and “asserted apparitions, visions and messages attributed to divine origins”.
The CDF stripped Burresi of the right to hear confessions, preach, give interviews, publish or broadcast. The process had been initiated when Ratzinger was at the CDF, and he made the ruling his own as Pope by confirming it forma specifica and denying Burresi any right of appeal.
Days later the CDF took the unusual step of overruling the decision of Bishop Joseph Maria Punt, of Haarlem in the Netherlands, to approve claims that the Virgin Mary had appeared in Amsterdam under the guise of “Lady of All Nations who once was Mary”, sounding the death knell for an international movement to redefine the Virgin as “coredemptrix, mediatrix and advocate”.
Critics say such a status would have made Mary virtually the fourth person of the Holy Trinity, jeopardising not only the interior unity of the Catholic Church but also prospects of closer union with Orthodox and Protestant communions. The initiative to stamp it out, Vatican sources say, came from the top. Furthermore, they point out that “old cases of dubious apparitions” are likely to be reopened and dealt with in a similar way by Benedict and his like-minded officials in the CDF.
But by far the biggest challenge to any efforts by the Pope to deal decisively with the phenomenon of private revelations are the claims of six seers from Medjugorje who say the Virgin Mary has been visiting them for more than 20 years. In that time the Madonna has allegedly dispatched 40,000 bland messages, given 57 secrets (none of which has been revealed), performed countless miracles (none of which has been confirmed), and has toured the world with the seers, appearing on demand even in the backs of vans.
Between four and five million pilgrims have visited Medjugorje, including the Spanish tenor José Carreras, who performed there, and the American actor Jim Caviezel, who sought inspiration while filming The Passion of the Christ.
Yet the only rulings to date on Medjugorje — made by the local bishops, the competent ecclesiastical authorities — are that the claims are false and that the seers are lying.
There is a mounting expectation that Benedict will eventually move against this unauthorised Marian cult, some of whose supporters, like those of Father Burresi, hold high office in the Church and were rumoured to have persuaded John Paul not to intervene.
But the Burresi affair has shown Benedict’s resolve to deal with factions who have their own agendas.
The Pope is about to reform the Curia, and so far the signs are not very promising for those who prefer miracles and wonders to the simple darkness of faith.