List of Marian Apparitions

[Chatter163]

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."

Don’t see anything in there about a later ordinary overturning an earlier ordinary’s decision. Moreover, this is highly unlikely, since it would imply to the faithful that even a bishop’s positive decree is possibly in error.This is not something that the Church would want to set to itself up for, especially regarding private apparitions.It would strenghthen the notion that only when Rome speaks is such a matter resolved. No, I think it misleading to suggest that such a thing could happen.

 

[miraclehunter]

Don’t see anything in there about a later ordinary overturning an earlier ordinary’s decision. Moreover, this is highly unlikely, since it would imply to the faithful that even a bishop’s positive decree is possibly in error.This is not something that the Church would want to set to itself up for, especially regarding private apparitions.It would strenghthen the notion that only when Rome speaks is such a matter resolved. No, I think it misleading to suggest that such a thing could happen.

It is important to remember that in matters of private revelation, none of this is required by faith. We are never obliged to believe in an apparition no matter how strongly the local bishop or universal church promotes the devotion. When a bishop approves an apparition, he is stating that it is “worthy of belief”. Since it concerns matters of human faith only, the bishops do not directly fall under the protection of the gift of infallibility conceded the Magisterium when speaking on matters of public revelation.

Bishops can be fallible on these issues. All one needs to do is review the case of Our Lady of All Nations. The apparitions to Ida Peederman in the 1950s in Amsterdam were outright condemned by a succession of bishops and then in 2002 Bishop Marianus Punt changed it to a positive verdict. One of these bishops has given the wrong judgment.

Certainly we all understand this reversal of an approval scenario to be hypothetical - as stated previously, the likelihood that it would ever happen is effectively zero and it has never happened in the history of the Church. The Church does not want to go through such an embarrassment - this is why apparition approvals are so rare and only occur after diligent, prudent investigation and often times after the passing of many, many years (Our Lady of Le Laus was recently approved despite the apparition happening in 1664).