isagani:
My other concern is that this could be their way of perhaps supporting this strange marian movement?
thanks
No, it is just their way of ignoring something that is so blatantly a lie that they haven’t even the time to address it. If they spent all their time refuting what A told B, who told C, nothing would get done in the area they are supposed to be devoting their time to: proclaimging the Good News of Jesus Christ.
If we all spent a little more time in the Bible, and a little less time chasing around about some allegation about some private revelation or alleged revelation,we might all grow a bit closer to Christ.
It is issues like this that caused such an upheaval in the late 60’s and 70’s, where we lost so many of the popular devotions. Popular devotions to Mary and the saints are simply peripheral to the Gospel Message. They are supposed to direct us to Christ. But all too often they get twisted around to some sort of magic, gnostic knowledge that is going to do - what? In a word, distract us from Christ. And it was the periphery groups who kept focusing on the most recent gnostic “secret” that gave all devotions a bad name. Too many people were able to say, “See, this is where all that pietistic claptrap leads”.
They were not entirely correct, but it was the plethora of this stuff that made them sound like they were right on.
I have nothing against Fatima. But if some people spent as much time persuing a deep relationship with Christ and the Father, through the Spirit, as they do chasing wild hare goofy stuff like this, they would find the truth - and the Truth - and find that they don’t need this empty business.