MARY, OUR MOTHER

Private Revelations - A Skeptic's Odd Need to Comment on things he "Can't be bothered with"

 
From http://www.ministryvalues.com/

By Daniel Klimek 
March 20, 2011 Last Wednesday in an online blog entry for The National Catholic Register titled "Despise Not Prophesying," the Catholic writer Mark Shea wrote a piece about private revelation in which he offered his usual cornucopia of "gut feelings" and opinions  - there is little journalism taking place in his article -    at the reported Marian apparitions in Medjugorje and, even more disturbingly, distorted the truth to his readers about the Catholic Church's official position on Medjugojre-Shea's distortion, not surprisingly, supports his own theory (that the apparitions in Medjugorje are inauthentic) while ignoring the reality of the situation (that the Catholic Church has not given a negative opinion of Medjugorje but continues its investigation of the apparitions).
Here is what Shea wrote:
"I have no interest at all in claims of private revelation that the Church has either condemned (as with Bayside) or made very clear are not supernatural (as the bishop has done with Medjugorje). Should the Church change its mind with stuff like Medjugorje (which, I am morally certain, she won't), I will, as is my custom, defer to the Church. But, as I say, she won't change her mind, so I'm not bothering with it."
It seems like Shea already knows what the Church will decided before the Church even makes a decision.
Notice how carefully (and quite deceptively) Shea uses his language in the above paragraph. First he states that he has no interest in apparitions that the Church has condemned (listing Bayside as an example) and then he stresses that he has no interest in apparitions that the Church has "made very clear are not supernatural" - Shea follows this by noting that this was the bishop's view of Medjugorje; Shea then associates the bishop's negative opinion with the Church's official position. Yet, in the process, Shea is promulgating a great distortion by equating the local bishop's negative opinion of Medjugorje with the Church's, thus the Holy See's, stance on the matter-especially when the Church has been careful to separate herself from the bishop's negative opinion (something that Shea chooses to ignore, in the process deceiving his readers on the subject).
The eminent Catholic Mariologist, Dr. Mark Miravalle, explained the Catholic Church's current stance on Medjugorje, enunciating:
"As we saw in the 1998 Vatican CDF statement on Medjugorje, the present local bishop's personal stance against Medjugorje is not the official position of the Church, and therefore it is most legitimate for a member of the Church to have personal belief in Medjugorje's authenticity until the Church completes its final evaluation." 
This passage of Dr. Miravalle's-which clearly contradicts Shea's distortion of the Church's position-could be found in Dr. Miravalle's book on the subject called Are the Medjugorje Apparitions Authentic?
The 1998 Vatican CDF statement that Dr. Miravalle is referring to is dated May 26, 1998, and written by Archbishop Tarcision Bertone, then the Secretary to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most influential office within the Roman Curia and the one responsible for dealing with reports of private revelation. The statement clarified the Holy See's official position on Medjugorje. In it, Archbishop Bertone made sure to distance the Holy See from the Bishop of Mostar's negative opinion, explaining: "What Bishop [Ratko] Peric said...declaring: My conviction and my position is not only 'non constat de supernaturalitate,' but likewise 'constat de non supernaturalitate' of the apparitions or revelations in Medjugorje,' should be considered the expression of the personal conviction of the Bishop of Mostar which he has the right to express as Ordinary of the place, but which is and remains his personal opinion."
When the Secretary of the CDF, the Vatican's most influential congregation, makes clear that the bishop of Mostar's opinion that the apparitions in Medjugorje are not supernatural is his own personal opinion, and not official Church teaching, then it is evident (and quite shameful) that a Catholic writer of Mark Shea's reputation, writing for a publication as respected as The National Catholic Register, could falsify this reality, deceiving his readers on this important subject with his own distortion.
Ironically, The National Catholic Register calls itself "America's most complete Catholic news source." Shea's evident misrepresentation of an important Catholic issue - the Church's stance on a very popular Marian site which has attracted over 45 million pilgrims worldwide - severely undermines the integrity of NCR as a reliable Catholic news source. I urge the editors of NCR to correct this falsification of Mark Shea on an important Catholic issue before it does greater damage to their reputation. I understand that what Shea wrote was an "opinion piece" in NCR's blog section; however, even an opinion piece that falsifies the facts about a subject constitutes dishonest journalism. I am not asking Mark Shea to change his negative opinion on Medjugorje. I am simply asking him - and the editors of NCR - to correct the factual inaccuracies in the written piece, most notably Shea's erroneous distortion of the Church's true stance on Medjugorje. On this matter alone Shea has greatly deceived his readers.
The fact that last year the Holy See announced an international commission to be led by the Vatican in order to investigate the apparitions of Medjugorje, an unprecedented move in the history of Church investigations on reported Marian apparitions, makes clear (in addition to the 1998 CDF statement by Archbishop Bertone) that the Church has not reached a final decision on Medjugorje - whether it be supernatural or not - but continues its investigation diligently and prudently. What was also noteworthy about the formation of the international Commission is that it took jurisdiction of Medjugorje away from the local bishop - again a sign that the Church is distancing herself from his negative opinion - and that the local bishop, Ratko Peric, was excluded from partaking as a member in the newly formed Commission (while other Catholic experts from the area, including Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, were invited to join the Commission as members).
What is quite noteworthy is also Shea's dubious source on Marian apparitions. Shea's blog entry dealt mostly with the apparitions of Akita, Japan. Shea, however, cautions after his entry: "the very reliable Donal Foley corrects my misimpression that Akita is an approved revelation. It is apparently still disputed."
Shea has been writing negative entries about Medjugorje for years now. However, here he makes clear - if inadvertently - that his sources on Marian apparitions (especially of Medjugorje) have not been the most reliable. Shea refers to British author Donal Anthony Foley as "the very reliable Donal Foley." Yet Donal Foley's book on Medjugorje, Understanding Medjugorje: Heavenly Visions or Religious Illusions?, -- which I wouldn't be surprised that Shea has read -- has been exposed as a scholarly hoax; regrettably Foley's book has been exposed as a hoax that has misrepresented the facts about Medjugorje, misusing sources, distorting other authors, including distorting a medical statement by a neurophysiologist who studied the apparitions in Medjugorje, quoting very selectively and often out of context, and - just like Shea - portraying a false picture about the Church's true stance on Medjugorje.
Here are two articles that MinistryValues has published exposing Donal Foley's impoverished book on Medjugorje for what it is:
http://www.ministryvalues.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1366&Itemid=125
http://www.ministryvalues.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1447&Itemid=125
And here are also two articles by Catholic author Denis Nolan further corroborating on what a deeply impoverished work Foley has produced:
http://www.marytv.tv/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=170:misunderstandingmedjugorje&catid=8:denis-blog&Itemid=21
http://www.marytv.tv/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=184:foleysfolly&catid=8:denis-blog&Itemid=21
If this is one of the sources that Shea is using to formulate his entries on Medjugorje then it is not surprising as to why so many errors exist in Shea's writings on this important subject.