We’ve generally found that the scientific method is a useful tool for testing explanations, and apparently Catholics are envious, so they’ve evaluated their method for identifying supernatural phenomena and have come up with their own method, officially declaring changes in their protocols. Unfortunately, I struggled through a summary and haven’t been able to see exactly what’s new — the answer seems to be that they’re going to defer more to the authority of the Pope.
They are concerned that too many charlatans outside of the church are profiting from weird claims of supernatural manifestations of Catholic phantasms. That money should be going into Catholic coffers!
The Vatican’s doctrine office revised norms first issued in 1978, arguing that they were no longer useful or viable in the internet age. Nowadays, word about apparitions or weeping Madonnas travels quickly and can harm the faithful if hoaxers are trying to make money off people’s beliefs or manipulate them, the Vatican said.
The new norms make clear that such an abuse of people’s faith can be punishable canonically, saying, “The use of purported supernatural experiences or recognized mystical elements as a means of or a pretext for exerting control over people or carrying out abuses is to be considered of particular moral gravity.”
But there’s now denying that there are great sums of money to be made from wild-ass claims of apparitions appearing to the faithful. The Catholic church has profited from such claims for centuries.
When confirmed as authentic by church authorities, these otherwise inexplicable signs have led to a flourishing of the faith, with new religious vocations and conversions. That has been the case for the purported apparitions of Mary that turned Fatima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France, into enormously popular pilgrimage destinations.
Church figures who claimed to have experienced the stigmata wounds, including Padre Pio and Pope Francis’ namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, have inspired millions of Catholics even if decisions about their authenticity have been elusive.
Francis himself has weighed in on the phenomenon, making clear that he is devoted to the main church-approved Marian apparitions, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe, who believers say appeared to an Indigenous man in Mexico in 1531.
So the answer to this conundrum is to change the rules. Claims of supernatural events cannot be granted official status by local bishops, but must instead be reviewed and evaluated by a Vatican committee, and if acceptable must be rubber-stamped by the Pope. I don’t think they will be assessed on the evidence, but rather, on compatibility with church doctrine and potential to generate revenue. Of course that’s not the excuse the defenders of the Catholic church use.
Robert Fastiggi, who teaches Marian theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan and is an expert on apparitions, said at first glance that requirement might seem to take authority away from the local bishop.
“But I think it’s intended to avoid cases in which the Holy See might feel prompted to overrule a decision of the local bishop,” he said.
“What is positive in the new document is the recognition that the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother are present and active in human history,” he said. “We must appreciate these supernatural interventions but realize that they must be discerned properly.”
Right. Ghosts are real, if “discerned properly.” I guess I haven’t been discerning right.
The charlatans outside the church are taking business away from the charlatans inside the church!
“…the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother are present and active in human history”
Oh definitely, under many different names, as gods, spirits, fairies, aliens,…
The Vatican Method?
Easy. Make sure the Vatican gets its cut.
I thought the Vatican method was playing shell games with money, so that no one can trace how much and where the Vatican (ie. the Roman Catholic Churge) gets its money. For example, no one knows how much money is sent to Rome from the Catholic hospitals in the US. No one knows how much money is sent to Rome from the Catholic Universities. And no one has the power/willingness to find this out.
In my youth “The Vatican Method” was devoted to different phenomena.
That is like being an expert on Harry Potter, Star Trek, the Lord of the Rings, or Fairies.
Except not as interesting or worthwhile.
Exactly. It’s why I’m not religious.
“Right. Ghosts are real, if “discerned properly.” I guess I haven’t been discerning right.”
I remember as a child having to say, In the name of the Farther, The Son, and The Holy GHOST. The church claims spirit and ghost are interchangeable and somewhere along the way the Catholic Church (conveniently) became the Age of the Spirit. sounds good but you have to question their motives.
Also “they’ve evaluated their method for identifying supernatural phenomena”
The Catholic Church only condones supernatural phenomena that promotes their views. All other supernatural phenomena are taboo.
Awfully inconvenient to have the only wizard in the world who can cast Detect Magic.
I always love it when Catholics start complaining about superstitions.
Today’s Guardian cryptic crossword has a great answer;
Where spirits may be found, ghost troubled girl (4,5)
SHOT GLASS
Huh. I would’ve guessed the Vatican method was another name for the Rhythm method ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar-based_contraceptive_methods#Rhythm_method_(Knaus%E2%80%93Ogino_method) a.ka. the “Ooops Mummy’s preggas again..” method, a poor excuse for a contraception technique.
I am reminded of fantasy stories by the late Jack Vance, where the protagonists sometimes would have to interact with all kinds of weird cults with weird rituals, often being in lethal conflict with other groups with very minor differences in ritual.
On one occasion the protagonist had to visit a universe inhabited by sentient volcanos who insisted on explaining their religious beliefs in great detail.
Vance was not interested in religion, except as an exotic ingredient of the absurd.
The headline of th BBC article on this story “Vatican tightens rules on supernatural phenomena” prompted me to ponder how they were tightening their rules:
Rule 1: Bigfoot no longer allowed to manifest outside of the Pacific North West
Rule 2: Strict segregation must now be enforced between lake monsters and sea monsters
Rule 3: Poltergeists now limited to three per human home
Join in!
For years now, visitations of the Virgin Mary have been popular with some Catholics. Always in some far off rural regions and appearing to ignorant peasants. The VM commanding peace for all. Never appearing where that might do some good. For example, Russia’s Duma, or the U.S. Congress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marian_apparitions
@14:
Bogeymen must share the space under little boy’s beds with catholic clergy.
Jesus is not allowed to manifest his flesh in gluten free crackers. (Wait, that one isn’t new…)
The ghosts of AIDS victims and women who died because they could not get an abortion are no longer allowed to bother the pope. (As if that ever bothered him)
The ghost of Mother Theresa is not allowed to plague tourists visiting India, only the locals, as she did in life.
The “Vatican Method” looks like they’re trying to find ways to use allegations of supernatural events to make “faith” “flourish” without making the Church look (too) phony, backward and stoopid.
And it’s not really anything new: the Church have always had to both control and appease their believers’ superstitious beliefs, and maintain their stature as THE sole institutional source of reason and order.
@ ^ mordred & call me mark : Yup.. Nice ones. Well writ.
Reminds me of the Carl Hiaasen novel (I forget which one) with a woman who was protecting Roadstain Jesus from a repaving project, and the guy whose job it was every morning to refill the tank in the statue of Virgin Mary that cried bloody tears.
Here, as much detail as you’d wish:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024/05/17/240517h.html
I thought that the Vatican Method was to keep transferring priests to different churches regularly enough to prevent the police from being called.
@feralboy12 #7
“The use of purported supernatural experiences or recognized mystical elements as a means of or a pretext for exerting control over people or carrying out abuses is to be considered of particular moral gravity.”
Surely, the RCC’s irony detectors have malfunctioned.
And stop calling me Shirley.
The Vatican Method made Mother Terest a Saint. And as this HuffPost article points out, she was no saint.