Applying its new norms intended to quicken rulings on alleged supernatural phenomena, the Vatican’s doctrinal office has permitted devotion associated with alleged Marian apparitions in southern Italy. Source: OSV News.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a nihil obstat decree to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rock in Calabria, Italy, effectively ruling that devotion at the shrine may continue but not validating the supernatural status of the apparitions associated with it.
The devotion dates back to 1968, when a man claimed to have seen Mary repeatedly appear to him out of a light emanating from a large rock. A chapel was built on the site of the alleged apparitions, which was later expanded into a larger shrine.
In a letter issuing the ruling and released by the dicastery yesterday, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández wrote that the pilgrims who travel to the shrine “are a powerful sign of faith” in “the secularised world in which we live, in which many people let their existence pass without any link to the transcendent”.
The letter explained that in 2008, the Bishop of Locri-Gerace, where the shrine is located, had signed a decree acknowledging the site as a place of worship but had left judgment on the validity of the apparitions to the Vatican.
In the years since, “no critical or risky elements” associated with the apparitions developed, but rather there have been “signs of grace and spiritual conversion”, Cardinal Fernández wrote in his letter.
Applying the dicastery’s norms for discerning alleged supernatural phenomena released in May, the cardinal issued the positive ruling “without making any judgment as to whether or not the events related to the spiritual experience in question were supernatural”.
The dicastery’s new norms make the nihil obstat the most positive ruling it issues on alleged supernatural phenomena, declaring that devotion associated with a phenomenon is licit without issuing judgment on the validity of the phenomenon itself.
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Vatican OKs devotion to ‘Our Lady of the Rock’ (By Justin McLellan, OSV News)
