VATICAN CITY: The Vatican has sharpened its rules which deal with investigating supernatural events, such as visions of Christ or the Virgin Mary. They acknowledged on Friday that overactive imaginations and outright “lying” risked harming the ‘faithful’.

New norms allow for a more “prudent” interpretation of events that generally avoids declaring them outright as a supernatural event.

They were published by the Holy See’s powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Francis. “In certain circumstances not everything is black or white” Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, who leads the dicastery, told journalists’.

“Sometimes a possible divine reaction mixes with human thoughts and fantasies” Fernandez added.

The history of the Catholic Church is filled with episodes of strange or unexplained phenomena that involve religious statues or other objects.

The new guidelines come two months after the Church stated that a series of widely reported miracles attributed to a statuette of the Virgin Mary (including making a pizza grow in size), were “false”.

The new rules provide enhanced guidance to bishops, who until now have been left relatively free to determine the authenticity of such visions on a ‘case-by-case’ basis. This is the first time the rules have been updated since 1978.

Underscoring the complexity of the issue, the Vatican has completed only six cases of such alleged supernatural events since 1950, with one taking around “seventy excruciating years”, the document said.

The new rules call for further collaboration between the bishops of the individual dioceses concerned and the Vatican over such investigations.

The final decisions of the bishops should be submitted to the dicastery for approval, it said.

Some incidents “at times appear connected to confused human experiences, theologically inaccurate expressions, or interests that are not entirely legitimate” the document noted.

Doctrinal errors

Bishops may have to deal with “manipulation, damage to the unity of the Church, undue financial gain and serious doctrinal errors that could cause scandals and undermine the credibility of the Church” it added.

In the absence of problems, dioceses will now be able to declare a “Nihil Obstat”, indicating there is nothing in the phenomenon contrary to faith and morals.

This does fall short of an official declaration of its supernatural authenticity, which under the new rules is generally to be avoided (unless the pope authorises it).

Fernandez explained that most of the Church’s major pilgrimage sites grew organically over years, without any official declaration on the authenticity of the original “miracle”.

However, in the most serious cases, to avoid confusion or scandal, the dicastery will request the local bishop to state that belief in the phenomenon is not allowed and then go on to explain why.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2024