(July 4, 2015 at 5:45 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: However, Catholics are not obligated to accept private revelation - even those that are "approved".
The Immaculate Conception's popular acceptance pretty much rides on the visions of Bernadette Soubirious at Lourdes, while it may have been proclaimed beforehand it was only after this happened the Dogma really attained popularity amongst the laity. Considering how many Pontiffs have delivered paeons about how wonderful and important Lourdes, Knock and Fatima are I think it's going to be rare Catholic who disagrees about them being legit. Indeed considering how seriously Fatima is taken at the Vatican I think one would look rather foolish if one didn't agree with it, I mean how many millions did they spend building a humoungous bassilica over the grave of two of the seers and how many times have Cardinals claimed the third secret had been fufilled (It's gay marriage this week, only a few years ago it was abortion, before that it was the USSR bringing about the end of the world.....)
Catholics can disagree with the vision in theory, but when one realises how many teachings are drawn from them and in some cases Dogmas essentially held up solely by them it becomes rather difficult to disagree with without becoming a heretic.
