So how does the Church prove if an apparition is true or false?

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I’ve always wondered how the church goes about this. What does it take to make an apparition sanctioned, and why does it take so long. For example, with our lady of Good Help in Wisconsin. Why did that take so long to get approved? If anyone could explain it would be of great help. Also, remember to respect the forum rules and don’t try to promote any unsanctioned apparitions and such or talk about private revelations. I simply want my question answered.
 
It is good that it does take so long. My understanding is that the Church carefully looks at the message first to determine if what is said in the apparition lines up totally with scripture and the teaching of the Church. Likewise, there is a very close examination of the seers lives, especially afterwards. How did it effect them? what happen etc. I know that the seer of Lourdes and her life afterwards is often held up as a model of response.
Approval should take a long time.
 
WildCatholic said:
I’ve always wondered how the church goes about this. What does it take to make an apparition sanctioned, and why does it take so long. For example, with our lady of Good Help in Wisconsin. Why did that take so long to get approved? If anyone could explain it would be of great help. Also, remember to respect the forum rules and don’t try to promote any unsanctioned apparitions and such or talk about private revelations. I simply want my question answered.
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I’ve never read or heard from anybody how the process works. I assume that the Church has a special commission to handle these matters. If we’re talking about miracles, they would have to look at evidence to determine if there’s a supernatural cause and a reason to believe that they’re from God. If we’re talking about private revelations, this would involve a deep understanding of theology. As for why it takes so long, I’m guessing that it takes time to review the cases properly and there’s only a certain number of people qualified to do the job.
 
Dr. Mark Miravalle talked about this in my Mariology class a while back (I heard him via the distance learning program). I can’t recall all the details perfectly, but the discernment is up to the local bishop in whose diocese the potential miracle occurred. Then, he must analyze the message of the apparition and determine if it is in harmony with the teaching of the Church. Then he must discern whether or not the fruit of the apparition is to authentically draw souls closer to Christ or not. There might be some other factors, but if the apparition fails at any of these levels in his judgment, it should not be approved. You might try a keyword search for “apparition” or “approved apparition” or something at this website:
motherofallpeoples.com/

I want to say I saw an article by Dr. Miravalle on this topic once, but can’t remember if it was him or if maybe even if it was just something in class notes.
 
MarcoPolo said:
Dr. Mark Miravalle talked about this in my Mariology class a while back (I heard him via the distance learning program). I can’t recall all the details perfectly, but the discernment is up to the local bishop in whose diocese the potential miracle occurred. Then, he must analyze the message of the apparition and determine if it is in harmony with the teaching of the Church. Then he must discern whether or not the fruit of the apparition is to authentically draw souls closer to Christ or not. There might be some other factors, but if the apparition fails at any of these levels in his judgment, it should not be approved. You might try a keyword search for “apparition” or “approved apparition” or something at this website:
motherofallpeoples.com/

I want to say I saw an article by Dr. Miravalle on this topic once, but can’t remember if it was him or if maybe even if it was just something in class notes.
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I forgot to mention that the local Bishop is the one that intiates an investigation and even final approval. thank for pointing that out.
 
robwar said:
I forgot to mention that the local Bishop is the one that intiates an investigation and even final approval. thank for pointing that out.
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Yes, in the end it is up to the local bishop.
 
WildCatholic said:
So then can a status change depending on a bishop, or is it set in stone once a bishop proclaims it invalid
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I think that if there is a change in Bishops, the newer Bishop can reopen a case but I this would be rare and investigations sometimes can take many years and might even run between bishops.
 
Small quibble, but the Church doesn’t “prove” apparitions true or false. It simply declares them to be “worthy of belief” or not, which is much a lower bar.

“Worthy of belief” means, essentially, that there is at least some reason to believe that the reported apparition really occurred and that the testimony of the witnesses is valid. This means, among other things, that the nature of the revelation cannot contradict the teachings of the Church or the deposit of the faith, as the fraudulent apparition of Our Lady of Bayside did. It may also mean examining the witnesses themselves to rule out bad motivations, a history of dishonesty, psychopathology, etc.

If the apparition seems theologically valid, and if there’s no reason to suppose the witnesses are ill-motivated, and especially if there is some solid evidence for the validity of the apparition (e.g., miracles), then it may be declared “worthy of belief.”
 
The reason why the church takes so long is because the church is very prudent. Like one priest once told me the church won’t declare anything valid unless and until they are completely and absolutely 100% sure that something is valid. The church doesn’t back down so they need a long time to determine the validity of things. Also, sometimes time is necessary to answer some things. There may be situations in which at the present moment there is either mi technology or enough evidence to show the validity of something but in the future there will be so the prudent thing to do is just wait until the time comes where the issue can be clear. Again is all about acting in a prudent way.
 
WildCatholic said:
I’ve always wondered how the church goes about this. What does it take to make an apparition sanctioned, and why does it take so long. For example, with our lady of Good Help in Wisconsin. Why did that take so long to get approved? If anyone could explain it would be of great help. Also, remember to respect the forum rules and don’t try to promote any unsanctioned apparitions and such or talk about private revelations. I simply want my question answered.
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The local bishops are the competent Church authority and after usually long and extensive investigations they will make a decision. To “approve” it (meaning simply it is worthy of belief) it has to be declared as supernatural and from God, it cannot contradict Church teachings, and it cannot say anything against the Church, the Pope, or the clergy.
Even if “approval” is given Catholics are still free to not believe.
 
thistle said:
Even if “approval” is given Catholics are still free to not believe.
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Thats the part that gets me. How could people not believe in Fatima or Lourdes, and have their been any famous churchmen who think Fatima was a hoax or wasn’t real since Catholics don’t have to believe it?
 
WildCatholic said:
Thats the part that gets me. How could people not believe in Fatima or Lourdes, and have their been any famous churchmen who think Fatima was a hoax or wasn’t real since Catholics don’t have to believe it?
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I am not aware if any famous churchmen have not believed Fatima.

The thing is that private revelations are not part of the deposit of faith and nor do they add anything to it. If anyone personally gets some spiritual lift from it then fine but otherwise you can live your entire life without believing any private revelation and you are no less a Catholic because of that. Everything we need for our salvation we have from Scared Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magesterium.
 
We should also remember that :
  • the discernment of the local bishop isn’t infallible
  • ours isn’t either!
  • demonic deception DOES happen, and is VERY dangerous and misleading.
My take is:
  • if the Church (through the verdict of the bishop) rejects it, or has rejected it in the past, the apparition should be rejected for reasons of safety. And of course, we should not try to think “this bishop is a fool, or a heretic, he dares deny an apparition from God so I’ll ignore what he says and listen to these wonderful messages”. That’s the best way to be misled…
  • if the Church approves it or has not said anything yet, we should still use discernment, and avoid having anything to do with the apparition, its “messages”, its veneration, if somehow it doesn’t look right.
Far better to err on the side of caution…

Blessings.
 
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