Originally published November 24, 2010
Editor’s Note: The following article is taken from “Setting the Record Straight: A Reply to Father Thaddeus Doyle. Concerning the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” The Fatima Crusader, Issue 98, Spring 2011, pp. 20-21. Father Doyle used his position as a publisher of a newsletter in Ireland to promote the Vatican’s party line that Fatima is finished and that the Consecration of Russia was accomplished.
In the October 2010 issue of his newsletter The Curate’s Diary, Father Thaddeus Doyle of Ireland accuses Father Nicholas Gruner and me of “twisting” the famous statements by John Paul II on March 25, 1984 indicating the late Pontiff’s recognition that his consecration ceremony on that date did not fulfill Our Lady’s requirements for the consecration of Russia, and that Our Lady was still awaiting the consecration of that nation to Her Immaculate Heart.
Father Doyle’s article is the latest in a series of broadsides he continues to publish no matter how many times his errors on the subject of Fatima are corrected by Father Gruner or some other knowledgeable Catholic… Like Father Fox before him, Father Doyle presents a version of the Fatima message containing neither cause for alarm nor grounds for giving offense to the “modern world.”
Indeed, Father Doyle is an avid promoter of the thoroughly discredited “apparitions” of a religiously indifferent “Virgin Mary” to the alleged “seers” of Medjugorje, who deliver “Our Lady’s” supposed “messages” with the frequency of news bulletins, including what Father Doyle publishes in the aforesaid edition of his newsletter as “Our Lady’s Message” for August 25, 2010. Father Doyle promotes and defends the Medjugorje “apparitions” even though the “seers” have spouted heresy after heresy which they attribute to the Mother of God, including these:
“All religions are equal before God,” says the Virgin.
The Virgin: “I do not dispose of all graces… Jesus prefers that you address your petitions directly to Him, rather than through an intermediary.”
“In God there are no divisions or religions; it is you in the world who have created divisions.”
“God directs all denominations as a king directs his subjects, through the medium of His ministers.”
“Each one’s religion must be respected, and you must preserve yours for yourselves and for your children.”
The Virgin added: “It is you who are divided on this earth. The Muslims and the Orthodox, like the Catholics, are equal before my Son and before me, for you are all my children.”[1]
The “seers” have also claimed to receive “messages” conveniently tailored to assist them in their conflict with the former local ordinary of the Diocese of Mostar, Bishop Zanic, who steadfastly rejected the apparitions. Consider this one, for example, wherein “Seer Ivanka” claims the “Virgin Mary” warned Bishop Zanic to accept the apparitions or suffer the wrath of Jesus:
June 21, 1983: The Virgin states: “Tell the Father Bishop (Zanic) that I request his urgent conversion to the events of the Medjugorje parish… I am sending him the penultimate warning. If he is not converted, or will not be converted, my judgment as well as that of my Son Jesus will strike him.” (Seer Ivanka writing to Bishop Zanic)[2]
Needless to say, Jesus did not strike Bishop Zanic, who retired in 1993 no more convinced of the “apparitions” than he was ten years earlier, when “Seer Ivanka” delivered her bogus “warning from Heaven”. And Bishop Zanic’s successor, Bishop Peric, has taken up where his predecessor left off, warning the faithful that “regarding the events of Medjugorje, on the basis of the investigations and experience gained thus far throughout these last 25 years, the Church has not confirmed a single apparition as authentically being the Madonna,” and that the “so-called apparitions, messages, secrets, and signs do not strengthen the faith, but rather further convince us that in all of this there is nothing either authentic or established as truthful.”
Clearly, Father Doyle is not a reliable source concerning the authenticity and correct understanding of Marian apparitions.
For More Information:
Click here to read the full article, in which Mr. Ferrara, author of The Secret Still Hidden, discredits the Vatican’s party line that the Consecration of Russia was accomplished in a ceremony in which Russia was not even mentioned and in which the bishops did not participate.
Fr. Shannon Collins also addressed the issue of Medjugorje: True or False. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.
ENDNOTES:
[1] “The Medjugorje Hoax,” www.catholicapologetics.info/catholicteaching /privaterevelation/medjugo.html. The source provides exact references to Medjugorje-related sources for the “messages” quoted, which have been cited in numerous other publications.
[2] Ibid.