Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Virgin Mary apparitions; Church 'rubbers stamps' only 8 out of nearly 400.

"Out of the 386 apparitions, the Church has decided that "yes" there is
a supernatural character only in eight cases: Fatima (Portugal), Beauraing (Belgium),
Banneux (Belgium), Akita (Japan), Syracuse (Italy), Zeitoun (Egypt), Manila (Philippines)
(according to some sources), and Betania (Venezuela)" -- Daytona University, Ohio.

Church's Approach

"The Roman Catholic Church has prudently been cautious to approve, disapprove or condemn reported apparitions." In general, studied apparitions are classed as "not worthy of belief," "not contrary to the Faith," or "worthy of belief." The message of an approved apparition cannot have any content that is contrary to the teachings of the Church.

Supernatural Character

Prior to any classification, the local bishop appoints a committee to take testimony, investigate, study, and report its findings to the local bishop. On our Web page directory of Marian apparitions, we have two columns which pertain to the church's rulings for each apparition that we include in our list. One column pertains to the "supernatural character" of the apparitions. The approval of an apparition's supernatural character means that the case cannot be explained away due to an impediment in the visionary, nor as fraud, nor as a natural phenomenon, nor of demonic origin.

Faith Expression

This for Marian apparition also has a column titled "Approval of faith expression (prayer, devotion) at site." This column is marked with a "yes" for cases where the local bishop has decided to encourage prayer and devotion at the site of a Marian apparition. Decisions about "faith expression" are made before the supernatural character of an apparition is decided upon. If the bishop should ever rule that the specific apparition is not of supernatural character, then of course, there would no longer be any devotion that is approved at that site.

If you are interested in this, pick up a book “The Warning”

I'm most interested in how Mary was elevated in importance in the later centuries
of the institutional church...when early Xtians mostly didn't give a toss.

One can pretty much put such transition down to
how as Xtianity spread through the pagan empire,
paganism also permeated to form church dogma.

Even as late as the Renaissance, we see pagan symbolism
saturating the church...prime example is the artwork on the
ceiling of the Cystine chapel in Rome.

At the other end of the spectrum , the earliest artistic
depictions of Jesus are in the form of a very effeminate
looking, beardless pagan Apollo.

The Bible says there's no communication between the living and the dead. All apparitions are fake.

The Bible also says those that believe in Christ will have eternal life. John 3:15-16

Pretty sure Mary believes in her Son.

Eternal life = not dead.

Then there's Mathew 17:3 when they see Elijah and Moses....

Aren't those coming back from the dead called the un-dead aka zombies?

She seem to be operating as a bare foot contessa delivering messages
that Jesus can't fit into his busy work schedule.

How many intermediaries does Big Sky Daddy
need?

Šiluva Lithuania and Guadalupe Mexico should also be on the official list of appearances

Mary is spiritually alive but she has no contact with living people. Sorry Catholics, they don't hear you. Scripture says so.
Jesus said, 'with God, anything is possible'. God made a few exceptions to his law by showing long dead people to living people for specific purposes. They can't be called on by a medium unless God wills it. When King Saul went to a medium to contact the prophet Samuel, God let him actually get Samuel who gave him a fatal prophecy. This isn't possible for us, only the Lord.

Where does scripture say that?

If that was true, it ought to be a plus for a guy like you, sporting a pagan symbol as his avatar.

chortle..

The Papal bull by Pius the XII declaring the assumption of Mary is no more ridiculous than a bunch of other assumptions of the various Christian denominations.

There is nothing more irrational than the paganism your avatar promotes.

I get it. You don't like women either.

Any thought that would lift up Mary past mere humanity is pagan idolatry.

Exodus 20:5
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God

Rut-roh, Cubans will be irritated if their version is not recognized.

Copper Virgin

You don't believe that some people are better than others, do you?

I know of no one who worships Mary.

Ask her to pray for us on our behalf. No different than the 1000's of threads here asking for others to pray for a situation in someone's life.

ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23

Why do we need Mary to pray for us? We are commanded to to that for ourselves. She doesn't have any special favour with God in that respect and she is dead whilst others who would pray for us are not.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16