List of Marian Apparitions

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Does anyone have a list of Marian Apparitions that were approved by the Vatican. That means the list can’t have Bayside and any other “apparitions” of that sort,
 
Another good one is called ‘The Miracle Hunter’.

You can find that through the CatholiCity site.

www.catholicity.com

Find it under ‘Catholic Links’, then click under ‘Apparitions-Mary’.

This site has both approved and disapproved apparitions.
 
For a list of apparitions approved at various levels, please visit my website:

miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/

Please note that prior to Our Lady of Guadalupe, apparitions had not been formally investigated by the local bishop before being approved. To see a list of apparitions receiving traditional approval by century, please use the drop down menu on this page.

The University of Dayton list (which is partially derived from my list) doesn’t show Our Lady of Good Help since it occurred in 1859 and the list is for 20th century apparition claims.

Hope this helps!
 
miraclehunter said:
For a list of apparitions approved at various levels, please visit my website:

miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/

Please note that prior to Our Lady of Guadalupe, apparitions had not been formally investigated by the local bishop before being approved. To see a list of apparitions receiving traditional approval by century, please use the drop down menu on this page.

The University of Dayton list (which is partially derived from my list) doesn’t show Our Lady of Good Help since it occurred in 1859 and the list is for 20th century apparition claims.

Hope this helps!
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Your website is really good. I refer to it often.
Do you happen to know why the Church does not have a list of what is approved or not. It seems such a simple thing to do and would also stop many heated debates on what is approved or not.
 
First time I have seen the sight, very interesting and informative, thank you for the time invested. 👍

Peace
 
thistle said:
Your website is really good. I refer to it often.
Do you happen to know why the Church does not have a list of what is approved or not. It seems such a simple thing to do and would also stop many heated debates on what is approved or not.
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It certainly seems like an official list hosted on the Vatican website would put to rest a lot of discussion and controversy. The only reasons that I can see for them not doing this would be:
  1. Since apparition approval is in the hands of the local bishops, it is the responsibility of the local bishop to disseminate that information regarding an apparition approval. (Vatican approval may come later, but it rarely comes in a clear definitive statement and is often shown over time through such actions as a papal visit to the shrine. See earlier post for more examples.)
  2. Since apparition approval is made by the local bishops, if the Vatican hasn’t explicitly or implicitly shown its support for an apparition or the surrounding devotion, a subsequent bishop theoretically could overturn a positive judgment (although this has never happened in the history of the Church). Posting an apparition definitively on a list on the Vatican website and would imply Vatican approval.
  3. The vast majority of apparitions prior to Our Lady of Guadalupe (perhaps as many as 2,000) have never been investigated and enjoy a certain level of local and traditional approval. If the Vatican posted a list it would have to ONLY include investigated and approved apparitions and would leave out many famous apparitions (e.g. Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Our Lady of Walsingham, etc) and potentially confuse people into thinking that the older traditional apparitions were not approved devotions.
  4. Belief in apparitions are entirely optional. While the Church will pronounce that something is “worthy of belief”, it will never require such a belief as necessary for salvation. While a list might contain such a disclaimer, it might be misunderstood as required by faith.
More info at: miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/discernment
 
miraclehunter said:
For a list of apparitions approved at various levels, please visit my website:

miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/

Please note that prior to Our Lady of Guadalupe, apparitions had not been formally investigated by the local bishop before being approved. To see a list of apparitions receiving traditional approval by century, please use the drop down menu on this page.

The University of Dayton list (which is partially derived from my list) doesn’t show Our Lady of Good Help since it occurred in 1859 and the list is for 20th century apparition claims.

Hope this helps!
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What does traditionally approved mean?
 
On another note, and not to derail the topic too far, I’m happy to see the owner of MiracleHunters is on this forum, I really love that website! It’s a wealth of information about the various appearances of Our Lord and our Blessed Mother!

And to answer the above question, traditionally approved apparitions are those which were popular and believed in before Holy Mother Church had a process to approve an apparition. These apparitions usually have miracles and other such great things associated with them, so there is no reason to not believe in them!
 
miraclehunter said:
  1. Since apparition approval is made by the local bishops, if the Vatican hasn’t explicitly or implicitly shown its support for an apparition or the surrounding devotion, a subsequent bishop theoretically could overturn a positive judgment
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What is the basis of this assertion?
 
miraclehunter said:
For a list of apparitions approved at various levels, please visit my website:

miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/

Please note that prior to Our Lady of Guadalupe, apparitions had not been formally investigated by the local bishop before being approved. To see a list of apparitions receiving traditional approval by century, please use the drop down menu on this page.

The University of Dayton list (which is partially derived from my list) doesn’t show Our Lady of Good Help since it occurred in 1859 and the list is for 20th century apparition claims.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
Hi, miraclehunter! 👋 I like your site, which I found on CatholiCity. Very informative.

I remember especially when you updated the entry on Banneux, Belgium, when the visionary Mariette Beco died last year.

Keep up the good work! 👍
 
Inquiringperson said:
What does traditionally approved mean?
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I think LoyalViews answered this question well. The vast majority of apparitions in the history of the Church have occurred before any formal process of inquiry was ever established. Many of the apparitions throughout history that haven’t been investigated or pronounced on by the competent ecclesiastical authority have garnered support through a sensus fidelium of the local church community and have been passed down through local tradition (or universal tradition in the case of Our Lady of Mt Carmel for example). Some apparitions or devotions have later gained the support of the Vatican. (Pope Benedict recently honored the longstanding tradition and devotion to Our Lady of Charity in Cuba during his recent visit there.) “Traditionally approved” is a term that I use on my website to indicate this level of approval - and to distinguish it from those that have been thoroughly investigated.
 
Chatter163 said:
What is the basis of this assertion?
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Since these declarations of the Magisterium on private revelations and apparitions (private not in the sense of involving only one person, but in the sense of not being matters of public revelation involving an obligation for everyone to believe them) concern matters of human faith only, they do not directly fall under the protection of the gift of infallibility conceded the Magisterium when speaking on matters of public revelation.* Hence, it is theoretically possible that a bishop or bishops might error in condemning or approving an apparition or revelation.* Practically, to the degree a bishop or bishops use maximum study and prudence in assessing the credibility of these events, to that degree their assessments appear as true and reliable guides for others in determining whether to believe, doubt or deny such events, the possibility of being in error is reduced in practice to zero, even though not guaranteed by the supernatural gift of infallibility, at least directly.* There have been very rare cases where an apparition has received a negative judgment by one bishop and then declared positive by a subsequent one. There have been no cases to my knowledge of an apparition initially being declare positive and then with later discernment and evidence surfacing declared negative.
 
miraclehunter said:
Since these declarations of the Magisterium on private revelations and apparitions (private not in the sense of involving only one person, but in the sense of not being matters of public revelation involving an obligation for everyone to believe them) concern matters of human faith only, they do not directly fall under the protection of the gift of infallibility conceded the Magisterium when speaking on matters of public revelation.* Hence, it is theoretically possible that a bishop or bishops might error in condemning or approving an apparition or revelation.* Practically, to the degree a bishop or bishops use maximum study and prudence in assessing the credibility of these events, to that degree their assessments appear as true and reliable guides for others in determining whether to believe, doubt or deny such events, the possibility of being in error is reduced in practice to zero, even though not guaranteed by the supernatural gift of infallibility, at least directly.* There have been very rare cases where an apparition has received a negative judgment by one bishop and then declared positive by a subsequent one. There have been no cases to my knowledge of an apparition initially being declare positive and then with later discernment and evidence surfacing declared negative.
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So in other words, the above is your opinion?
 
To look at this issue closer as to whether the positive ruling of the local ordinary can be overruled, we can look at the most recent Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document on Apparition Discernment (1978). See this link for the full document:

miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/discernment/1978_CDF.html

As established in the Council of Trent (1512-17), the local bishop is the competent ecclesiastical authority in the judgment of apparition claims. The Bishop’s Conference or the CDF may intervene in an apparition discernment case under the conditions quoted below. Please note that the document does not distinguish between positive and negative judgments. So after the local ordinary “has fulfilled the obligations falling to him” (which might entail an investigation and approval of an apparition claim), his decision can still be reviewed and potentially overturned: “It belongs to the Sacred Congregation to discern and approve the way of acting of the Ordinary, or, if it proves to be necessary, to carry out a new examination of the facts distinct from that which the Ordinary carried out.”

Excerpt from the document:

"IV. Intervention of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
  1. a) The intervention of the Sacred Congregation can be agreed to be necessary either by the Ordinary, after he has fulfilled the obligations falling to him, or by a qualified group of the faithful. In this second case, vigilance is necessary so that the recourse to the Sacred Congregation is not motivated by suspect reasons (for example to force, in one way one or another, the Ordinary to modify his legitimate decisions, or to confirm the sectarian drift of a group, etc.)
b) It belongs to the Sacred Congregation to intervene of its own accord in serious cases, in particular when the event affects a broad portion of the Church; but the Ordinary will always be consulted, as well as the episcopal Conference, if the situation requires it.
  1. It belongs to the Sacred Congregation to discern and approve the way of acting of the Ordinary, or, if it proves to be necessary, to carry out a new examination of the facts distinct from that which the Ordinary carried out; this new examination of the facts will be done either by the Sacred Congregation itself, or by a commission especially established for this purpose."
 
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