Condemned apparition statue disposal

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Faustina777

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I recently purchased a statue of Our Lady from a charity shop and have since discovered that it is a statue from a condemned apparition. I have no idea if the statue was blessed before I bought it.

So my question is, how best to get rid of it? I know that the disposal of blessed items usually involves burying or burning the item but as this is not a “good” statue I wonder if I should break it up? I really don’t like the idea of breaking a statue that looks like Our Lady but at the same time don’t want anyone finding it again someday. Any advice welcome!
 
The blessing on an item is lost when the item is sold, so you don’t have to worry about that. Dispose of it in whatever way you think is best.
 
Ah thank you very much for the quick answer, that’s a relief it is not blessed! I just looked up why it loses the blessing and that makes sense.
 
What apparition is it a statue of exactly?

A statue of Our Lady is just a statue of Our Lady. As long as she’s reverently depicted, and you’re not maintaining some belief in the debunked apparition, I’m not seeing the harm in having it around.
 
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This is going to sound like I am splitting hairs but I’ve just been reminded that the woman in the shop wanted to give it to me for free and I refused and gave a donation for it - does that still count as buying it blessing-wise?
 
Hi there, the apparition is the Madonna Della Rosa from San Damiano - there were messages for many years and the Bishop condemned it several times but the visionary and other followers kept promoting it anyway.

I know what you mean, I’d feel weird about getting rid of a statue of Our Lady but on the other hand if I died or something then someone might inherit it from me who possibly wouldn’t know it was condemned. There are plenty of perfectly good approved statues so I should just buy those!
 
The bishop condemned the cult of the apparition, not some random statue of Mary that doesn’t look particularly unusual.

If you really feel you must get rid of it, I’d suggest digging a hole and burying it. I wouldn’t break it up first. But honestly I’d probably just have my priest bless it and then proceed to use it as a nice statue of Mary and not think about the apparition.
 
The statue is not condemned. It is just a statue. There is nothing wrong with having an image of Our Lady. You are overthinking this. If you like the statue, keep it.
 
Brace yourselves – the sin of “simony” is what removes a blessing from a blessed item that is sold.

I cannot in my wildest dreams understand how me saying so is blasphemy or offensive. Simony is a sin.
 
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Searching1 said:
Brace yourselves – the sin of “simony” is what removes a blessing from a blessed item that is sold.

I cannot in my wildest dreams understand how me saying so is blasphemy or offensive. Simony is a sin.
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No one said it is blasphemy or offensive.
Nor did anyone buy the statue, so no simony.
 
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I didn’t flag your post, but since it consisted only of one word “simony” to my recollection, someone may have thought you were off topic (as the thread is not about simony) or thought you were accusing the OP of having committed the sin of simony. Which she didn’t, because she had no intention of buying a blessing, and gave the money to the shop mostly because it was a charity shop and she didn’t want to be taking their item without donating some money.

Maybe be more clear next time.
 
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Just throw it in the river like other Catholics did to another statue recently … 😏

Some think that is okay … unfortunately
 
I Googled statues of the Madonna delle Rose and it looks like it’s just a statue of Our Lady holding some roses. I’d either keep the statue or give it away to somebody. I don’t see why you’d need to destroy it or bury it or anything like that. Either just keep it or give it to somebody who isn’t going to worry about it.
 
Hi all, thanks for your replies.

I may well be being overly cautious about it but the statue isn’t just a generic looking Our Lady statue, it looks identical to the statue they have at the “shrine” and it also has the name of the apparition and shrine on it so it’s pretty recognisable. I originally bought this statue for my baby son’s room and I should just buy a decent one like Our Lady of Fatima etc.

Regarding simony - I actually wasn’t aware of those rules and I am glad to be made aware of them, I will bring it up at my next confession ie. needing to be more careful in future.
 
Faustina777 - It is not that you are guilty of simony! You did nothing wrong !

The explanation of why blessings are removed by sales is that the Church is preventing simony, by using her disciplinary powers to bind and loose Sacraments and blessings; and thus protecting people from having a motivation to sin in this way.

So you not only did not commit simony if you had bought something blessed; you couldn’t possibly have committed simony in any way! The Church has made it factually impossible, in this scenario.
 
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Can’t you ask your parish priest what to do with it? If he says it’s okay then it’s okay and you never have to worry about it again.
 
Faustina777 said:
I will bring it up at my next confession ie. needing to be more careful in future.
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I don’t see why you would bring it up at confession. You weren’t aware of the rules, and didn’t break any rules. It’s not even clear that this statue was ever blessed. The charity shop probably wanted to give it to you because they were having trouble getting rid of it to be honest. Not seeing any sin there. Don’t be overscrupulous.

I can see where if the statue has the name of the apparition on it you might not want it around because it looks like you support the apparition.
Maybe just bury it then.
 
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Actually, that’s not splitting hairs. It sounds like she gave it to you for free, but you insisted on giving her a voluntary donation for it. That is not the same thing as buying it.

Do you have a way to contact her to see if it was blessed? I doubt a priest would bless a statue of Mary that is from a condemned apparition, but it’s possible a priest would have done so without looking too closely at the statue.
 
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Hi everyone, thanks again for your advice on the statue/simony/confession etc.

I am going to go ahead and bury it. Plenty of good Mary statues out there to replace it with. 🙂

This is my first time using Catholic Answers and it’s so great there is such a helpful community here!
 
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