Apparitions from heaven???

[abaris]

You act like Fatima was the only "sun miracle"; it wasn't.  Even Pope Pius XII claimed to have it seen from the Vatican gardens.

Yet the real fun fact is them happening mostly at the ass end of the world where people already are predisposed to believe in every kind of whoo. Yeah, I know, god is supposed to be working in mysterious ways, but if he's pulling a show in 1917 of all years. Why in rural Portugal? Why not in the trenches where millions of soldiers could have bowed their heads and ended the war immediately.

Thank you, but I rather go with a shrewd priest or local council who saw a splendid opportunity to move their community forward. I'm also more inclined towards believing that the kids were instrumentalised after the fact to bear witness before the press and the public at large.

[Catholic_Lady]

...But the reason I didn't address it is because I don't want to beat a dead horse. I've already stated my reasons for why I think it's convincing and that is not because of one detail or the other in isolation, but because of the compilation of the whole thing put together in context.

A true skeptic is never going to believe. They are always going to claim mass hallucination or whatever else no matter WHAT happens, and that's fine. I'm not trying to argue here.

You act like Fatima was the only "sun miracle"; it wasn't.  Even Pope Pius XII claimed to have it seen from the Vatican gardens.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I think Fatima is the only miracle. I definitely don't think that. I feel pretty confident about any miracle approved by the church. Even though I find Fatima to be particularly convincing, it is in no way the only one I believe in.

[Doubting Thomas]

I guess my question is why Mary never appears to Protestants. Or atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Shintoists, Ba'hai's, Scientologists, or Satanists. It's always devout Catholics who report that she appeared to them and talked to them.

[Minimalist]

And why does she show up in coffee cups?


Our Lady of the Ugly Dregs in a Coffee Cup

[Crossless2.0]

You act like Fatima was the only "sun miracle"; it wasn't.  Even Pope Pius XII claimed to have it seen from the Vatican gardens.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I think Fatima is the only miracle. I definitely don't think that. I feel pretty confident about any miracle approved by the church. Even though I find Fatima to be particularly convincing, it is in no way the only one I believe in.

You've looked into each of the miracle claims to which the church gave its stamp of approval?

[Catholic_Lady]

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I think Fatima is the only miracle. I definitely don't think that. I feel pretty confident about any miracle approved by the church. Even though I find Fatima to be particularly convincing, it is in no way the only one I believe in.

You've looked into each of the miracle claims to which the church gave its stamp of approval?

No, but I know they don't take this stuff lightly. Miracles are investigated pretty thoroughly and are hard to get approved by the Church, and so I feel pretty confident about the ones that have been.

[Cyberman]

Really?

It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for "beatification," the first step to "sainthood," until five years after his or her death. This was to guard against local or popular enthusiasm in the promotion of dubious characters. The pope nominated [Mother Tereasa] a year after her death in 1997. It also used to be that an apparatus of inquiry was set in train, including the scrutiny of an advocatus diaboli or "devil's advocate," to test any extraordinary claims. The pope has abolished this office and has created more instant saints than all his predecessors combined as far back as the 16th century.

As for the "miracle" that had to be attested, what can one say? Surely any respectable Catholic cringes with shame at the obviousness of the fakery. A Bengali woman named Monica Besra claims that a beam of light emerged from a picture of MT, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumor. Her physician, Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn't have a cancerous tumor in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine. Was he interviewed by the Vatican's investigators? No. (As it happens, I myself was interviewed by them but only in the most perfunctory way. The procedure still does demand a show of consultation with doubters, and a show of consultation was what, in this case, it got.)

According to an uncontradicted report in the Italian paper L'Eco di Bergamo, the Vatican's secretary of state sent a letter to senior cardinals in June, asking on behalf of the pope whether they favored making MT a saint right away. The pope's clear intention has been to speed the process up in order to perform the ceremony in his own lifetime. The response was in the negative, according to Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Canadian priest who has acted as postulator or advocate for the "canonization." But the damage, to such integrity as the process possesses, has already been done.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...arest.html

[Jehanne]

You act like Fatima was the only "sun miracle"; it wasn't.  Even Pope Pius XII claimed to have it seen from the Vatican gardens.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I think Fatima is the only miracle. I definitely don't think that. I feel pretty confident about any miracle approved by the church. Even though I find Fatima to be particularly convincing, it is in no way the only one I believe in.

I said sun "miracle".  And, as for the other so-called Catholic "miracles", everyone here is aware of the fraud with Mother Teresa's miracle of beatification:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...ctors.html

It's little wonder that John Paul II reduced the number of "miracles" for beatification and canonization down to 1 each.