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StudentMI
Guest
Lol is that the reason it was suppressed for so long?
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Freddy
Guest
By the Coptic church. Not by the Vatican. Something tells me that if the very mother of Jesus had actually made an appearance multiple times over a period of months then the Vatican would have taken an interest. To put it mildly. Not to exagerate but it would have been the single most verifiably important event in the history of Mankind.Freddy:
How have you concluded that wasn’t true? The Zeitoun appearance is accepted by the Church.
And hardly anyone has even heard about it.
So we have hundreds of thousands of people who saw it and believed it, some of whom would still be alive today, and yet it’s virtually discounted. Compared to a couple of newspaper reports from over a hundred years ago.
Do you not appreciate how odd that is?
Tis_Bearself
Patron
No, there were several reasons, a major one being a poor translation of St. Faustina’s diary from Polish. I understand from the official documentary on the Divine Mercy image that Polish nationalistic interpretations was another reason, however. Apparently there was some priest pushing that interpretation for some years after Fr. Sopocko died and it kind of gummed up the works.
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StudentMI
Guest
I admit a lot of my skepticism about Fatima rests on Lucia herself. The late writing of the secrets is one point that I just can’t get over.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
As I said, the Vatican has not given any indication whatever that it has an issue with the Coptic Church’s ruling on the matter. It would appear that it does not, as it allows the apparition to be freely discussed by Catholic media and clergy in a venerating sort of way.
As for “hardly anyone has even heard about it”, maybe in your circles. Everybody I know is fully aware of it. It is frequently fodder for articles, blog posts, various talks by priests etc. There are many other (as in dozens of) Marian apparitions with some degree of approval by Vatican or Coptic church that are much less well known, although there are always Catholics around who are up on these things.
As for “odd”, of course it all seems “odd” to you - you’re an atheist. Probably everything I do all day strikes you as “odd”. That’s not my problem.
I will grant you that 70,000 people saying they witnessed something is probably not a great argument to make to the however many people who don’t believe something happened, but then again, there is no reason to try to convince non-believers that Fatima (or Zeitoun) happened. Believers aren’t even required to believe in private revelations, so the Church is not going to waste its time trying to prove to unbelievers that Our Lady of Fatima really appeared or that the Miracle of the Sun occurred. The Miracle was also selective; God can choose not to show his miracles to someone, and there were indeed people who reported not seeing a thing even when many others did.
As for “hardly anyone has even heard about it”, maybe in your circles. Everybody I know is fully aware of it. It is frequently fodder for articles, blog posts, various talks by priests etc. There are many other (as in dozens of) Marian apparitions with some degree of approval by Vatican or Coptic church that are much less well known, although there are always Catholics around who are up on these things.
As for “odd”, of course it all seems “odd” to you - you’re an atheist. Probably everything I do all day strikes you as “odd”. That’s not my problem.
I will grant you that 70,000 people saying they witnessed something is probably not a great argument to make to the however many people who don’t believe something happened, but then again, there is no reason to try to convince non-believers that Fatima (or Zeitoun) happened. Believers aren’t even required to believe in private revelations, so the Church is not going to waste its time trying to prove to unbelievers that Our Lady of Fatima really appeared or that the Miracle of the Sun occurred. The Miracle was also selective; God can choose not to show his miracles to someone, and there were indeed people who reported not seeing a thing even when many others did.
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StudentMI
Guest
That’s probably for the better because people staring at the sun are going to see odd things.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
There are also natural phenomena such as sun dogs. Do I think they are really neat? Yes. Do I believe they are a natural phenomena? Yes. Do I think that’s what happened at Fatima? No.
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StudentMI
Guest
But even amongst those who saw something there were differing reports. If we just dismiss those differences as God decided to do different things, doesn’t that kind of ruin the integrity of the whole investigative process?
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Tolle_Lege
Guest
The nice thing about private revelations is that you are not required to have a devotion to them. If something about Fatima doesn’t sit right with you, I would move on to something more worthwhile, to be honest.
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Freddy
Guest
But you take my point that if they thought it was true then it would be the biggest verifiable event in history. The fact that they haven’t made any statement suggesting it was true would indicate that they think it wasn’t. And for obvious reasons: It’s all too easy to show it didn’t happen. This is an event that happened multiple times over many months. For over an hour each time. And where is all the evidence for this? About 2 or 3 grainy pictures of a bright light. The post down the road looked more like Mary…
And yet Fatima, with a few thousand supposed eye witnesses of a one off event over a hundred yesrs ago is accepted without argumemt and hundreds of thousands of eye witnesses to multiple events just 50 years ago is ignored.
Can you not see any double standard at work here? And no, I don’t believe either happened. I’m just astounded that an event happening multiple times in recent history with a greater weight of evidence (as weak as it is) and a monstrously larger group of eye witnesses is discounted and Fatima is accepted.
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1Lord1Faith
Guest
At Fatima there were messages and warnings given to the children to pass on. There wasn’t anything like that in Egypt. That probably contributes greatly to disparities in popularity and coverage.
So the focus is naturally on the messages. The proof is in the pudding so to speak for those who wish to have it. That is particularly evident with the messages and warnings relayed by the visionaries in Rawanda in the early eighties.
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Tis_Bearself
Patron
I don’t see any standard here at work except you say tomayto and I say tomahto.
Stepping off the thread now, I don’t think these type of discussions are useful or productive or even necessary. The discussion was about someone’s article that he read and whether it was well sourced/ accurate, not about arguing over some poster’s personal opinion, so we’re way off track anyway. Perhaps someone else wishes to continue this with you. Have a pleasant evening.
Stepping off the thread now, I don’t think these type of discussions are useful or productive or even necessary. The discussion was about someone’s article that he read and whether it was well sourced/ accurate, not about arguing over some poster’s personal opinion, so we’re way off track anyway. Perhaps someone else wishes to continue this with you. Have a pleasant evening.
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Freddy
Guest
Thank you. You too.
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Dan_Defender
Guest
I would add that during the miracle of the sun, the clothing of all had been drenched from heavy rain, yet when the sun settled down again, all clothing was found to be dry. Hallucinations do not dry clothing. Of course I agree that nothing will convince atheists.
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Tolle_Lege
Guest
This miracle seems like an odd choice of manifesting God’s power at a time when World War I and the Spanish Flu were ravaging the world. I am onboard with Fatima’s core message of prayer and repentance, but I just honestly am not attached to the miracles of the sun and the suddenly dried clothing. Emphasizing these miracles just invites more criticism of the apparitions, in my opinion. Millions of Europeans were being killed in war or dying from disease, so I’m not sure why a dry shirt was supposed to bring comfort. That’s just me, though.
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JSRG
Guest
It’s been my frequent irritant that modern accounts of Fatima take the contemporary accounts and Lucia’s later memoirs and just smash them all together, not giving any indication which ones came when. The contemporary testimony of the kids, obviously, are of much higher value. These occurred closer to the events (less time for memory errors), had multiple witnesses for corroboration rather than being the memories of just one person, and were the only part that was officially granted the “worthy of belief” stamp by the church.
I’m still trying to find some good resource that separates the early stuff from the later stuff, but I unfortunately don’t know of any–at least in English.
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FiveLinden
Guest
If you search in here for the word ‘devotional’ you will find the statement by the then-Cardinal.
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/...on_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/...on_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html
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Damian02
Guest
Well I suppose this could go on and on and around we go in circles, the only answer I can give you is I believe it is true and you seem to have the opposite view so we will just have to leave it there.
God Bless.
God Bless.
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Freddy
Guest
Zeitoun or Fatima?
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Damian02
Guest
Fatima that was the subject I was replying to, and I have to say that I don’t know a whole lot about Zeitoun.
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