Church Guidelines for Discernment

The Church has always placed guidelines for discerning the truth of visions. A clairvoyant must be in good health and his visions must not contradict Catholic doctrine.

Furthermore, the seer should not seek profit or fame from their experiences or use visionary claims as a pretext for exploitation. They must not propagate “a sectarian mentality” which would undermine the authority of the Church.

Until now, local bishops investigated the reports of supernatural phenomena in their dioceses, then either declared them safe for Catholics or closed them. Sometimes, a complex case leads bishops to request private help from the dicastery.

The process varied by diocese and could take years – 43 in the case of Medjugorje. If the Church finds nothing worrying about the proclaimed visionary, Catholics are allowed but not required believe in the vision.

New standards

The dicastery’s revised discernment standards could be a response to Catholics’ growing claims to supernatural experience. The global media not only spreads, but encourages relationships visions and apparitions.

The recently revised standards make three significant changes to the process.

First, the new norms place the decision regarding supernatural phenomena in the hands of the dicastery. This streamlines the process and prevents local politics or a bishop’s opinions from clouding the final assessment of the declared apparition.

Second, the dicastery reduced the evaluation of visions to one of the six results. The less positive decision is that nothing supernatural happens.

The most positive ruling – apart from the pope’s official declaration that the phenomenon is unquestionably supernatural – is this: “Nihil obstat”, meaning “nothing gets in the way”.

This means that the event presents “many signs of the action of the Holy Spirit” and that the visionary does not present any serious flaws that would prevent Catholics from supporting the phenomenon.

The third is that the apparition may be authentic even if the so-called seers did minor errors of interpretation or behavior. He recognizes that visionaries sometimes cannot correctly express what they see, or that they may misinterpret the virgin – for example, by suggesting that Mary is angry with those who ignore her warnings. The LEDs do not need to be perfect Catholics, either.

Belief in the Virgin of Medjugorje

Despite personal criticisms of psychics, such as accusations that they took advantage of their famethe dicastery noted that the apparitions in Medjugorje led to profound “positive fruits» for thousands of people.

An investigation on the vision site, 48.8% of visitors to Medjugorje said their lives were transformed by this experience; 30.4% believe that their life has changed “a lot”; and 14.5% said they had changed “radically.”

Certainly, pilgrims are often predisposed to spiritual growth, but the majority of visitors to Medjugorje claim to have a deepened faith. Some were driven to seek ordination or to overcome what they viewed as sinful habits; others reconciled with family members, were healed of illnesses or disabilities, or witnessed small miracles.

The dicastery nevertheless suggests that pilgrims should visit and pray at associated places with the “original events” of Medjugorje, such as Podbrdo Hill, rather than observing the seers in a trance.

A Vatican commission decided in 2010 that the first seven appearances and the associated messages were supernatural, but the commission was not convinced of the rest.

Why now?

The changes in discernment standards have come at a time when Church leaders claim to listen to ordinary believers. Pope Francis recently reached a three-year agreement Synod on synodality who brought priests, lay people and even dissident theologians with Church leaders in Rome to brainstorm solutions.

Long term important questions for lay peopleIssues such as the inclusion of LGBTQ+ Catholics and the ordination of women were discussed but not resolved. However, the synod obtained certain structural reforms aimed at including the ideas and opinions of ordinary Catholics. At the start of the deliberations, the the synod itself warned against the “sin… of lack of listening, communion and participation of all”.

Perhaps the dicastery pays attention to the experience of pilgrims.

Regardless of what the so-called visionaries do or say or whether or not the Virgin appears there, many visitors say that going to Medjugorje makes them better Catholics. Over 43 years old, millions of pilgrims believed during the apparitions in Medjugorje.

It seems that, given the recent decision of the dicastery of “Nihil obstat”, nothing prevents Catholics from devoting themselves to Our Lady of Medjugorje, the Queen of Peace.

This piece is reissued from The conversation.