Fatima and other miracles

[Hermione]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if any of you know of good sources where to read about the miracle at Fatima, also the supposed miracle of the people who survived the Hiroshima bomb while praying the Rosary, etc. I’ve read about these here and there, but have not been able to find a credible source (i.e. not someone’s private homepage).

I don’t understand why there isn’t more discussion of these things in the scientific community. If thousands of people supposedly witnessed a miracle, shouldn’t there be more investigation? What about bodies of the saints that supposedly don’t decay, how come there’s so little talk about these things in the scientific community?

I appreciate your help!

 

[clarkal]

Hermione:

Hello everyone,
I don’t understand why there isn’t more discussion of these things in the scientific community. If thousands of people supposedly witnessed a miracle, shouldn’t there be more investigation? What about bodies of the saints that supposedly don’t decay, how come there’s so little talk about these things in the scientific community?

Because they are not taken seriously.

For example, the sun supposedly “danced” at Fatima, right? If the sun did in reality “dance” in the sky, why did no one else in the entire world beside the gathered crowd and surrounding areas of Fatima see it? Why did no one in Spain or other time zones where the sun would have also been visible see the “miracle”? No astronomers detected such an event? How curious!

Based on that information, do you think that scientists would take Fatima seriously?

“Incorrupt” bodies are not uncommon. Try a Google.com search. Catholics like to dig up their dead; the rest of us just leave them in the grave. However, if we did start a mass uprooting of graves, I am sure there would be a lot of “incorrupt” bodies of people of various traditions – even of atheists.

I will have to look more into the hiroshima incident. From what I have read, though, there are various conflicting reports. Were there 4 or 8 Jesuit priests? What are all of their names? (From what I have read, no one can name more than 3 of them – something odd if you consider the fact that over 200 scientists examined them, as it is reported…). What are the names of the 200 scientists?

clarkal

 

[clarkal]

…attempted to edit something quickly and ended up posting a reply to myself! cute.

 

[Axion]

clarkal:

Because they are not taken seriously.

For example, the sun supposedly “danced” at Fatima, right? If the sun did in reality “dance” in the sky, why did no one else in the entire world beside the gathered crowd and surrounding areas of Fatima see it? Why did no one in Spain or other time zones where the sun would have also been visible see the “miracle”? No astronomers detected such an event? How curious!

Actually a great many people in the area and for many miles around, including a number of confirmed atheists witnessed the “sun dancing” phenomenon at Fatima.

Of course the sun didn’t actually move around in the sky - that would have destroyed the planet! The phenomenon was a localised optical one, with a radius of a few miles!

Based on that information, do you think that scientists would take Fatima seriously?

Scientists should take anything seriously for which there are numerous credible witnesses. Of course scientific reputations are not made by verifying religious phenomena. Such studies (unless they are to debunk some occurrence) generally get one shunned in the scientific community.

“Incorrupt” bodies are not uncommon. Try a Google.com search. Catholics like to dig up their dead; the rest of us just leave them in the grave. However, if we did start a mass uprooting of graves, I am sure there would be a lot of “incorrupt” bodies of people of various traditions – even of atheists.

If incorrupt bodies are so common, perhaps you could produce some atheist examples that don’t involve artificial preservation. A “scientific” explanation would be nice too.

Here’s a picture of St Bernadette taken over 120 years after her death.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Axion]

Here is an informative site of the Hiroshima miracle.

holysouls.com/sar/rosarymiracle.htm

 

[gladtobe]

I do not believe in the Marian apparition predictions, because their predictions never came to pass and the present day Pope applied the 3rd secret to himself. One of the prophecies was that Russia was to be converted. It never happened. The last secret was that religious leaders were suppose to be killed(plural). That never occurred. So Pope John Paul applied the 3rd secret to his own attempted assassination. The whole 3rd secret was never fully revealed. Why weren’t these 3 secrets fully revealed to begin with to all believing Catholics, instead of concealing them by the Vatican? If this was a prophecy for the church to know, then Rome sinned against God for not revealing them in the first place.

 

[sarcophagus]

Was that picture for real??? That is amazing if it was. As far as I know, Ice and water (free of microbial activity as well as fish etc.) are the only known preservatives to leave a body in that similar condition. However, her body would’ve been bloated and contorted, and her skin would be off colour (ice - extreme frost bite gives skin a brown colour, water - solutions in cells are displaced with water, causing the cells to explode giving the skin a grey pallor). As far as I know, there is no scientific explanation for preservation in that degree (st. bernadette).

As far as saying that the apparitions are not true, maybe it was meant for this century…who knows.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

gladtobe:

I do not believe in the Marian apparition predictions, because their predictions never came to pass and the present day Pope applied the 3rd secret to himself. One of the prophecies was that Russia was to be converted. It never happened. The last secret was that religious leaders were suppose to be killed(plural). That never occurred. So Pope John Paul applied the 3rd secret to his own attempted assassination. The whole 3rd secret was never fully revealed. Why weren’t these 3 secrets fully revealed to begin with to all believing Catholics, instead of concealing them by the Vatican? If this was a prophecy for the church to know, then Rome sinned against God for not revealing them in the first place.

The thrid secret was fully revealed, at least the Holy Father and Sr Lucia have said that it was.

As for the secret, I believe that Mary commanded that the secrets be kept a secret until they happened.

Anyways, these are private messages and are not binding on Catholics.

 

[gladtobe]

If you read a portion of the 3rd secret you will see it did not fit one individual but a whole group of church leaders being slaughtered. If the 3rd secret has any validity, it must refer to the church being persecuted by the Antichrist in the endtimes, before Christ’s return. Also Russia was never converted to Christianity at all.

 

[Lorarose]

If you read a portion of the 3rd secret you will see it did not fit one individual but a whole group of church leaders being slaughtered. If the 3rd secret has any validity, it must refer to the church being persecuted by the Antichrist in the endtimes, before Christ’s return. Also Russia was never converted to Christianity at all.

Church leaders and faithful were slaughtered during WWI,WWII, in communist Russia, in communist China, in the killing fields, in Rwanda…the list goes on.They are still being killed today.
In fact - it is constant truth that somewhere in the world there is continual persecution of christians who die for the faith.

The Fatima predictions concerning WWI, and the beginning of WWII most certainly DID come true.
The third secret is not as specific and therefore leaves more room for believers to believe, or detractors to criticize.

 

[jdnation]

The picture of St. Bernadette is real. I’ve seen her for myself, she looks better than most people living today!

I’m also highly skeptical as to whether the Vatican really did reveal the third secret, which apparently has to do with the Church being infiltrated by Satan and condemns the bishops and priests for not doing their job. We are asked to make urgent prayers for the pope and all priests. For awhile the Catholic Church is going to fall, then chastisement on the world, and then the Catholic Church will be renewed and established again. The third secret is supposed to be more terrible and I feel it had ntohing to do with the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

The Holy mother asked it to be made known a long time ago, however several popes refused. The argument from the Vatican is that they know the secret but that doesn’t mean they’re obligated to reveal it, they are using discretion and responsibility to keep the secret from public for whatever they feel are better reasons for everyones good. S. Lucia was apparently under an order of silence. The third secret is said to be more terrible and not simply assassination of the Holy Father.

Here’s a site with some credible arguments:
tldm.org/news/lucys_writing.htm

Russia will be converted someday, but it seems this was not a fixed prophecy but rather a conditional one. Russia was first supposed to be consecrated to Mary’s Sacred Heart, but to the best of my knowledge this was never done. The Soviet Union collapsed, but the errors of Communism did end up spreading throughout the world, except the Communist philosophy is now shrouded under different names and continues to wreck havoc.

 

[clarkal]

Axion:

Actually a great many people in the area and for many miles around, including a number of confirmed atheists witnessed the “sun dancing” phenomenon at Fatima.

I challenge you here. Who are these people? What are your sources?

From what I remember reading of the book The Great Sign, there were only one or two reports of people seeing the miracle from a distance, not a great many. If you could point me to a source for your “great many”, I’d appreciate it.

What you don’t read about is that some people didn’t see anything, like the photographer of that one reporter (I know that’s extremely vague, but I’m working from memory here and can’t find the source at the moment. I will if called upon, however.) Also, people reported seeing different things.

It is also claimed that all 70,000 saw the miracle of the sun. Did someone go around asking every person? Was there a poll?

Axion:

Of course the sun didn’t actually move around in the sky - that would have destroyed the planet! The phenomenon was a localised optical one, with a radius of a few miles!

This was my point. Hermione asked why science does not take such things seriously, and I used Fatima as an example. That Fatima was a localized event and not happening in reality, scientists are more inclined to believe that it was simply a happening in the minds of the people, a mass hysteria, or some other explanation.

Axion:

If incorrupt bodies are so common, perhaps you could produce some atheist examples that don’t involve artificial preservation. A “scientific” explanation would be nice too.

Here’s a picture of St Bernadette taken over 120 years after her death.

This is what Joe Nickel has to say about Bernadette’s corpse in his book Looking for a Miracle.

“Such facts can serve as an antidote to exaggerated claims for incorruption – claims like those captioning the cover photo of a credulous boo, The Incorruptibles. The caption reads: “The incorrupt body of Satin Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes, France (1844-1879), preserved intact for 100 years without enbalming or other artificial means.” Now it would take an autopsy by independent authorities to determine whether (like the corpse of St. Catherine Laboure) St. Bernadette had been gvien injections of embalming fluid. But in any event, the book does note that when the body was first exhumed, thirty years after St. Bernadete’s death,** it was found “emaciated” and ten years later the face** had to be covered with a wax mask.” (my emphasis)

Not so incorrpupt, I guess.

You want “atheist examples”? Like I said, atheists don’t go around digging up other atheists like Catholics dig up other Catholics, so finding some examples might be testing. However, this article about one non-saint (I’m pretty sure she wasn’t Catholic) might be helpful for you: findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_1_23/ai_53569322

clarkal

 

[selvaraj]

Hermione:

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if any of you know of good sources where to read about the miracle at Fatima, also the supposed miracle of the people who survived the Hiroshima bomb while praying the Rosary, etc. I’ve read about these here and there, but have not been able to find a credible source (i.e. not someone’s private homepage).

Zeitun-Mary on TV
members.aol.com/bjw1106/mariam7.htm
http://members.aol.com/bjw1106/zei-top.gifhttp://members.aol.com/bjw1106/zeilady.gif
" Official investigations have been carried out with the result that it has been considered an undeniable fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary has been appearing on Zeitun Church in a clear and bright luminous body seen by all present in front of the church, whether Christian or Moslem"

Report of General Information and Complaints Department, Zeitun, Egypt 1968

While all in America were watching the the Chicago riots at the Democratic Convention, or viewing live war zone broadcasts from Vietnam or were being mesmerized by the Watergate hearings on television, the Mother of God was appearing for tens of thousands to see in the land of the pyramids at a Coptic church constructed to commemorate the area in Egypt where she had come with Joseph and Jesus when they all fled from Herod. Starting in April, 1968, her apparitions of light changed the lives of thousands. Her appearances at Zeitun were astounding. She was seen by more than a million people. The apparitions were broadcast by Egyptian TV, photographed by hundreds of professional photographers and personally witnessed by Egyptian President Abdul Nasser, an avowed Marxist. The apparitions lasted for three years with numerous unaccountable healings recorded by various medical professionals. The local police, who initially thought the apparitions were an elaborate hoax, searched a 15-mile radius surrounding the site to uncover any type of device that could be used to project such images. They were completely unsuccessful.

http://members.aol.com/bjw1106/zeitun.gifMoslems who saw the apparitions chanted from the Koran,* “Mary, God has chosen thee. And purified thee; He has chosen thee. Above all women.” *She was seen accompanied by doves of light in apparitions that lasted from a few minutes to as long as nine hours. Kyrillos VI, the Orthodox patriarch, formed a commission to investigate the apparitions. A number of the commissioners observed plumes of fragrant purple smoke rising from the church at the time of the apparitions and the figure of a woman surrounded by a very bright globe of light accompanied by doves of light. A digitally-enhanced, negative image of one television frame is shown at the top of this page to enable you a see an outline of what was seen by hundreds of thousands in Egypt.

While the appearances at Zietum were silent, the silence spoke volumes to those who came to see and strengthen their faith. The local Coptic Patriarch, Kyrillos VI, publicly announced a year after the apparitions started that he had no doubt that the Mother of God was appearing above the roof of St. Mary’s Coptic Church. For those who, like Thomas, needed to see for themselves, Mary offered an unequivocal televised demonstration at Zeitun. Yet, because of an unresponsive media and an indifferent world, very few outside of Egypt learned of her astonishing appearances there until well after they had ended.

More recently, the appearance of a woman clothed in light has been observed above the roof of the Church of St. Damian in Shoubra, Egypt, a suburb of Cairo. Starting in 1983 and seen with increasing frequency in the mid-1980’s, the woman was seen by thousands walking above the church bathed in light in apparitions lasting up to five hours. Shenouda III, the head of the Coptic Church at the time, established a commission to investigate the beautiful lady of light. In 1987, the commission concluded:

**“Let us thank the Lord for this blessing on the people of Egypt and for the repetition of this phenomenon. We should also like to thank the police and the Department of the Interior for their untiring efforts at maintaining safety and good order among the thousands of people who have spent day and night at prayer. We ask all the people to remain calm. Thus they may worthily receive the blessing of the Virgin, of St. Damian and of all the saints. May God save our country. We pray that he may guide Egypt and all her children to every success. May this phenomenon be a pledge of well-being for them and for all nations.” **

As in Zeitun, the silent witness of the Mother of God renewed the faith of tens of thousands and brought both Moslem and Christian to a place of peace where all could pray to the God who loved them enough to remind them of his love by sending His Mother.