Vatican Creates New "Observatory" To Find Evidence Of Virgin Mary Apparitions
Created by the Pontifical Marian Academy Internationalis (PAMI), the new “observatory” will study mythical Marian phenomena like Virgin Mary statues weeping tears, in the pursuit of “concrete evidence” to support their existence.
"It is important to provide clarity because often presumed messages generate confusion, spread anxiety-inducing apocalyptic scenarios or even accusations against the pope and the Church," Father Cecchin said in a press release.
A Marian apparition is an apparition that takes the shape of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Christian faith. There have been many reported sightings, with some officially “authenticated” by the Church and deemed “worthy of belief”, and others remaining not. It is the latter that the new observatory will attempt to focus on.
There have been seven sightings across history that have been approved by the Holy See, and a further 14 have been approved by a local ordinary. Few of these “sightings” have occurred in modern times, with the last sighting approved by the Holy See occurring in 1984, in which 150 people in Venezuela saw the ghostly embodiment of the Virgin Mary.
As for the evidence used to approve such sightings, there isn’t really any. Most of the sightings involve many people, but this has happened regularly across history and certainly does not point to authenticity.
https://www.iflscience.com/vatican-creat...ions-68600
Created by the Pontifical Marian Academy Internationalis (PAMI), the new “observatory” will study mythical Marian phenomena like Virgin Mary statues weeping tears, in the pursuit of “concrete evidence” to support their existence.
"It is important to provide clarity because often presumed messages generate confusion, spread anxiety-inducing apocalyptic scenarios or even accusations against the pope and the Church," Father Cecchin said in a press release.
A Marian apparition is an apparition that takes the shape of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Christian faith. There have been many reported sightings, with some officially “authenticated” by the Church and deemed “worthy of belief”, and others remaining not. It is the latter that the new observatory will attempt to focus on.
There have been seven sightings across history that have been approved by the Holy See, and a further 14 have been approved by a local ordinary. Few of these “sightings” have occurred in modern times, with the last sighting approved by the Holy See occurring in 1984, in which 150 people in Venezuela saw the ghostly embodiment of the Virgin Mary.
As for the evidence used to approve such sightings, there isn’t really any. Most of the sightings involve many people, but this has happened regularly across history and certainly does not point to authenticity.
https://www.iflscience.com/vatican-creat...ions-68600
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
