E
Eucharisted
Guest
EDIT: This post may be updated as I get emails which more clearly translate this. Some clarifications have already been added thanks to a reader who provided them.
The Italian journal Petrus has an exclusive article about a handbook to be made public and distributed to all bishops by Pope Benedict XVI for dealing with claims of apparitions (and I’m sure private revelations in general). The headline provided by google translator gives us “crackdown” where I’m told that in Italian, “giro di vite” translates into “turn of the screw”. Crackdown, clampdown, screw-tightenting - you get the idea.
Read the rest here.After spending so much time getting some points into English, this is absolutely brilliant on the part of Pope Benedict XVI, and so…Pope Benedict-like.
This is good, very good, and I’m sure it’ll help the Church in cracking down on apparitions and helping Catholics to not be fooled by false seers and apparitions.
But, (yes, there is a but) it will not completely prevent false seers or apparitions from sprouting up, nor prevent all Catholics from promoting and following false seers or apparitions. For these souls, we must pray and make sacrifce for their conversions.
I’m not sure how many Catholics are aware, but there is an old document on apparition, issued by the Church, and since that did not prevent the spread of false mysticism, I’m sure this book won’t. If anything, the book will only educate, not eliminate - not that books could actually eliminate anything at all, of course.
I know some people will say, “Well, it’s because nobody knew about the Criteria that false apparitions came and went,” however that would a false notion, because there are certainly Catholics who know the gospel but don’t live it, and who know the rubrics of the Mass but don’t follow it, and who know various documents but don’t apply them to their life. So it’s not absolutely a matter of ignorance, but one of indifference as well. And how do you solve ignorance and indifference? Prayer and sacrifice.