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  Andrea Freddy

  Vatican correspondent

Wonders have not yet left the world. Certainly not in the world of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, where apparitions and supernatural phenomena are part of deeply felt popular devotion. They are not a doctrine. You can believe in it, but you shouldn’t.

However, how should the church determine whether these supernatural phenomena are real? Is it permissible to allow worship around it? To make this clear, the Vatican’s Department for the Doctrine of the Faith today presents a new set of criteria.

This mainly concerns the apparitions around the world of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who enjoys special veneration among many Catholics. Over the centuries, there have been countless reports of ordinary believers to whom Mary appeared, often carrying messages to convey to the rest of the world.

Some of the places where Marian apparitions occurred have become important places of pilgrimage, such as Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal. Or, more recently, the mountain village of Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Mary is said to have revealed herself several times since 1981. The popularity of this apparition has become so great that the village attracts a million pilgrims each year.

According to the old 1978 guidelines, it was the job of the local bishops to recognize or not recognize the apparitions. They had to work very patiently and slowly. The investigation examined the psychological state of the person to whom Mary allegedly appeared, whether the messages were consistent with the teachings, and whether there were, for example, any commercial gains.

The Vatican usually remains aloof. Popular devotion is important and can lead to religious revival and perhaps also to priestly vocations. Of all the Marian apparitions of recent centuries, the Vatican has so far recognized fewer than twenty. Lourdes and Fatima yes, but not Medjugorje. This investigation is still ongoing, but it will not be complete, because Pope Francis also realizes that you cannot simply deprive a million people of their veneration.

Sometimes the Vatican intervenes forcefully. For example, in the alleged Marian apparitions of Ida Birdman of Amsterdam. She is said to have seen Maria more than fifty times in the 1940s and 1950s. According to Birdman, Mary called herself Lady of All Nations. Many Dutch bishops actively supported this veneration.

But in 1974 the Vatican indicated that nothing supernatural had been proven to have occurred. A ruling that was reaffirmed in 2020, much to the dismay of all people who continue to worship Our Lady of All Nations to this day. The chaotic events surrounding these alleged apparitions appear to have contributed to the emergence of today’s new standards.

Because now everything has to be different and faster. The Vatican’s role will become more important. In many cases, bishops are allowed to handle the matter themselves, but if they smell a problem, they must report everything to the Vatican.

The reason is the unprecedented spread of Marian apparitions. In this age of social media, they spread very quickly. Reports come from everywhere of statues of weeping Mary, miraculous relics, and prophetic sayings of so-called “seers.” According to Cardinal Fernandez, head of the Department of Religious Doctrine, this could lead to a false form of mysticism, cult formation and abuse of power.

If the bishops contact the Vatican, the Department for Religious Doctrine will quickly issue a temporary ruling. Acknowledgment of the supernatural nature of the apparition was removed, except at the express request of the Pope. From now on, six judgments can be made: from “no objection” and “no encouragement” to “not supernatural at all.”

In practice, this is often a “no objection”, but this way the Vatican gets an overview of all the apparitions and there is no longer any doubt about the status of the apparition. The question that arises is whether the offices of the Department for the Doctrine of the Faith have sufficient staff to deal with all these reports quickly.