The Tide of Vain Credulity:
The Church's Role in Apparitions
One may well ask why, among
the many reported apparitions, the Church approves of some to the
exclusion of others. Are there reasons that could appear to some
people to be discriminatory? Briefly, what are the criteria, the objective
norms used to determine which ones merit the sanction of the Church's
approval or its reserved judgment, if not outright disapproval?
Let me begin by recalling the
Church's general attitude towards the phenomenon of apparitions
and of the supernatural. Contrary to what certain Christians may
think, this attitude is not one of favorable disposition, but rather
of skepticism and of the most extreme reserve. Instinctively
conscious of the incertitude of the human judgment in a field as
complex as that of the supernatural, the Church remains on the
defensive. The reasons for such an attitude are easily
understandable.
First, there is the constant
risk of deception and fakery. The Church believes there is a
devil and that his seductive powers can be exercised under the
cover of the supernatural at the expense of the believers.
Religious history is fraught with such exploitations.
Secondly, the Church fears that
the faithful will be carried away with the tide of vain credulity
and superstition.
Devotion is secondary to faith: private revelations will never have
the same importance as the Gospel Revelation. It is this latter
Revelation that has been confided to the Church, and that is the
one the Church must protect and transmit. Its mission is primarily
in that intangible fidelity to the Word she has received from the
Lord. By approving too hastily the message of apparitions she fears she
may be catering to a spontaneous craving for the supernatural to
the detriment of the faith which, in fact, is more obscure and more
demanding.
Finally, we must not disregard
the fact that the supernatural is always susceptible to
interpretations and transpositions on the aesthetical level which,
fostering forms of sentimental and naive piety, unfailingly shock
the critical intelligence of many believers, especially those
engaged in dialogue with unbelievers who, in turn, risk finding in
these manifestations new alibis to refuse to believe.
These are some of the
reasons that prompt the Church to exert the greatest circumspection
in the matter of the supernatural and revelations.
However, if the Church knows
that Revelation was closed with the death of the last of the apostles,
she also knows that the history of salvation continues from one
century to the other, and that the Lord is ever present among his
people. He is present in the work of grace and holiness
accomplished in his Church through the Holy Spirit. He is
present in the ministry of the Word and of the Sacraments, which
characterizes the mission of the Church sent into the world to preach
the Gospel to every creature. He is also present in certain
manifestations of His power and his sovereignty over the world
from which supernatural events emerge and, in particular, Marian
apparitions.
Again, it is to his Church that He,
in some way, gives the mandate to recognize, interpret, and approve these
apparitions by proposing them to the veneration and the devotion of
the faithful. Therefore, it is the Church's duty to perform this
difficult task of discernment which permits us to declare, in
reference to an apparition, "The finger of God is there."
The Church accomplishes this discernment through the magisterium who, in
virtue of the Apostolic succession, are endowed with the power of grace.
And thus, the recognition of apparitions and the approval of pilgrimages
are decisions of the Church's magisterium in which its authority is
engaged.
This function of the magisterium is carried
out along very definite lines and procedures that often require long
delays between the information gathered within the confines of the diocese
and the investigation made by the Roman Congregations. We find that the
same attention and strictness is observed here as in the canonization
processes. More than the various methods of procedures, I believe I must
signal out the different criteria that are followed.
There is first of all, as I have said
with regard to Lourdes, the conformity of the message with the Gospel
Revelation and the dogmatic tradition of the Church. God's word is the
foundation of our faith. The first condition, therefore, is that the
message transmitted by the seers be in complete agreement with this Word. At
Lourdes the Blessed Virgin's revelation that she is the Immaculate
Conception was a determining factor in the Church's approval of Massabiele.
On the other hand, we must consider the
contents of the message relative to Christian attitudes such as invitation
to prayer, penance and conversion of the heart, brotherly love, hope, etc.
In this matter, Lourdes, like Pontmain, presents (in the simplicity
of the words and expressions) a startling likeness to the evangelical
Beatitudes.
A more difficult point is the revelation
of "secrets" which sometimes accompany certain apparitions, such as La
Salette and Fatima. Most often these secrets deal with predictions
concerning the future, about which magisterium of the Church exercises an
extreme prudence.
Another important criterion of evaluation
is the truthfulness of the seers. The investigation always begins with a
profound examination of their personality: psychic equilibrium, conditions
of life, level of maturity, etc. One expert after the other interrogates
the witnesses who must not contradict themselves in the testimony. The fact
that the Church-approved apparitions were often witnessed by children or
young adults does not lessen the rigor of the scrutiny and a severity (in
controlling the declarations) that can be likened to a regular court
procedure. The great concern is to forestall the risk of manipulation by
the adults.
Thus, it is only at the end of this long
and patient study of the facts that the Church's magisterium arrives at its
conclusion. It is often preceded by the popular movement, but it remains
independent of all outside pressure.
Let us now draw a few conclusions from
what we have said. 1) What the Church recognizes and approves is the
supernatural character, the divine origin of the apparitions. She also
grants them public credibility which, in the eyes of the faithful,
guarantees the orthodoxy of the devotion and the pilgrimage. 2) This public
approval of the apparitions does not imply for Christians what theologians
call the "assent of faith." The message of the apparitions, even if it is
approved by the Church, retains the character of a private revelation, which
is not the direct and explicit object of our faith. The Christian,
therefore, remains free to accept or to reject it. However, in deference to
the judgment of the Church, the Christian should have an attitude of
openness and "pious affection." 3) With respect to the apparitions or
visions which have not been publicly approved by the Church, it is fitting
to maintain an attitude of prudence and reserve. The Church allows us to
carry out certain forms of prayer, but in a private manner. She warns us
against massive demonstrations that might risk abusing the faith, and,
especially, she warns us against the risk of credulity, or of devotion that
would endanger the proper balance of faith and Christian hope. 4) With
regard to revelations that have been totally turned down, it behooves the
Christian conscience to bind itself through obedience to the Church's
decision. That decision was not made without close scrutiny. There is need
here to purify the religious sentiment, which we know is forever exposed to
what I call: "the tide of vain credulity" and the need for supernatural
signs.
My conclusion is precisely that our
pilgrimage, in the footsteps of Bernadette and her message, is for us a
challenge to be rooted in our faith and to purify it by adhering to the
essentials. Lourdes is the meeting place to which our Lord invites us, that
we might be strengthened in our certitudes and our faithfulness as believers.
Our certitudes rest upon what is at the
heart of the Gospel: the revelation of the Son of God. We need not look for
any other truth than that: "God sent his son into the world ... that through
him the world might be saved" (John 1:11, 17). This is the central truth of
our faith. There is no other. "I have told you everything in my Son,"
writes St. John of the Cross. And the entire message Bernadette received
from the Blessed Virgin does nothing else but recall the mission of Christ
the Redeemer, which is to reconcile all mankind in the tenderness and
forgiveness of the Father.
Already St. Paul was preoccupied with
maintaining the faith of his disciples within the very center of the mystery
of Christ: "Only you must continue in your faith, firm on your foundations,
never to be dislodged from the hope offered by the gospel which you heard"
(Col 1:23). And to Timothy, he adds: "For the spirit that God gave us is no
craven spirit, but one to inspire strength, love, and self-discipline" (2
Tim. 1:7)
Our faithfulness as believers is founded
on our faithfulness and, I might add, our loyalty, to the church, more
specifically to the magisterium which the Lord has established for this
mission of evangelization -- a mission which implies, first of all,
spiritual discernment with respect to every event of a supernatural
character.
The faithful Christian is the one who
defers to the judgment of the Church and does not try to put aside his own
prudence by undertaking new and unprecedented devotions. Much less is it a
question of taking pleasure in visions, which, instead of building up the
faith, risk leading it astray in dubious prophetism.
In closing, I would like to share a
conviction of mine. The best antidote for this craving for the sensational
and private revelations is to participate directly and effectively in the
Church's mission. A Christian who teaches religion, for example, shares too
much in the seriousness of the transmission of the Christian mysteries and
in faith education to burden himself with new revelations. The Gospel and
the Creed are enough for him. A Christian who wishes to witness to his
faith in the midst of human realities runs less risk of being won over by
predictions whose obvious effects are to render the faith weak and lead one
to abandon the apostolic field, where the vocation of the baptized lay
person is to be found.
Bernadette presents us with the picture
of truth and simplicity in the faith. We should look at her. She is the
icon given to us by the Blessed Virgin to discover, in her, why and how we
should believe.
