Junno Arocho Esteves When it comes to Marian apparitions, the Catholic Church takes a prudent approach that focuses more on the message than the miracle. Supernatural phenomena, like the alleged miracle of the Sun in Fatima, Portugal, nearly 100 years ago, are not the primary factors in determining an apparition is worthy of belief. In…
In recent years apparitions at Kibeho in Rwanda and Champion, in the US state of Wisconsin, have been approved by their diocesan bishops, the former having taken place in 1981-1982, the latter in 1859. Despite devotion on a vast scale, alleged apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been rejected by local bishops. Major Marian sites…
Fr Dwight Longenecker Rational explanations for Fatima admit the supernatural, argues Fr Dwight Longenecker Atheists love to mock miracles, and the miracle of the Sun at Fatima is one of their favourite objects of derision. The high priest of the atheists, Richard Dawkins dismisses the miracle of the Sun as a mass hallucination. He writes…
Greg Daly explores one of the Portuguese appartions’ most intriguing aspects In the decades following the apparitions, Fatima was mainly known, like Lourdes and other Marian sites, as a place of healing. However, in her 1941 memoirs, Sr Lucia wrote about how during Our Lady’s third apparition, she gave the children a message in three…
The picture above of children foraging for food among waste best sums up the situation in South Sudan, says Fr John Skinnader CSSp, a Spiritan priest from Co. Monaghan who has been based in the country since 2012. “The three tall buildings, just visible at the back, are the only ones standing after the fighting…
Parish, families and schools all have key roles to play in sacramental preparation, Greg Daly hears For at least one speaker at last weekend’s McAuley Conference in Limerick’s Mary Immaculate College, the question of whether sacramental preparation should be removed from schools is a simple one. “Yes,” said Stijn Van den Bossche, continuing, “this is…
Mary is the “Mother of the Needy”, Pope Francis declared in Fatima last weekend, cautioning pilgrims against thinking of her as “a plaster statue” of our own making from whom favours can be begged at little cost, and who “restrains the arm of a vengeful God”. Instead, the Pope said, Mary is the mother of…
Greg Daly describes Pope Francis’ brief but moving pilgrimage to Fatima If doubts remained in any hearts about how Pope Francis thinks over Our Lady, his words at a candlelit ceremony last weekend in Fatima’s apparition chapel should have banished them. “I feel that Jesus has entrusted you to me,” he said, thanking the gathered…
Greg Daly examines the lives of the Fatima visionaries Remarkable though the Fatima apparitions were, last weekend’s canonisations owed less to the visions witnessed by Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto than to how their lives were transformed by their encounter with Our Lady. “The apparition of the Virgin Mary was an occasion, but it has…
Those who had wondered what miracle prompted the canonisations last weekend of Ss Jacinta and Francisco had their questions answered ahead of Pope Francis’ arrival in Fatima. Speaking at a press conference at the shrine, the Brazilian parents João Batista and his wife Lucila Yurie described the miraculous healing of their son after a terrible…
Greg Daly
Mags Gargan