VATICAN CITY.- The Vatican on Friday radically overhauled its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, “weeping” statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena, insisting on having the final say on whether they are worthy of popular devotion.
The doctrinal office of the Holy See reviewed the 1978 regulations, claiming that it is no longer useful or viable in the Internet age. Nowadays, rumors about apparitions or crying Madonnas travel quickly and can harm the faithful if they are impostors who want to make money off of people’s beliefs or manipulate them, the Vatican said.
The new rules rethink the Catholic Church’s evaluation process by eliminating the possibility of ecclesiastical authorities declaring a certain vision, stigma or any other possible divinely inspired event supernatural.
Instead, the new criteria contemplate six main possible outcomes, the most favorable being the institution of a non-doctrinally compromising green light, the so-called “nihil obstat.” This means that there is nothing in the event that is contrary to faith, and therefore, Catholics can show their devotion to it.
The revised guidelines allow for an event to be declared “supernatural” at a given time and for the pope to intervene in the process. But “as a general rule,” the Church is no longer dedicated to authenticating inexplicable events or making definitive decisions about their supernatural origin.
The Catholic Church has a long and controversial history of believers claiming to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, of statues that supposedly cry tears of blood, and of stigmata that appear on hands and feet imitating Christ’s wounds.
