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Post by hibernicus on Dec 26, 2008 20:28:01 GMT
I recommend to all who are interested in the subject of mystics, apparitions and miracles, the work of the English hagiographer Fr. Herbert Thurston SJ (d.1939) - several collections of his essays in the Jesuit paper the MONTH have been published, though most are out of print. He shows a bracing scepticism while remaining open to miracles, and provides interesting information on "non-canonical" as well as "canonical" mystics, which corrects the popular tendency to assume that all mystics and alleged visionaries must be genuine.
BTW he believed the Shroud of Turin was a fake - my own view is "not proven", but his discovery of a mediaeval court process involving an artist who claimed to have painted it must be addressed by anoyone who deal with the subject.
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Post by cpm on Jan 13, 2009 21:45:12 GMT
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Jan 13, 2009 22:58:08 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 14, 2009 15:04:22 GMT
If the report Michael G has linked to is accurate, it would mean a return to the pre-Vatican II situation; there used to be pretty strict limitations on how far it was permissible to publicise unapproved apparitions, with rigorous canonical penalties for those who disobeyed the restrictions. They were loosened - I believe, because (a) the growth of modern communications made these harder to maintain (b) there was a general reaction against "the firm smack of authority" after Vatican II. If those restrictions had been kept in place, a lot of Christina Gallagher's dupes, for example, would be better off today...
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 14, 2009 15:12:42 GMT
CPM has linked to a report about a "liberal" parish in Brisbane who are operating in virtual schism. This sort of thing happens quite a bit in America - St. Stanislaus' parish in St. Louis, Missouri is an example, and I seem to remember seeing reports of a breakaway liberal parish reinventing itself as a "community" invoking the Holy Spirit (who comes in handy - at least in this life, whatever about the next) for people who want to justify their defiance of church doctrine and authority. There is a fairly extensive network of so-called "independent Catholic" liberal groups in America, who recruit laicised or schismatic priests to hold services. Pat Buckley's "Oratory" at Larne is the nearest equivalent in Ireland - in this country such people seem to either drift away altogether or stay and work within Church structures to subvert them.
One explanation may be that we haven't really developed the sort of "parish-shopping" that used to be characteristic of Anglicans and has now developed among Catholics as well, whereby instead of going to their nearest parish people go to the one that is most ideologically congenial (leading over time to a sorting out of liberal and conservative parishes and even dioceses, like the High Church (Anglo-Catholic) and Low Church (Evangelical) parishes in England and America. Maybe the reason why this doesn't happen here is that (a) the Irish bishops are very good at enforcing conformity among themselves and PPs (b) PPs are moved around instead of staying in one place as they used to do, and this makes it harder for subcultures to form.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 14, 2009 15:37:20 GMT
In relation to Michael G's post, does anyone remember a TV drama about Knock by Fr. Desmond Forristal which was broadcast on RTE about the centenary of the apparition? It was not about the apparition itself but about the subsequent commission of inquiry. Not, in my opinion, one of Fr. Forristal's finer productions. It took gross liberties with history (Archdeacon Cavanagh, the PP, was represented both as an arrogant bully and as fiercely sceptical towards the apparitions; he may have been a bully but he was an immediate and highly credulous promoter of the apparition's authenticity. Dominick Beirne, one of the seers, was depicted as an anti-clerical Fenian; had he held such views he would hardly have been made sacristan, the position he held at the time of the apparition) and its message appeared to be that any attempt to question the authenticity of the apparition or look for possible non-supernatural explanations was self-evidently misguided (much fun was made of the attempts of a priest to investigate whether the apparition could have been produced by a magic lantern, although if that investigation had not been made at the time we would not be able to say, as we can with certainty, that it could not have been so produced). This represented a post-Vatican II emphasis on the value of experience-based lay initiatives overriding top-down clericalism; it is certainly true that in conflicts between visionaries and local clerical authorities the authorities have not always been in the right, but Fr. Forristal's approach also has the effect of encouraging unrestrained credulity towards hysterics and con artists. The experience of being fleeced by Christina Gallagher is not the sort of religious experience which should be promoted.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 5, 2009 11:34:14 GMT
When I was in Cork at Christmas I picked up a newsletter issued by a group calling themselves the Immaculate Heart House of Prayer. This is apparently run by two women called Fiona and Marcia who describe themselves as "the Mustard Seed"; they claim to have experienced visions at the grotto in Inchigeela Co. Cork (a site of "moving statue" activity in the mid-1980s) and to receive regular visions and locutions at their House of Prayer in Doon, Co. Limerick. There are references in the newsletter to another House of Prayer at Inchigeela (closed for renovations), plans for a House of Prayer in Portugal, and ten years' work for Orsk Parish in Russia which they visit regularly. They sell religious books and have a shop in Upper William Street, Limerick.
I can't see anything that is obviously harmful in this but the use of the "House of Prayer" terminology (associated with Christina Gallagher) makes me cautious. The newsletter is No. 120 so they clearly have a clientele. Has anyone else come across them?
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Post by eircomnet on Feb 5, 2009 15:40:02 GMT
No, I for one haven't but I avoid all those --too many alleged visionaries and messages!
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Feb 5, 2009 23:47:02 GMT
You learn something new every day. My knowledge of how to become a priest is very limited to say the least, but don't you need to join a seminary, which are run by religious orders? No. If you want to be a secular priest, you get your Bishop's approval and then you join a seminary (Maynooth now, because I think there are no others). If you want to join a religious order, you ask them. A bishop has no authority over religious orders. |
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 16, 2009 19:33:31 GMT
The Rathkeale tree stump currently being venerated as the Blessed Virgin Mary has nothing miraculous about it, but is being venerated as if it were a sign from God, to the great amusement of unbelievers and scandal of the lukewarm. Do the [Catholic] posters on this forum think it should be removed as a scandal or tolerated as an expression of popular piety? I honestly don't know.
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Post by Harris on Jul 20, 2009 15:26:47 GMT
I cant believe people still buy this stuff. Have we not made any progress in the late 20th and early 21st Century?
If the Lord or his associated family wants to reveal him/thereselves, why on earth do it in such a bizzare fashion?
Surely he/she is more inventive than that.
Cop yerselves on people! Its a tree stump. Stop looking for something thats not there. Yer makin' a holy show of yerselves!
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 21, 2009 13:38:59 GMT
As I said, I don't believe there is anything supernatural about the tree stump and I think devotion based on the premise that there is should be discouraged. If people want to use it as a devotional aid in the same way as a statue or a picture, that is their own business; my question was whether the clearly fallacious claim that it is supernatural in origin is causing so much scandal that it should be prohibited by the ecclesiastical authorities.
My instinct generally is to live and let live; if the Hare Krishnas go round ringing bells and beating drums in the street who am I to stop them? But of course the Hare Krishnas are not doing it in my name, and if they claimed to be so acting I might have something to say about it.
By the way, Harris should not assume that God is bound by our sense of decorum. (If you are in love, your behaviour will often appear undignified to uninvolved observers.) I can think of quite a few saints who have been described as eccentrics or worse by people who couldn't understand why they acted as they did. There was an Anglican bishop some decades ago who denounced St. Francis of Assisi as a flea-bitten crank; I think the general view has been that this said more to the bishop's discredit than to St. Francis's.
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Post by hazelireland on Jul 21, 2009 16:43:26 GMT
If we are to talk about whether such an artifcat as a tree stump can be considered "supernatural in origin" maybe we should lay out the criteria. Perhaps someone can give me an example of an item that they think is "supernatural in origin" and the standards of proof and evidence that were used to establish this position.
Without doing that, then the naming of one artifact as supernatural, and the rubbishing of another one such as this tree stump, seems to be baseless and subjective. The tree stump would merely not be supernatural for the simple reason that.... well.... that you said so.
Put another way, by what basis are you discrediting one supernatural object and not others which you think are in fact supernatural.
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Post by Harris on Jul 21, 2009 17:10:49 GMT
With all due respect hibernicus, comparing the people who are praising the tree stump to St Francis is a bit unfair and totally disingenuous. Its not in any sense the same thing.
And on a point of order, I would appreciate being addressed in the first person rather than the third.
It’s as if you are addressing a room full of people who are hanging on your every word when you make a statement such as "harris should not assume....."
May I also point out that you should not assume to know the sense of decorum in which God conducts himself any more than I. In a sense all you are saying is "Well Harris doesn’t know how God works" when you make the above statement.
The fact is you don’t know either. None of us do. Therefore my opinion on this matter is as subjective or as relevant as yours.
Neither of us can know the unknowable my dear friend.
However I still state with confidence that if God were to reveal himself, he wouldnt do it through a feckin tree stump!! Am I being unreasonable?
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 22, 2009 11:41:20 GMT
I prefer to address myself to the moderator in the same way that in a debate it is usual to address oneself to the chair (I was in a debating society at university). The idea is that you are addressing yourself to the whole audience rather than to the person you are responding to, and it is supposed to give a certain formality and stop things from getting too personal. It doesn't seem to have that effect here; perhaps we can get a ruling from our moderator on the subject?
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