False Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Separating the Wheat From the Chaff

During the apparitions of Our Lady at GARABANDAL, Spain, the Blessed Virgin imparted a very clear prophecy to visionary Conchita Gonzales, in December of 1962: after the apparitions at Garabandal finished, a large number of false "Marian" apparitions would begin to develop in all parts of the world "en todos partes del mundo" . Accompanied by apparent "miracles", these apparitions would be designed by the Devil to be so convincing, that even the most devoted Catholics would be mistaken by them as coming from Mary. The purpose behind these false appearances was for Satan to blur Garabandal until it was a distant memory, and preferably completely forgotten. God will allow these counterfeit apparitions to continue until the Warning (i.e. "Minor Judgment") and Great Miracle of Garabandal, after which these bogus visions will fall apart and be seen for what they really are.
 

The Church is very clear on one point in the investigation of reported  apparitions: whether the local bishop has or has not come to a decision on the matter in question, only the Holy See can definitively pass a judgement of finality regarding that alleged revelation. If the Vatican has not made a definitive judgement, as it has done recently with its approval of the remarkable events at AKITA, Japan, the revelation cannot be said to have been explicitly defined by the Church. (Pope Leo X - 5th Council of Lateran, 1513)
 

There are a number of telltale signs that immediately identify a false apparition. These signs have either wholly, or in part, been associated with apparitions already condemned by the Church (i.e. Necedah, Bayside, El Escorial, San Damiano), and are found at none of the Marian apparitions that the Holy See has fully approved. The fact that these signs appear consistently at psuedo- pparitions, and not at genuine ones, make them an accurate yardstick by which to appropriately measure a reported revelation.

1) DISOBEDIENCE
The partisans of the alleged apparitions see no problem with ignoring any prohibition placed against the apparition by either the local Bishop, or the Holy See. (For example, if pilgrimages are ordered to be curtailed, instead they increase, etc.) Usually it is the local  Bishop who is totally disregarded, as if he has no authority to restrict any abuse that can happen in his own diocese as a  result of the alleged apparition.
 

Often times the apparitionial entity itself attacks the authority of the Bishop, the Pope, or the Church in general, as though the apparition itself were the final authority. The Magisterium of the Church is replaced by the magisterium of the apparition.
 

Conchita Gonzalez, who was close friends with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, once asked the saintly nun what the difference was between Garabandal, and a certain alleged apparition to which Garabandal is regularly compared. Mother Teresa answered, "At Garabandal they obey the Church; at (here she named the alleged comparison apparition) they disobey the Church. That is the difference." 

Whatever the Church regulates regarding an alleged apparition should be taken seriously and adhered to until a final pronouncement is made. The apparition itself, if it truly came from God, would insist on this, as Our Lady insisted at Garabandal.
 

2.) COMMERCIALISM
The dubious apparitions produce a range of commercial articles, promoted widely to disseminate the apparition throughout the world. This is done before the Church makes a full investigation, and a final pronouncement, and usually in opposition to the Church's regulations on such promotional articles. Commercialism is especially found in great abundance at the apparition site itself.  

The articles usually include statues and medals depicting the alleged apparition, and these come in a wide range of styles and sizes, and various materials, including tacky flourescent plastic. These also include "Pilgrim Virgins", an idea borrowed from the famous statues of Our Lady of Fatima (but which are made to represent "Our Lady" as she is said to appear in the bogus apparition) which travel through parishes around the world promoting the apparition and its so-called revelations.

Chaplets, rosaries, prayer books, and holy cards are also created, invoking the "Virgin" under the title she's supposedly recommending in the alleged apparition. Other miscellaneous religious articles includes magnets, coffee mugs, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and a wide range of similar paraphernalia, all pushing the apparition.

The articles are not just found exclusively at the alleged apparition site. They are regularly sold in religious stores around the world, including stores on church properties. The author has seen, in several places in Florida, and New York, statues and banners of an alleged apparition displayed prominently inside the church, or even on the altar itself. At one church, the pastor even goes so far as to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass wearing a cassock depicting Our Lady as she is supposedly seen in a very controversial (and ecclesiastically-unapproved) alleged apparition. In these cases, the promoters, which include the clergy, not just the laypersons, make it clear that they have already come to a conclusion about the alleged apparition, regardless of what the Church will eventually say.
 

3.) ROSARIES TURNING TO "GOLD"
This is a phenomenon exclusive to false apparitions. In some cases, the substance of actual gold is present, although usually it is a gold-colored coating which, when the chain is broken open, reveals the interior to still be its regular base color. In some cases, instead of gold coloring, the chain is brightly tarnished a silver or grey, like it was newly polished.
 

In one instance, a nun had half her rosary turn to "gold", and when she left, she vowed she would return to the alleged apparition site "to see if the rest of my rosary will turn to gold also." With these "golden" rosaries comes an unquenchable thirst to see signs and miracles, and ultimately increased reports of this type of occurrence (as well as "spinning suns", cloud formations, and the like) which further sensationalizes the apparition.
 

The phenomenon of "golden" rosaries was widespread at the condemned apparitions of Necedah, Wisconsin, San Damiano, Italy, and Bayside, New York. As it was at these places, this phenomena is defended by believers in current alleged apparitions, who say that this is Our Lady's means of bringing attention to the Rosary. If this were the case, then Our Lady would have used this means in Her apparitions at LOURDES, FATIMA, BEAURAING, BANNEUX, HEEDE, and AKITA, to complement Her urgings for us to pray the Holy Rosary.
 

As much as these persons dislike hearing it (particularly those who were unfortunate to have it happen to their own rosaries), "rosaries turning to gold" have never been a charism of a genuine apparition, but rather a consistent occurrence with "apparitions" that are eventually condemned by the Church.
 

4.) "MIRACULOUS" Photographs
Along with #3, this is also a strong indication of a false apparition. Ranging from double exposures, camera movements, or light refractions, the pictures developed nonetheless show normal results that, with enough imagination, can be seen to be Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, a luminous Cross, Host, etc. For example, there is one photograph in particular that comes to mind of a "Cross" that "appeared" above the church where the alleged apparition was taking place.

This "Cross" was nothing more than than two airplane contrails intersecting, a totally normal occurrence which I see everyday when I'm traveling out of doors.

On some occasions, however, photographs are taken on which appear genuine images of things unseen when the camera took the picture. This nonetheless does not qualify the alleged apparition to be genuine, especially if at the same site disobedience to the local ordinary is present, or any other of the telltale signs. Satan can manipulate matter very easily, and thus make such a counterfeit miracle with no trouble at all.
 

Nonetheless, the photographs are usually widely published, labeled "miraculous", and touted to be a sign of the authenticity of the apparition. But once again, these "miraculous" photographs are not a product of genuine, Church-approved apparitions, but rather of condemned apparitions like those cited earlier.
 

5.) The "Broadway" or "Contagion" Phenomenon
I use this term to refer to those alleged apparitions which have a "lets take this show on the road" appeal. This is demonstrated by the "visionaries" of the alleged apparitions touring the globe to speak at conferences and churches, and treating the audience to an "apparition" or other form of revelation right there on the spot. Naturally, when the seers leave, the "hallowed spot" is venerated, or made off-limits in favor of making a shrine to commemorate the "miracle".
 

This phenomenon is also illustrated by numerous pilgrims who, after visiting an alleged apparition site, return home and suddenly begin have visions of their own. This "Taking Mary Home to Meet the Neighbors" occurrence always patterns itself off of the  original alleged apparition, using the same words and phrases, regardless of how banal they may be, and in these offshoot revelations, the parent apparitions are vigorously supported.
 

Garabandal is sometimes mentioned in false revelations, and the common denominator seems to be that, being so convincing, and having the full belief and support of St. Padre Pio, and Blessed Mother Teresa, as well as four other beati, the partisans of the false apparitions find it necessary to "connect" to Garabandal. In this way, when the Warning and the Miracle occur, and the whole event of Garabandal is proved genuine, part of this acceptance can be extended to the psuedo-visionary who had showed support for it. This obviously comes from the fear and knowledge that their own quasi-visions cannot stand on their own merits. Garabandal has been mentioned in the condemned events of Bayside, San Damiano, and most recently, in the major-problem "mystic" known as Vassula.
 

6.) AUTOMATIC WRITING
Vassula Ryden is an alleged seer who was born in Egypt of Greek parents, and was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church. A former tennis champion and fashion model, she is now the instrument of automatic (demon-manipulated) writing that she insists comes through her from Our Lord Jesus Christ.
 

"A supernatural vibration" flows through her hands, and she is unable to stop it. "My hand began to shake, and the pencil was too strong for me to control." Nevertheless, she explains, "It's not automatic writing."  The writing produced by this pencil "too strong for me to control", is full of errors, both grammatical, and theological. (For example, in the latter area, "Jesus" calls for adoration of Mary). Also, at the end of the sentences, instead of using a simple period, "Our Lord" draws a heart as big as the words themselves.
 

The late Veronica Leuken, the "seer" of Bayside, New York, claimed that St. Therese of Lisieux "possessed her" on numerous occasions, in order to produce "occulations" in the form of poems through her hand. It is complete heresy to believe a Saint can "possess" a human being, or even Our Lord Himself, because He has given all persons Free Will that He will not interfere with.

Vassula is a big fan of Garabandal. In one of her writings, "Our Lord" demands of her: "You will tell the Holy See to sanctify my mother's apparitions at Garabandal." She has also published a book entitled, "Vassula, and her Garabandal Friends."

Vassula, in more than 15 years of revelations from "Our Lord", has made no attempt to become a Roman Catholic, despite the fact that the Greek Orthodox Church is a schismatic division dating back to 1054 A.D. Despite being a schismatic, which forbids her to partake in the Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, Vassula nonetheless receives Holy Communion in Roman Catholic Churches whenever she pleases (thus resulting in a communion that is a sacrilege against the Body and Blood of Our Lord.) She, her behavior, and her "revelations" have been soundly condemned by the Vatican. 

She lives in a town in Switzerland that is predominately Freemason, and she has been accused by former friends of hers who have defected from her ranks as being a witch. In any case, she certainly seems to be the victim of an infestation of something other than "Our Lord". Many Roman Catholics are drawn to this dangerous woman and her automatic writings, to the detriment of their souls. The Church forbids any involvement in spiritism, of which automatic writing is a part.
 

In another alleged apparition in which the "Virgin" entrusted a number of secrets to the seers, one seer was given a paper of "undefinable material" (a sample of which is never given to science for analysis) on which were written the secrets. As the events in the secrets were about to come to pass, they would visibly appear on the paper. This is nearly identical to an event that occurred during alleged apparitions at Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico in the 1950's, and which has been condemned by the Church. Even as far back as 1876, letters full of writing began to materialize, dropping from "heaven" around a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. This event was condemned by the Church because after investigation it was found to have originated from the devil, not God.

Many false apparitions are completely bogus from start to finish, although several actually do show some kind of demonstration of the apparent supernatural. For instance, although the Church has finally ruled in favor of these apparitions, (a decision Catholics are free to accept or deny since they do not carry the obedience required by dogmas) based on my personal experiences, I am troubled by something out of the ordinary that happened to the visionaries of Kibeho, Africa, when they received an apparition. There are films of them in ecstasy being examined by the ecclesiastical commission set up by the Church to investigate the claims.

In one such film, a doctor pulls open the bottom eyelid of one of the visionaries and drives a long needle right down into it. Whereas this type of thing provoked no sensorial or phsyiological reaction from the visionaries of Garabandal, the eye of the Kibeho visionary trembled violently and watered profusely. However, she did not collapse, or interrupt her dialogue with her vision, or cry out in any discomfort or pain.

Thus, she was at least mostly insensible to what would otherwise have been excruciating agony.   Nonetheless, the ecstasies demonstrated at Kibeho closely parallel the spirit possessions of "mounting of the saints" seen in the Yoruban religions like Santeria, (which I have personally witnessed several times, both on film and in person) Voodoo, and similar tribal religions. While not being explosively exaggerated in the ecstasies at Kibeho, they nevertheless exhibit very similar behaviors to a lesser degree (i.e. shaking or vibration of the body, flopping around like a fish out of water after falling to the ground, fainting and exhaustion upon coming out of the ecstasy, eyes rolled back into the head, etc...). Even in their own ecstatic falls, the visionaries of GARABANDAL never exhibited any kind of this hysterical behavior.

In conclusion, the confusion generated by false apparitions, noticeably seen in those followers who hop from one to the other without any reservation or discernment, and who, filled with literature about these places, harm themselves with ideas contrary to the Magisterium of the Church, is wide-spread, and does damage to genuine Marian Apparitions whose Messages and appropriate responses to those Messages, which are in perfect harmony with the Church, are eclipsed by the dubious competition. 

Although Our Lady explicitly forwarned about this subject at GARABANDAL, Our Lord preceeded Her by 150 years by warning the stigmatic mystic MARIE-JULIE JAHENNY:

"In those latter days false visionaries will arise like a swarm of flies from Hell to try to obscure the true apparitions with false ones..." 

and 1850 years before that, when He warned His Apostles about this time that would come upon us. (cf. Matt 24:24)
 

THE CASE OF BARNABAS NWOYE

Although Devotion to the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ is one of the most ancient in Christianity, there has been a new movement centered around this theme since the late 1990s, that was/is generated by the alleged private revelations of Jesus, Mary, and "a multitude of saints and angels" to a supposedly illiterate young man in Africa named Barnabas Nwoye.

These revelations are said to have the backing of Cardinal Arinze, and many other members of the clergy, and although the prayers associated with this movement have the nihil obstat and the imprimatur (official declarations that they do not contain anything contrary to the doctrines of the Faith), the messages themselves alleged to come from Heaven do not.

On the surface, these private revelations seem orthodox and in keeping with similar ones that have gone before them that have been approved by the Church (like the DIVINE MERCY revelations of Saint Faustina Kowalksa), but therein lies the problem. The Devil is always in the details, and the general package he uses to surround those details in his presentation is subtle enough to trap a person like a fly in a spider web.

It is not necessary to cover all the claims from the Barnabas revelations, because the following is sufficient enough to prove that all of it is a hoax, whether perpetrated by Barnabas and his helpers (God forbid), or perpetrated by Hell with Barnabas as an innocent victim.

A consistent claim of modern private revelations is that the Antichrist is in the world and is soon to take it over. Driven by the extensive literature of protestant and evangelical origin (most often beginning with Constance Cumbey's Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow in 1983) that the New Age Movement and the present political situation in the world that is trying to coalesce into a "New World Order" is about to bring this ultimate rival of Jesus Christ to the forefront, Barnabas' revelations clearly join the bandwagon and claim this is indeed going to happen in our generation.

Those Catholics who do not have a well-grounded grasp of authentic Catholic prophecy from Biblical Times up to the present day, are readily swayed by revelations like Barnabas'. Certainly in no other period in history has there been such an obvious, concerted effort to destroy Christianity and bring the entire Earth under a Faithless/Reason-based Global Government, with a completely cashless revenue system upon which the dreaded Biblical prophecy "the Mark of the Beast" is to emerge to enslave humanity and put it under the tyrannical rule of the Antichrist. False private revelations are packaged to be sensational, (although all genuine apparitions approved by the Church can be considered sensational, to a certain degree) but carry with them a consistent and peculiar germ: that the world's only chance of surviving whatever is prophesied is by complying with the devotions and regulations particular to that private revelation.

In short, EVERYONE should read the book "Trial, Tribulation, and Triumph- Before, During, and After the Reign of Antichrist" by Desmond Birch, who has placed the entire history of authentic Catholic prophecy between two covers in a style that is readily understandable to the general reader, and shows the timeline for all the prophecies from the past, as well as this point in time, to the very end of the world. These authentic prophecies clearly show WHY the Antichrist cannot be alive today, or anytime soon, and WHY the "imminent" Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world obviously cannot be anytime soon either.

These claims (and others) are precisely the reason the Catholic Church condemned the private "revelations" of DOZULE, France at the end of the 20th Century. These claims are also made at Kibeho, Africa, which has the approval of the local bishop, although no Catholic is bound by dogma to agree with him.

FATIMA, HEEDE, and GARABANDAL offered no "new" devotions or "prayer leagues" or "pledges" unique to that particular apparition, to combat what was prophesied at these places by Our Lord and Our Lady. They consistently urged the traditional, Church-approved means that always have been, still are, and will always be the greatest weapons at our disposal: The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist, and the Holy Rosary, along with other consistent and traditional devotions such as praying for the souls in Purgatory, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, etc.

DON'T LET YOURSELF BE FOOLED into wasting your time chasing after this or that alleged revelation, each one trying to get your attention over the competition (which there is alot of)! Stick with TRIED AND TRUE THEOLOGICALLY SOUND TRADITION and you will not be mislead.