Where does the Catechism tell us someone has to believe in private revelation?
Let’s go to the basics and stop the twisting and turning to look at it in in different lights –
Where does the Catechism tell us that someone who opts to ignore private revelation is doing anything negative (missing out, losing, sinning)?
What pope has ever insisted/mandated that some private revelation had to be believed in by all Catholics when it was approved???
The Pope doesn’t have to mandate belief in apparition. The mandate is implicit in Public Revelation which tells us we need to respond whenever God speaks to us. The Church and defined Dogma help us discern when this is happening and true. The responsibility to respond to God whenever He speaks is both a universal and a personal responsibility.it just isn’t within the scope of the Church’s role to regulate how each person’s soul responds. Thus they say it is “nonbinding”. The Church’s responsibility mis only to make sure the private Revelation is teaching something outside of Public revealtion. Once it does that then everyone has their own responsibility to respond. That responsibility is obligatory…not the responsibility to accept the Private Revealtion. However, if the Church has approved it would you not be putting your individual conscience over the judgment of the church if you reject it?
medjugorje.org/privaterevelation.htm
"The term “private” revelations has already for a long time become customary in theology. In contrast to it is public revelation. However, public revelation would be the one given in the Bible, and private the one given apart from the Bible. Accordingly, it would be more justifiable to speak of biblical and extra-biblical revelation. Assigning a greater honour and significance to the biblical than to the other has no real reason whatsoever. Because if they are both true, if they both come from God, according to their origin they are both divine and equally valuable. Both, the one and the other, God intends for people and wants them to accept both of them. Otherwise, there would be no reason for him to speak at all. If there may be some justifiable difference between them, it can never be in the sense that one is obligatory and the other is not. They are both obligatory. For every one that has been reached by them and for the one who has attained sufficient reasons and moral security regarding their authenticity, both of them oblige equally."
“St. Thomas of Aquinas says, “When there are no more revelations, people will be without guidance” (Summa II-II. q 174 a.6). This is the reason there have always been prophets in the Church who admittedly, did not proclaim some new doctrine, but gave direction to human activity. The same St. Thomas of Aquinas emphasizes, “Revelation is given for the benefit of the Church” (Summa II-II. q 172 a.4). It calls to a more authentic Christian life and points toward the necessity and the means that are of a higher priority. It is heaven’s response to particular questions of the times and it thereby helps more than any intellectual and theological endeavours.”
Since extra-biblical revelations are extraordinary and conspicuous, they usually produce more attention than the ordinary proclamation of biblical truths and Church directives and they act as “shock therapy.” It is well known that the apparitions in Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje intensified devotion and they have awakened spiritual life throughout the world. They contributed a great deal to the renewal of confession and reverence for the Eucharist.
Too great an emphasis on extra-biblical revelation in place of the gospel would not be healthy or normal. Biblical revelation takes preference but extra-biblical must not be rejected, simply because it also comes from God and because with it God wants to say something to man. That is why both cases God’s word is obligatory.
This article was written by a priest who is associated with Medugorje which has not yet been approved by the Church.
But can you see what he is saying?
We may not be a church of “apparitions” but we are a church of “revelations” and the Public Revelation contains within it all implicit revelation…those which are still to be explained and proclaimed explicitly. If the church says an approved apparition is not in any way contrary to Public Revelation we all have some spiritual obligation to *respond *to it…whether you accept it or not, ir should draw you attention to some aspect of Public teachings and make you more ware of them. If you are totally stubborn and just refuse to talk about Private Revelation, how can you be sure you are not blocking God’s Holy Spirit? How can a Church leader block these messages from others without assuming some responsibility for the possibility that he might be removing something that could help another person even if as an individual has decided not to accept it.
Shouldn’t the church leader take it more as their responsibility to explain the Private Revelation in terms of how it fits in with Public Revelation?
Wouldn’t that be a better approach than just totally ignoring it and just saying it is not obligatory? Otherwise are you not putting your own response (if it is to refuse the Apparition) above anyone else’s right to respond? That would be a way of blocking the Holy Spirit if the message is truly from God.
