NOVA CANA TIMELINE

1947 (May 2):  Six year old Angela Volpini received her first Holy Communion in the village of Casanova Staffora, Lombardy, Italy, in the Apennine mountain range.

1947 (June4):  Angela, having turned seven on the June 2, experienced her first apparition of the Virgin Mary at a place called Bocco on the hill overlooking Casanova Staffora.

1947 (July 4):  The second apparition occurred in which the vision confirmed that she is Mary. This established a series of apparitions on the fourth of the month over nine years.

1947 (October 4):  Solar prodigies, reminiscent of other apparitions especially Fátima, were reported during the apparitions.

1947 (November or December):  The diocese of Tortona, having noticed the large crowds gathering at Casanova Staffora, began an investigation.

1948 (April 18):  The crucial Italian general election of 1948 took place. Christian Socialists gained power against the left-wing coalition of Socialists and Communists.

1950 (November 4):  Solar prodigies, reminiscent of other apparitions especially Fátima, were reported during the apparitions.

1950:  The building of the cappellina (English: “small chapel”) began at the site of the apparitions; the present statue was installed in 1960.

1952 (June 6):  The first indications of the decision of the diocesan commission of enquiry became known. Angela’s character was praised and she was declared mentally sound, but the Church took the position that there was no evidence to judge her apparitions as supernatural.  

1955 (November 4):  The last apparition in the regular series occurred, but the Virgin promised that she would return once more.  

1956 (June 4):  The final apparition took place in which the Virgin foretold a great spiritual revival after a period of instability among the nations. She said that God is merciful and would spare the people punishment. 

1957 (August 15):  The Diocese of Tortona agreed that a church could be built at Bocco as a Marian shrine. 

1958 (April 9):  Angela presented a file of her messages to Pope Pius XII at St Peter’s in Rome. 

1958 (June 22):  The first stone of the new church was blessed by senior priest Monsignor Ferreri, with many pilgrims present. 

1958:  The association Nova Cana was founded by Angela at the age of eighteen. 

1959 (November 4):  The bell of the new church was blessed by Canon Caldi, delegate of Bishop Melchiori of Tortona. 

1962 (June 4):  Monsignor Rossi, also a delegate of the bishop of Tortona, celebrated the Mass at which the new church was blessed and inaugurated.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY 

The apparitions of Casanova Staffora occurred in the context of post-war Italy, amid a very unstable political situation. In 1947, post-war Italy was in a period of intense uncertainty as to whether the future government would be Christian Democrat, and thus supportive of the Church, or Socialist/Communist, with the threat to the Catholic way of life that this would have suggested in the first half of the twentieth century and into the Cold War period. The Christian Democrats won the crucial election in April 1948 and stayed in power for some decades (among others, see Ginsborg 1990).

Believers in Casanova Staffora agree that the national context was relevant to the beginning of the shrine; the decade 1944-1954 saw more Marian apparitions in Italy than in any other modern period. Angela first reported seeing the Virgin Mary on June 4, 1947, having passed her seventh birthday two days before. The first message from the Virgin Mary was: “I have come to teach the way to happiness on this Earth … Be good, pray and I will be the salvation of your nation” (Angela Volpini’s website 2016). The first part of this message is written on a board at the site of the apparition, the cappellina (a small edifice containing a statue and marked off by a fence). For Angela, this first apparition established everything that she has since believed about God, Mary, and humanity:

It was the aim of the human life, it was all human possibilities, it was what gave meaning to every human living. It was the joy of the Creator. With great approximation I can say that I have contemplated the universal world, through the eyes of the Madonna I have seen all mankind … I saw all the story of human beings (Angela Volpini’s website 2016).

At the time of this first vision, Angela [Image at right] was a young girl in a farming family, pasturing the cows with other children in a hillside area known as Bocco, a few hundred metres outside the main village. At about four o’clock in the afternoon she recalls sitting on the grass putting flowers into bunches. She felt someone lift her up and, thinking it was her aunt, turned round to see an unknown woman with a beautiful face. Angela was a sole visionary, as the other children did not share this experience (one of the characteristics of a successful and long-term apparition movement is clarity over whom the Madonna is speaking through; a multiplicity of voices may harm the reputation of the case). Angela immediately identified her vision as the Virgin Mary, and this was confirmed in the second apparition one month later on the July 4, 1947, when the vision declared herself to be Mary. This was further clarified on the August 4, when she referred to herself as “Mary, Help of Christians, Refuge of Sinners.” These are traditional titles of Mary.

Pilgrims soon came in their thousands to Casanova Staffora. By the autumn of 1947, it was national news; newspapers such as La Stampa and Oggi covered the story. The crowds participated in the dramatic events: the title of Ferdinando Sudati’s book (2004) promoting the apparitions, Dove posarano i suoi piedi (“Where her feet rested”), refers to the fact that pilgrims claimed to have seen the invisible Mary’s feet imprinted on the flowers which had been placed to honour her. Angela’ gestures and charismatic smile assured them that Mary was present; she presented flowers to the Virgin and children to kiss and bless, and she carried the invisible Christ child in her arms. The shrine overlooks the beauty of the Apennine river valley below, providing a memorable backdrop to the scene. In the late 1940s, the hillside was literally covered with people. Like many Catholic visionaries, Angela as a child seer attracted a great deal of attention. Many priests visited too, and the diocesan authorities at Tortona began an investigation. Angela describes how intensively she underwent interviews by priests, journalists, and doctors: she recalls being taken from her home for about forty days and kept in a room without windows. This pressure was applied to see if Angela would admit that she had falsified the visions, but she did not.

Angela’s apparitions were experienced in a series, like other apparitions, in this case on each fourth of the month up until June 1956, with some breaks over the years. A series helps to create a pattern of pilgrimage. The messages were not unfamiliar in the Marian apparition tradition: the Virgin requested prayer, penance, a chapel and, eventually, a larger sanctuary. The Casanova Staffora apparitions also echoed the famous apparitions of Fátima in 1917, increasingly well-known across Europe in the late 1940s, with the anticipation of a great miracle, warnings of divine punishment, and sensational reports of movements of the sun, for the first time on the October 4, 1947 and then later on the November 4, 1950, three days after the definition of the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary by Pope Pius XII.

Angela’s apparitions concluded on the June 4, 1956, and she says that she has not had any further experiences of this kind. The message of this final vision was important in determining future directions. According to Angela, Mary said:

The great miracle has already begun, and once again the merciful God has spared the earth his punishment. Many people will come back to the Church and the world will finally have peace. But before that happens, many nations will be shaken and renewed. Always remember my last words: love God sincerely, love your heavenly mother, love each other. I will not return, but I will give the signs and graces promised, so that you may know that I will always be with you (Sudati 2004:174, my translation).

Therefore the sixteen year-old Angela, immediately after the final apparition, announced that the miracle would be a spiritual renewal which had already begun. This, and the removal of the threats of divine chastisement, distinguished Casanova Staffora from other apparitions in the second half of the twentieth century that emphasised apocalyptic miracles and punishments. Angela’s mission was to be more grounded and more optimistic about the direction of human society. Angela remembers that:

Mary told me that the miracle would be an increase of public conscience and awareness. In 1958, I founded the organisation Nova Cana to help this process. Nova Cana attempts to focus people’s attention on the coming of the Kingdom of God, just as the wedding at Cana was the manifestation of the divinity in Jesus. It is a centre for dialogue. I realised the need for a space in which people could reflect on their desire for fulfilment and come to know that it could be realised (Interviews, October 28-31, 2015, also quoted further below).

Despite priestly support for Angela, two diocesan bishops of Tortona, Egisto Melchiori and Francesco Rossi, announced that they could not authenticate the apparitions, in 1952 and 1965 respectively. They expressed their appreciation of Angela’s character and the orthodoxy of her message, and could not rule out the possibility of a supernatural origin. However, they felt that the apparitions were more likely to have been triggered by the experience of her first communion and her coming into contact with the story of Fátima. Nonetheless, the diocese did grant permission for the building of a shrine church at Bocco, the first stone was laid in 1958, and the building was formally blessed by an episcopal delegate in 1962. The relationship with the Church has not always been smooth, but the diocese continues to provide support by appointing a priest to celebrate Mass at Bocco once a month. Furthermore, Angela has enjoyed strong friendships with many priests and monks, most notably the priest and politician Don Gianni Baget Bozzo (1925-2009) and the monk Frate Ave Maria (1900-1964) of the hermitage of Sant’ Alberto di Butrio.

DOCTRINES/BELIEFS

Angela’s messages from Mary are optimistic about human potential in a way that anticipates later Catholic movements, such as Creation Spirituality and Fully Human, Fully Alive. They also have non-Catholic parallels in the Human Potential Movement in the United States arising in the 1960s. For Angela, however, this vision was already fully present in the initial apparition on the June 4, 1947, when Mary said that “I have come to teach the way to happiness on this Earth.” Angela says that:

Mary is an icon of the history of humanity. All human beings possess the opportunity for fulfilment and entry into the domain of the divine, and Mary is the one in whom this is fully realised.

While Angela refers to the importance of human liberation, she does not associate herself with liberation theology per se, nor with feminist theology either. Nevertheless, she does agree that being a woman has made it more difficult for her voice to be heard in the Church.

Angela regards Mary as humanity fulfilled: she is the first human being to achieve fulfilment and thus an exemplar for all others. Mary has a strong relationship of communion with God, and Angela (aware of possible interpretations of her message) makes clear that God and Mary are absolutely distinct and not to be confused. The goal of every human being is Mary but also for each person to be unique. To quote Angela:

Fulfilment is development of our own uniqueness, by which we are in communion with God. The concept of the divine is based on the personal; it is the original source of oneself. When humanity is fulfilled, we can enter the domain of the divine. There is a choice, a choice to love.

God’s project was incarnation and God chose Mary. This was because she was the one human being who was acknowledging and realising her potential. She committed herself to her own desire to love and was not bound by the culture around her. She discovered that the secret of God was that this could be done.

Angela also says that:

This is a vision of potential but it depends on us. The task of receiving the message is our responsibility. Traditional believers of all religions prefer to delegate this to God. Mary relied upon herself. Mary was independent of God in order to meet him in love. This is the project of all human beings: 1) To be oneself, which is the purpose of creation, and 2) to love, which is to grasp the human quality. Other things follow.

RITUALS/PRACTICES

The shrine at Bocco, Casanova Staffora, [Image at right] is part of the Roman Catholic diocese of Tortona. Therefore religious rituals follow the Catholic sacraments which are administered by priests of the diocese. Angela Volpini and practicing members of Nova Cana remain within the Catholic Church.

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

Angela played her part in the message of renewal by founding a new association for prayer, Nova Cana, in 1958. Its target membership was young, its principles respect and love for humanity, and the unity of political thought and religious life. Unlike other 20th century Catholic movements such as Opus Dei, the Nova Cana movement has tended to sit on the left of the political spectrum rather than the right. This is testified to by its links with the Latin American churches, and contacts with bishops with liberation theology credentials such as Helder Camara and Oscar Romero. Angela says that she was invited by Latin American bishops to discuss the themes of the Second Vatican Council to which her own vision of human potential corresponded. In the 1960s and 1970s, Nova Cana attracted students and left-wing workers, and was accused by Church members of being communist. While Angela accepts that Nova Cana and its humanitarian project did largely resonate with the political left, she also states that it was never communist (socialism and communism can be clearly distinguished in Italian political history). After the difficulties with the Church that this caused, Angela was reconciled to the parish in the 1980s and has established herself as an influential Catholic teacher and speaker; several books and numerous articles have been written about her and she has appeared several times on television. In recent years, bishops of Tortona have visited the shrine at Bocco and it continues to attract pilgrims.

Angela describes Nova Cana in the following way:

Nova Cana gave the impulse to the birth of initiatives whose purpose was to value those economic subjects that operated in the local area under the conditions of long term marginalisation. Thanks to the self-esteem boost that Nova Cana was able to inject to the subjects involved, solitary farmers were transformed into modern social entrepreneurs. For example livestock and farming cooperatives were created (Angela Volpini website 2016).

Nova Cana runs successful conferences, seminars, and courses, and it has enabled Angela to publish several books, with distribution in the thousands. Angela’s husband, Giovanni Prestini, a sociologist, has contributed to the setting up of co-operatives in the agricultural regions surrounding Casanova Staffora. Nova Cana works to promote self-esteem in poor communities and thus help people realise their potential for economic, social, and political development. Nova Cana projects have also been launched in Peru, Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

Nova Cana has always existed at a distance from the official Catholic Church, despite the support of many priests and the visits of bishops to the shrine at Bocco. Early on, while Angela was a child, the Church was not persuaded to authenticate the apparitions, a decision which still stands. Later on, the adult Angela’s interpretation of her visions differed in some aspects to Catholic teachings as established by the Vatican. However, this does not make Nova Cana a sect, as the community has never made a complete break from the Church. All of Angela’s teachings reflect the Catholic culture into which she was born.

One major contrast between Angela’s vision and the Church’s official teaching consists in the fact that she believes we are all immaculate. This does not conform to the doctrine of the Church, in which Mary is the sole instance of immaculate conception. Angela contrasts her own vision to Church doctrine by saying that the Church emphasises God’s initiative and Jesus’ redemption, whereas she puts much more weight on human fulfilment and belief as definitive in the liberation of humanity. For her, Jesus was more a revealer of our potential than a redeemer; she is against passive views of human involvement in salvation. She says:

This has been my vocation, to help people become more empowered in respect of themselves and the world, and live their desires which are the starting point. The projects of Nova Cana are partial examples of this empowerment. The divine in man is a potential and a choice. One must see this potential in humanity. The message was more about humanity than about God. Being faithful to oneself is at the core of the relationship with God. Without this, one cannot be faithful to others. The Church does not emphasise this message; rather the contrary, as the Church teaches that man is a sinner and requires a saviour, but in fact the potential for salvation is internal. Jesus, by his words, actions, life, death and resurrection, revealed the potential for liberation to us. Salvation is our accomplishment and our value.

Angela sees these ideas as central to the vision of the Second Vatican Council. Like others who followed radical interpretations of the Council, such as Catholic liberation and feminist theologians and some progressive moral theologians, Angela regards herself as a Catholic but not one that would accept the view of the Magisterium without question. She says that: “Unity is very important but not at the expense of the conscience. Unity is not conformity, but unity in diversity.”

Divergence between the hierarchy of the Church and visionaries who are often female as alternative sources of authoritative teaching is more common than perceived to be the case (see Maunder 2016). The assumption that visionaries merely restate Church teaching and thereby exist only to reinforce the status of the Vatican is not justified. This viewpoint can be derived perhaps from Bernadette Soubirous, famous in the Church as the model visionary who said that Mary referred to herself as “the Immaculate Conception” just four years after Pius IX declared this as dogma. She is the most well-known seer, perhaps, but not the normal case.

The Church-approved vision, although desired by devotees of apparitions, is the exception rather than the rule. In twentieth century Europe, only four apparitions (at Fátima [Portugal, visions in 1917], Beauraing, Banneux [both Belgium, 1932-1933], and Amsterdam [the Netherlands, 1945-1949]) were accorded full approval by the diocesan bishop. Others achieved the status of official diocesan shrines but without recognition of the visions themselves: examples include the German shrines Heede (1937-1940), Marienfried (1946) and Heroldsbach (1949-1952). Many more gained a compromise whereby the Church accepted the existence of the shrine and gave some support, such as blessing of the shrine buildings and provision of priests to celebrate Mass. This is the case at Casanova Staffora. Other famous examples of compromise include San Sebastian de Garabandal (Spain, 1961-1965), San Damiano (Italy, 1964-1981) and Medjugorje (Bosnia-Herceovina, 1981-date).

Finally, when Angela Volpini experienced apparitions watched by thousands of pilgrims in the 1940s and 1950s, this was perfectly natural and normal in the context of the time. The child seer has been understood in Catholicism as enjoying special divine favour because of their innocence, a view repeated by Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, in The Message of Fatima (Bertone and Ratzinger 2000). However, my recent book, Our Lady of the Nations: Apparitions of Mary in 20th Century Catholic Europe asks whether putting child seers under the spotlight of public attention would be regarded as acceptable any longer given the developing concern about child welfare. Gilles Bouhours of Espis in France (where visions occurred to a group of children between 1946 and 1950) was only two years old when he was recognised as a visionary. Unsurprisingly, then, most prominent visionaries after the early 1980s (when the Medjugorje children began to have visions) have been adults. The revival of Catholic devotion due to apparitions to rural children while animal herding [Image at right] has been a standard motif in Europe across the centuries, but this phenomenon is disappearing now.

IMAGES
Image #1: Photograph of Angela Volpini worshiping as a young child.
Image #2: Photograph of the church at Bocco.
Image #3: Photograph of Angela Volpini herding cattle as a young woman.

REFERENCES*
* Quotes in the text from Angela Volpini that are unreferenced are from interviews during my fieldwork in Casanova Staffora, October 28 – 31 2015.

Angela Volpini’s website. 2016. Accessed from http://www.angelavolpini.it on 5 November 2016. Translations by Laura Casimo.

Bertone, Tarcisio and Ratzinger, Joseph. 2000. The Message of Fatima. Vatican City: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Accessed from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html on 5 November 2016.

Ginsborg, Paul. 1990. A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943–1988. London: Penguin.

Maunder, Chris. 2016. Our Lady of the Nations: Apparitions of Mary in 20th-Century Catholic Europe. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 

Nova Cana’s website. 2016. Accessed from http://www.novacana.it/index.htm on 5 November 2016.

Sudati, Ferdinando. 2004. Dove Posarono i suoi Piedi: Le Apparizioni Mariane di Casanove Staffora (1947–1956). Third Edition. Barzago: Marna Spiritualità.

Volpini, Angela. 2003. La Madonna Accanto a Noi. Trento: Reverdito Edizioni.

SUPPLEMENTARY RESOURCES

Boss, Sarah J., ed. 2007. Mary: The Complete Resource. London and New York: Continuum.

Graef, Hilda and Thompson, Thomas A. 2009. Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion, New Edition. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria.

Rahner, Karl. 1974. Mary, Mother of the Lord. Wheathampstead: Anthony Clarke.

ACKNOWLDEGEMENTS

Grateful thanks to Angela Volpini for agreeing to be interviewed by the author at Casanova Staffora in October 2015, to Maria Grazia Prestini for interpreting at these interviews, and to the Nova Cana community for providing excellent hospitality. Thank you also to Laura Casimo for translating passages from Angela Volpini’s website.

Publication  Date:
10 November 2016

HOLY APOSTOLIC CATHOLIC PALMARIAN CHURCH TIMELINE

1946 (April 23):  Clemente Domínguez Gómez was born in Seville.

1968 (March 30):  Four girls reported to have seen the Virgin Mary at the Alcaparrosa. field, just outside Palmar de Troya, a town in Spanish Andalusia.

1968 (April onwards):  Several other people, most of them women, claimed to receive apparitions at the site. The stories attracted large groups of people from the region, other parts of Spain, and from abroad.

1968 (October 15).  Clemente Domínguez Gómez and his friend Manuel Alonso Corral from Seville visited the apparition site for the first time.

1969 (September 30).  Clemente had his first vision (of Christ and Padre Pio).

1969 (December 15).  Clemente had his first vision of the Virgin Mary.

1970 (May 18):  The archbishop of Seville, Cardinal José María Bueno Monreal issued a formal denunciation of the apparitions.

1972 (18 March).  The archbishop of Seville reiterated his denunciation of the apparitions and forbade all kinds of Catholic cult at the Alcaparrosa field.

1972 (May 9):  Clemente proclaimed that Paul VI would be succeeded by both a true pope and an antipope.

1972:  Clemente and his closest followers began to refer to themselves as Marian apostles or Apostles of the Cross.

1974:  Clemente and Manuel acquired the Alcaparrosa field. A more elaborate shrine and a surrounding wall was constructed.

1975 (December 22):  A Palmarian religious order, the Carmelites of the Holy Face, was founded.

1976 (January 1):  Archbishop Pierre-Martin Ngô-Dinh-Thuc Thuc ordained four priests at Palmar de Troya, including Clemente and Manuel.

1976 (January 11):  Thuc consecrated five bishops at Palmar de Troya, including Clemente and Manuel.

1976 (January 14):  Archbishop Bueno declared the consecrations irregular and the newly consecrated bishops suspended.

1976 (January 15):  All involved in the consecrations were excommunicated by the papal nuncio to Spain.

1976-1978:  The Palmarian bishops consecrated more than ninety bishops.

1976 (May 29):  Palmarian bishops were involved in a car accident in the Basque country. Clemente was seriously wounded, and he lost his sight.

1976 (August 4):  Clemente received a message that he would become pope after the death of Paul VI.

1978 (August 6):  Pope Paul VI died.

1978 (August 6):  While in Bogotá, Colombia, Clemente claimed to have been crowned pope by Christ and that he had taken the name Gregory XVII.

1978 (August 9):  Clemente was back in Spain and the Holy See was formally moved from Rome to Palmar de Troya. The Holy Apostolic Catholic Palmarian Church was founded.

1978 (August 15):  Gregory XVII was crowned pope by four newly appointed cardinals.

1980 (March 30):  The Palmarian Council was inaugurated. After its opening session, the Palmarian Credo was published.

1983 (October 9):  The much briefer Latin-Tridentine-Palmarian Mass order replaced the traditional Tridentine rite.

1987 (November 2):  The Spanish Supreme Court gave the Palmarian church official status as a religious organization.

1992 (October 12):  The Palmarian council was concluded. The Treatise on the Mass was its main result.

1997-2001:  The First Palmarian synod was held. Sacred History or Holy Palmarian Bible was its main result.

2000 (November 5):  Gregory XVII excommunicated eighteen bishops and seven nuns. Some of them found an independent Palmarian group in Archidona, Andalusia.

2005 (March 21):  Pope Gregory XVII died.

2005 (March 24):  Father Isidoro María (Manuel Alonso) was crowned pope and took Peter II as his papal name.

2011 (July 15):  Peter II died.

2011 (July 17):  Father Sergio María, Ginés Jesús Hernández Martínez, was crowned as the third Palmarian pope. He took Gregory XVIII as his papal name.

2012 (January 6):  The second Palmarian council was inaugurated.

2016 (April 22):  Gregory XVIII left the papacy and the Palmarian Church.

2016 (April 23):  The Secretary of State, Bishop Eliseo María‒Markus Josef Odermatt‒became the new Palmarian pope‒Peter III.

2016 (April 27):  The ex-pope, now using his civil name Ginés Jesús Hernández, gave his first interview with the Spanish media and declared that he left the Palmarian church after realizing that it was a hoax and that he now lived together with a woman, Nieves Triviño.

2016 (May 2):  In his first apostolic letter, Pope Peter III informed the Palmarian faithful that the ex-pope was an “apostate” and a ”cursed beast” and accused him of stealing money and valuable items from the church before leaving.

2016 (June 29):  Peter III declared the decisions of the Third Palmarian Council devoid of any value, due to the ex-pope’s influence over it.

2016 (July 16): Peter III was crowned pope in the basilica in Palmar de Troya.

2016 (September 11):  Ginés Hernández and Nieves Triviño were married.

2018 (June 10):  Hernández and Triviño climbed over the walls of the church compound at Palmar de Troya, masked and armed. A bishop discovered them. In a subsequent fight, Hernández was severely injured, while the bishop and Triviño received less serious physical injuries.

2018 (June 13):  Hernández and Triviño were arrested for “armed robbery with aggravating circumstances.” After initial court proceedings, both were sent to prison awaiting trial.

GROUP/FOUNDER HISTORY

Palmar de Troya, located about forty kilometers south of Seville was settled in the 1930s. By the late 1960s, the town had about 2,000 inhabitants. It had electricity but still lacked a medical doctor and running water. It was ecclesiastically marginal as well, having neither resident priest nor permanent church building. When the curate from a neighboring town did arrive, religious services were held in a private home or at an industrial compound. Few townspeople went to mass regularly, and Palmar de Troya was considered something of a mission field.

On March 30, 1968, four school girls (Ana, Josefa, Rafaela and Ana) between the ages of eleven and thirteen reported seeing a “very beautiful lady” when picking flowers by a mastic tree (lentisco) on the Alcaparrosa field, less than a kilometer from the town center. [See the comprehensive history of the Palmarian Churchand the book manuscript A Pope of Their Own] The woman was identified as the Virgin Mary. From April 1968 onwards, other people asserted to have mystical experiences close to the mastic tree. Several women and men fell into trances, claiming that the Virgin Mary appeared and spoke to them. Most of the ecstatic were not natives of Palmar de Troya, but rather came from other locations in the nearby area. The heavenly messages received at Palmar de Troya at this early stage were often very brief and general. The Virgin told the seers that all people should frequently pray Our Father and the rosary and convert to traditional Catholic faith. These were the only ways to placate divine ire and save humanity. The stories about the apparitions rapidly spread to other parts of the country, and even abroad. Growing crowds of people visited the place. On certain days, particularly on the fifteenth of each month when the Virgin usually made important statements, they numbered in the thousands.

By the end of 1969, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez (1946-2005) had become one of the most influential seers at Palmar de Troya. Later, many would look upon him as the seer par excellence, while others would consider him a fake or something in between. After failing to enter priest seminary, he became an office clerk. He worked for a Catholic company in Seville for a time but subsequently was fired. Clemente was not one of the pioneer seers, but beginning in the summer of 1969, and on an almost daily basis, he went to Palmar de Troya together with his friend, the lawyer Manuel Alonso Corral (1934-2011).

According to official Palmarian hagiography, Clemente had an ecstatic experience at the Alcaparrosa field on August 15, 1969, and one and a half months later, on September 30, he received his first vision, of Christ and the recently deceased Italian Capuchin Padre Pio. On December 8, he began receiving visions of Virgin Mary. Even if Clemente was the recipient of the heavenly communications, it was his friend Manuel Alonso, who recorded them on tape, transcribed them, and distributed them to pilgrims. It is clear that Clemente was the charismatic figure and the recipient of the heavenly messages, while Manuel was the organizer.

In various apparitions, the Virgin and Christ let him know that there was only one true mass, the Tridentine Latin rite. The novus ordo mass promulgated in 1969 was nothing less than blasphemy. The Tridentine Latin rite must therefore be reinstated. Other salient themes were that freemasons and communists had infiltrated the Roman Catholic Church at all levels. Nevertheless, according to Clemente, Pope Paul VI was free of guilt as he was drugged and held hostage.

During the early 1970s, Clemente Dominguez continued to receive new heavenly messages. They were recorded by Manuel Alonso, written down, copied and distributed. Some of them were translated into English, French and German as part of the diffusion of the news beyond Spain’s borders. To be able to make mission journeys and institutionalize the movement, funding was needed. According to testimonies, Manuel Alonso was a very good fund-raiser who convinced some very wealthy people to contribute large sums. The capital influx meant that Clemente and Manuel could travel widely on both sides of the Atlantic. Beginning in 1971, they went through Western Europe, to the United States and to various countries in Latin America to win people for the Palmarian cause.

Palmar de Troya belonged to the archdiocese of Seville and it soon became clear that the Palmarians could not count on any support from the archbishop, Cardinal José María Bueno Monreal, who wholeheartedly embraced the reforms of Vatican II and systematically implemented them. Thus, he was certainly no ideal partner for a group of traditionalists, who saw the Council as the main root of evil. For two years, however, Archbishop Bueno made no official statements about the events, buta steady stream of pilgrims kept coming to Palmar de Troya. It was reported that as many as 40,000 people were present on May 15, 1970. Three days after this all-time-high, Bueno published a document, where he briefly commented on the events. He did not mince matters when stating that they were signs of “collective and superstitious hysteria.” The gist of the archbishop Bueno’s statement on Palmar de Troya was reiterated in 1972. In a decree, he explicitly forbade all kinds of public worship at the Alcaparrosa field, ordering Roman Catholic priests not to be present, let alone celebrate any religious services there.

There is, however, clear evidence that individual Catholic priests were present at Palmar de Troya, both before and after the archbishop’s denunciations, and that Tridentine masses were celebrated regularly at the site from 1969 onwards. The clerical support group included both Spaniards and foreigners, who were critical of the post-conciliar developments. Still, the seers and leaders of the growing movement were laypeople in the early 1970s. Being successful in their fund raising endeavors, in 1974, Clemente and Manuel could acquire the apparition site and thus control the movement. After the purchase, they built a somewhat more elaborate shrine, initially a hangar-like construction.

In a vision to Clemente on November 30, 1975, the Virgin Mary and Christ announced the forthcoming foundation of a new religious order that would replace all the existing ones. The new Palmarian order, the Carmelites of the Holy Face, was indeed founded on December 22, 1975. It included four classes of members: priests, brothers, sisters and tertiaries. The Palmarians still lacked priests of their own, of course, and Archbishop Bueno of Seville would not ordain any for them. Nonetheless, it was imperative for the group to be able to claim apostolic succession.

The solution to the ordination problem came with Vietnamese Archbishop Pierre-Martin Ngô-dinh-Thuc (1897-1984). After one of the Vatican II sessions, he had been unable to return to his home country and therefore lived in Italy. Thuc was consecrated bishop in 1938 and became archbishop of Hue in 1960. While living in Europe, he was replaced in Hue and instead made titular archbishop of Bulla Regia. However, he actually served as an assistant pastor in a small Italian town, upset and bewildered by the changes in the post-conciliar church. Archbishop Thuc came to Palmar de Troya through the mediation of Maurice Revaz, who taught canon law at the traditionalist Society of Pius X’s seminary in Ecône. Revaz convinced Thuc that he was elected by the Virgin to save the Catholic Church from perdition. With short notice, the Vietnamese prelate therefore travelled to Seville and Palmar de Troya. On New Year’s night in 1976, he ordained Clemente Dominguez, Manuel Alonso, and two other men to the priesthood. The priestly ordinations, however, were just the prelude. Less than two weeks later, on January 11, 1976, Thuc consecrated five of the Palmarians, once again including Clemente and Manuel. With the episcopal consecrations, the Palmarians had secured their much sought-after apostolic succession and could start making bishops of their own.

While the local hierarchy had been slow to comment on the apparitions, their reaction to the ordinations and consecrations was immediate. Following the episcopal consecrations, Archbishop Bueno declared them irregular and all those involved to be suspended a divinis and thus barred from performing any clerical acts, while again denouncing the purported apparitions at Palmar de Troya. On January 15, the papal nuncio, Luigi Dadaglio, went to Seville where he declared the Palmarian bishops and Archbishop Thuc excommunicated from the time of the consecrations ( ipso facto ) in the absence of necessary licenses from the Holy See and the ordinary. In September 1976, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome declared the clerics suspended ipso iure (according to Canon Law), but made no clear statement about whether the consecrations were invalid or substantially valid though illicit.

By 1976, the Palmarians had already developed a quickly growing ecclesiastical hierarchy, and in less than two years they consecrated ninety-one bishops. Most of them were from Ireland and Spain, while others came from a number of countries in the Americas and Europe. The normal procedure in this period was that Clemente claimed to have received a private apparition from the Virgin or Christ, asking him to consecrate more bishops. In the messages, it was also clearly pointed out who should be made bishops. An effect of this modus operandi was that males who entered as friars in the Carmelites of the Holy Face could become bishops within months, weeks, or even days. A small minority of the consecrated Palmarian bishops were or had been Roman Catholic priests, others had attended seminary, while most were young laymen. At this time, the Palmarians did not consider themselves a separate church but as among the few true adherents of the Roman Catholic Church.

By the beginning of the 1970s, Clemente Domínguez already claimed that Pope Paul VI would be succeeded by both a true pope and an antipope. In 1976, the messages became even more concrete, and it was implied that there would be a time when the Catholic Church would not be Roman anymore. As for the status of Pope Paul VI, the Palmarian stories changed over time. Some claimed that he was drugged or held a prisoner and was replaced by an actor. At the same time, it was claimed that Paul VI would soon arrive there in person to lead his faithful episcopal college, thus escaping the curia of Rome.

Pope Paul VI died on August 6, 1978. At that time, Clemente was in Bogotá together with a group of bishops. Just hours after thedemise of Paul VI, Clemente claimed to have become pope by direct divine intervention, taking the name Gregory XVII. Having returned to Seville, on August 9, he proclaimed that the Holy See had moved from Rome to Palmar de Troya. The Roman era of the church was over and the Holy Catholic Apostolic Palmarian Church was established.

Palmarian church activities were in no way restricted to Spain. In the early 1980s, there were missionary bishops in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Great Britain, Nigeria but also in the United States, Canada and in various countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, particularly Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Chile and Colombia. In Oceania, there were communities in Australia and New Zealand. Some of these places had separate chapels and resident clergy. In most locations, however, Palmarians formed so-called cenacles in private homes, and were visited by clergy on an infrequent basis. It is hard to estimate the membership in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but it must have amounted to a few thousand.

No official documents show the overall member changes in the Palmarian Church. Still, for bishops, there are internal data that give a clear indication. Overall, 192 men were consecrated Palmarian bishops between 1976 and the death of Gregory XVII in 2005. During these three decades, no less than 133 have either left the order or been expelled, twenty-seven died in office, and only thirty-two bishops remained as of 2005. The female branch of the order, which at its height included more than a hundred nuns, was probably down to thirty or forty by 2005, and the decline has continued. During the Palmarian church’s existence, many bishops, priests, nuns and lay people have left the church voluntarily or been excommunicated, while new people have entered. Still, except for at the very beginning, most new members were children of Palmarian couples and not people coming from outside.

The late 1990s and early 2000s was a very turbulent time in the church, filled with secessions and expulsions. The crisis had to do not only with the new teachings of the church, but also with the behavior of the pope and other leaders. The pope’s morals became an apple of discord. In 1997, Gregory XVII apparently made a public statement, confessing that he had had sinned against the vow of chastity during his time as the leader of the order. On the same occasion, he also confessed to immoderate drinking and eating habits. In a sermon three years later, the pope made clear reference to his earlier aberrant behavior, but claimed that he had mended his ways.

The five-volume Sacred History or the Palmarian Bible, printed in 2001, became another very serious point of discord. It was a thorough and very detailed reworking of the biblical books based on the continuous private revelations to Gregory XVII. The goal of the revision was to establish the true meaning of the texts, exactly as the divine author had conceived them. When the new Bible was made public, the faithful were ordered to destroy their traditional Bibles and only read the Palmarian version. Criticism against this development led to further secessions and excommunications.

Interestingly enough, at the time of the secessions and expulsions, by the turn of the millennium there was one feature of papal religious behavior that changed. Not since the Palmarian Council was inaugurated in 1980, when teaching had become more formalized and institutionalized, had Gregory XVII fallen into public ecstasy, receiving heavenly messages before the eyes of the faithful. Still, it happened again after 2000.

These public ecstasies were certainly a way to present evidence for that Christ and the Virgin was on Gregory’s side, thus defending his papal authority. According to the pope, the faithful members of the visible church under his absolute rule were about to enter the Ark of salvation, whose doors soon would be closed. In his view, the church militant is minuscule, but it consists of the only people that obey the divine (and papal) will.

Holy Week in 2005 was a crucial time in the history of the Palmarian Church, as Gregory XVII died on March 21. At his death, there was no conclave as he had already named Father Isidoro María (Manuel Alonso) his successor. The latter was crowned on March 24, taking Peter II as his papal name. In his first apostolic letters, the new pope defended his position as the true successor of Gregory XVII the Very Great, who was immediately canonized. Peter II never claimed to receive any private apparitions and mainly looked upon himself as the defender of the Palmarian teachings.

Under Peter II, the Palmarian church became more closed and exclusive than ever before, even if it was a matter of degree and not of kind. Messages about the necessity to break with the surrounding world and live according to strict Palmarian norms have been present in every apostolic letter. On a number of occasions, Peter II reiterated the idea that the Palmarian Church is the only hope in a world totally dominated by Satan. Not only the “apostates,” but also lukewarm members were accused of destroying the church from within. During the papacy of Peter II, the number of detailed regulations increased considerably, and many of the older ones have become even stricter. Many have to do with clothing. There are many other rules that distinguish Palmarians from what they see as the total moral depravity of the surrounding world. Church members are not allowed to vote in general elections or enter the church buildings of other denominations. They are also forbidden to attend baptisms, weddings or funerals of non-Palmarians, including close relatives. Even more far-reaching is the general ban against talking to people not dressed in the Palmarian way, or non-Palmarians at large. Members must destroy their television sets, videos, mobile telephones and computers in order not to be infected by the “repugnant moral leprosy rampant in the world,” as the pope phrased it.

It has always been difficult to know exactly how the Palmarians have been able to assemble such substantial funds despite being arather small organization. During the 1970s, 1980s and to some extent into the 1990s, the Palmarian church was very wealthy due to substantial, more or less voluntary, donations from members and benefactors. People paid part of their salary to the church, and it became the beneficiary in last wills and testaments. With the money, the leaders acquired about ten buildings in the city- center of Seville, which served as headquarters and convents. They also were able to build the enormous church at the apparition site, the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Crowned Virgin of El Palmar, which is one of the largest temples constructed in twentieth-century Spain. Together the sumptuous religious paraphernalia kept within the Basilica, its cost is at least 100,000,000 Euros, and probably much more. Due to decreasing incomes in the late 1990s, the Palmarians sold their remaining buildings in Seville in 2003. At that time, the clergy left for Palmar de Troya, where the order had bought some twenty houses in the 1970s. New buildings were constructed on the cathedral compound. Palmar de Troya thus became the residential center of the church, not only the spiritual.

After six years in office, Peter II died on July 15, 2011. His successor was Bishop Sergio María, the former military officer Ginés Jesús Hernández Martínez (b. 1959). He was publically named Peter II’s successor on March 3, 2011. The new Palmarian pope was crowned on July 17, taking the name Gregory XVIII. Shortly after the coronation, the new pope convened a new Palmarian Council to begin in January 2012. During the pontificate of Gregory XVIII , the Palmarian economy seems to have improved considerably. After a decade-long long standstill, the work on the cathedral speeded up, and by 2014, the construction work that began in 1978 was finished.

On April 22, 2016, Gregory XVIII suddenly left the papacy and the Palmarian church. He did not make any statement to the community or the church members at large but just left a note, stating that he had lost faith. He went to live with a woman, Nieves Triviño, a former Palmarian nun, with whom he had had an affair for some time. On April 23, 2016, Gregory’s Secretary of State, Swiss Bishop Eliseo María‒Markus Josef Odermatt‒became pope under the name Peter III. In his first pastoral letters to the Palmarian faithful, Peter III declared the ex-pope an “apostate” and a “cursed beast,” who had tried to destroy the entire church. He described Gregory’s pontificate as tyranny. Peter III also accused Hernández of stealing money, jewelry, and a luxurious BMW (the “pope-mobile”).

Between April and June 2016, Ginés Hernández gave several interviews with Spanish media, in which he declared that the Palmarian Church was an elaborate hoax, built on lies, but that he had only recently realized it. However, he gave no indications about what kind of information he had encountered. In September 2016, Hernández and Triviño married. Just before the wedding, the posed semi-nude for a Spanish men’s magazine.

On June 10, 2018, Ginés Hernández and Nieves Triviño climbed over the high wall that surrounds the church compound at Palmar de Troya. Their faces were covered, and they were armed with at least one knife. They also carried equipment that could be used to open doors and locks. It was the Mass hour, and the friars, nuns and lay people were inside the cathedral. However, they were discovered by a Palmarian bishop. Then Hernández attacked, or at least threatened, the bishop with a knife, and in the subsequent tumult, all three were injured. While the bishop and Triviño received minor damages, Hernández was stabbed in the chest. For some time his condition was critical. However, a few days later both Hernández and Triviño were arrested for “armed robbery with aggravating circumstances,” and after court hearings both were brought to prison, awaiting trial.

Today (2018), the number of Palmarian church members remains low, probably somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500. Most of them live in Spain, Ireland, and Nigeria, but there are small Palmarian communities in many other places too, including the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and several countries in Latin America. By mid-2016, Pope Peter III informed the faithful that the Palmarian religious community included thirty-two friars (bishops), of whom just seven had taken their vows in the last two decades. The nuns counted forty, but only a tenth of them had joined in the last twenty years and that their average age was almost sixty years. Though no exact data are available, by 2018 the number of friars and nuns had decreased somewhat, mainly due to deaths and lack of new vocations. In short, the Palmarian Church experiences a membership crisis.

RITUALS/PRACTICES

Just as the Roman Catholic Church, the Palmarians hold that Christ instituted seven sacraments. Nevertheless, they also teach that in this end-time the election to the papacy is an eighth, invisible sacrament, directly conferred by Christ. One original aspect of that Palmarian sacramental theology is that the Virgin “enthrones” a drop of her blood into the faithful at baptism or conversion. This drop can be strengthened, diminished or disappear altogether according to the moral status of the individual. The sacraments also “enthrone” and strengthen a piece of Christ’s heart in the faithful.

Baptism is the door to the church and the other sacraments, and children should preferably be baptized within eight days of their birth. Through baptism, the child (or adult) receives Mary’s blood drop, which takes away original sin. The Palmarian baptism has an undeletable character, but the strength of the blood drop can be weakened. The sacrament of confirmation should ideally be administered very shortly after baptism. It strengthens the blood drop and makes the individual stronger in his or her fight against Satan. If a person commits a cardinal sin, the blood drop of Mary disappears. Confession is the way to re-enter the state of grace.

The eucharist is arguably the most important sacrament for the Palmarians. In his first papal decrees in 1978, Pope Gregory XVII declared that the only rite that should be used was the Tridentine mass of Pius V, promulgated in 1570. Shortly thereafter, however, he introduced several new elements, and on October 9, 1983, the pope instituted a new, much briefer Palmarian mass order, which is concentrated to offertory, consecration and sacrificial communion taken by the priest. Briefly, every cleric should read several masses a day; in fact, they read turns of masses and not individual masses. According to Palmarian doctrine, the body, soul and blood of Christ and Mary are present in the consecrated bread and wine. Communion should only be taken on the tongue and the recipient must be kneeling when receiving the sacrament.

The fifth sacrament of the church, the last unction, strengthens the faithful’s relationship with Christ and Mary, and increases the Virgin’s blood drop. In the Palmarian church, there are three degrees of clerical ordination: deacon, priest and bishop. At ordination, the priest becomes inhabited by the soul of Christ, seen in the form of a radiant cross. The seventh Palmarian sacrament is marriage. Its main reason is to give children, new members, to the church. Still, virginity is the preferred state.

Through the years, the Palmarian church has canonized a very large number of people. Just in the period between 1978 and 1980, some 1,400 named individuals were declared saints by Gregory XVII. The saints are of many kinds. They came from many different parts of the world and died between the eleventh century and the mid-1970s. Still, the large majority were Spanish. One important category of Palmarian saints is bishops, priests and nuns killed during the Spanish Civil War. Among the saints canonized in 1978 was also the recently deceased Spanish leader Francisco Franco, but other twentieth-century right-wing politicians such as the Fascist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera also were elevated to the altars. English martyrs, killed during the sixteenth and seventeenth-century persecutions of Catholics, constitutes another sizeable group, as do missionaries who died as martyrs in China and Indochina. Gregory XVII also canonized an “innumerable” group of Irish martyrs, killed because of their Catholic faith.

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

At its foundation in 1978, the Palmarian church, officially known as Santa Iglesia Católica Apostólica y Palmariana and Orden Religiosa de los Carmelitas de la Santa Faz en Compañía de Jesús y María, already had a developed, top-heavy organizational structure, headed by the pope. The pope has absolute power in the church. He is the High Priest, the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of St. Peter. He is infallible when proclaiming doctrine and has the supreme spiritual and temporal authority in the universe. Still, it is evident that the first Palmarian pope, Gregory XVII and Manuel Alonso (Father Isidoro María) were close collaborators. Clemente/Gregory was the “voice-box” of heaven and charismatic leader, while Manuel/Isidoro María was the eminent grise through whom all messages passed.

From 1976 onwards, the Palmarians consecrated a large number of bishops. Palmarian priests existed, but they were clearly outnumbered by bishops. At the foundation of the church in 1978, most of the bishops were made cardinals, who were members of a curia, led by Secretary of State, Father Isidoro María. Number three in the hierarchy was the Vice-secretary of State Father Elias María , who would remain so until his death in 1997. A fourth influential leader was Father Leandro, Camilo Estévez Puga, who died in 1999. In 1987, Pope Gregory announced that since 1978 he had elevated ninety-eight bishops to the cardinalate. Of the bishop-cardinals, some were vicars generally in charge of liturgy, cult, vocations, missions, propagation of faith and the Inquisition, and some were elected archbishops, patriarchs or archpatriarchs. Nevertheless, in 1995, Gregory XVII suppressed the cardinalate, and in the year 2000 he appointed Father Isidoro María as his successor. After Gregory’s death in 2005, he became pope, taking the name Peter II. During Peter II’s pontificate, Father Sergio María was the Secretary of State and was chosen as his successor. At Peter’s death in 2011, he succeeded him as pope and took Gregory XVIII as his papal name. In April 2016, Gregory XVII left the papacy and the Palmarian Church. He was then succeeded by his Secretary of State, Bishop Eliseo María, who became Pope Peter III.

In the early years, there were about a hundred nuns in the Carmelite Order of the Holy Face, who lived a life in strict enclosure. They were led by a mother superior, seen as the co-General of the Order. The available sources say little about their role.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Spanish newspapers published a series of testimonies by former bishops of the Palmarian church. Being able to provide an inside perspective, ex-members told about a very strict life based on blind obedience to superiors. Of course, the pope and his closest men were on the top, followed by other cardinals. The highest leaders led quite a luxurious life, eating and living well. The ordinary bishops, priests and, in particular the non-ordained brothers, lived in frugal circumstances. The days followed a strict and repetitive plan, and the members of the order were constantly controlled, deprived of sleep and were given too little to eat. Psychological and physical abuse was common.

Though clerics did not wake until 8:30 in the morning, their activities often continued until very late at night. After attending mass and having a light breakfast, the friars went in line from their convent to the headquarters in Seville, where there was a roll call and where public criticism against individual friar also had a part. Thereafter, classes of liturgy and Spanish began as most of the members were foreigners. In the late afternoon, all nuns and clerics, but generally not the pope, left for Palmar de Troya. There were new masses and pious practices, such as praying the penitential rosary and meditating over the Stations of the Cross. They generally returned to Seville after midnight, but they often continued their prayers in the city for several hours. Thereafter the friars got a few hours’ sleep until the next day begun.

Although the Palmarian edifices in Seville looked quite elegant from the outside and were centrally located, the ordinary clerics and nuns lived in rundown rooms. Different kinds of illness, both of a physical and psychological nature, were common. On a frequent basis, the friars had to move from one building to another in the middle of the night, according to the contents of the pope’s visions. In 1981, however, these kinds of apparitions disappeared, and their living quarters became more stable.

In later years, there are many testimonies from ex-Palmarians who have left the church, often as teenagers. As “apostates,” they are not allowed to have any contact with any family members who remain in the church. Total shunning is the norm.

Despite its general condemnation of the outside world, the Palmarian church wanted to become and officially recognized religious group. Following the promulgation of the 1980 Spanish law on religious freedom, in 1981 and several times later, the Palmarians applied for inscription into the official Spanish register of religious associations. However, they were repeatedly denied inscription by the Ministry of Justice, among other reasons because the term “Catholic” was controlled by the Roman Catholic Church. In later applications, they therefore introduced a new official name, Iglesia Cristiana Palmariana de los Carmelitas de la Santa Faz. In the official context, then, the church did not use the label “Catholic” but rather “Christian”.

In 1985, the Palmarians appealed against the Ministry’s decisions to the Spanish Supreme Court. At first, the Court ruled against them. However, on November 2, 1987, the Court decided that the Palmarian church could indeed be included in the register, as they met all the formal requirements for a religious association. This decision was followed by much criticism in the Spanish media and from some researchers, who looked upon the Palmarians as a dangerous sect and a suspect business organization, most of all interested in the collecting riches.

Though Clemente Domínguez and the group around him physically took over the apparition site in 1974 and dominated the rapid development from a movement into a church of its own, most other seers clearly distanced themselves from them, not wanting another pope and a new church. Today, one can see a white cross with a picture of Pope Francis just outside the high walls of the Palmarian church compound. It is the Cruz Blanca: the gathering site for the seers who do not belong to the Palmarian church and their supporters. According to the group’s own data, about a dozen people meet there every weekday to pray the rosary. On weekends, there can by forty persons present. At Easter, however, as many as a couple of hundred gather at the site, including pilgrims from abroad.

According to the group’s website, the number of apparitions at the Cruz Blanca and in their chapel, Santuario del Corazón de María, through the decades are estimated at about 10,000 to date. At the beginning, several of the old seers claimed to receive heavenly communications by the Cruz Blanca, including Pepe Cayetano and Manuel Fernández, but in later years, only Rosario Arenillas claims to receive messages. Until his death in 2005, the group was led by Félix Arana, a former Roman Catholic priest, who in 1976 was consecrated a Palmarian bishop. However, he only maintained membership for a few months and then opposed the movement as it had developed. Arana served as the Cruz Blanca’s spiritual leader. He recorded the messages of the seers, and transcribed, published and interpreted them. He also celebrated the Tridentine mass in the chapel on a daily basis.

Christ and the Virgin are those who most frequently have appeared to the seers by the Cruz Blanca, followed by St. Joseph and Padre Pio. The messages often have a clear apocalyptic component. They are very critical of the modern Roman Catholic Church, claiming that it has been almost destroyed after Vatican II and that most priests and bishops are heretics. However, the pope is not to be blamed, as his messages are falsified by the curia. The Cruz Blanca thus claims that Pope John Paul II and his successors are true popes, but that they suffer immensely because of their fidelity. They assert that the Holy See will be overtaken by Antichrist, and that great wars and catastrophes will precede the Second Coming of Christ. In this situation, the faithful’s role is to pray for the pontiff and the church, so that the end of the world is averted. The Cruz Blanca group’s only relation to the Palmarian church, referred to by them, as “the sect of Clemente” is that they pray for their return to the Roman Catholic Church. Still, as can be seen, the contents of the messages at the Cruz Blanca are similar to the ones that Clemente received during the first half of the 1970s.

An important step in the history of the Palmarian church was taken on November 7, 2000, when Gregory XVII expelled no fewer than eighteen bishops and seven nuns, accusing them of heresy and of planning to overthrow the pope. Some of the excommunicated started an independent Palmarian community in Archidona, Andalusia, and others would follow them later. Although, they still regarded early apparitions to Clemente as verified and believed that Gregory XVII indeed had been the true pope, with the publication of the Palmarian Bible, or even from the mid-1990s, they had come to regard him as an insane heretic who had lost his papal authority. The dissenter group was very critical of the fact that Pope Gregory had suppressed the cardinalate in 1995. Further dissenters opposed his decision in 2000 to choose Father Isidoro María as his successor, taking away the possibility of a conclave. As Gregory (and Isidoro María) were regarded as manifest heretics, the group in Archidona believed the Holy See to be vacant.

*A comprehensive profile of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Palmarian Church, which contains in-line references and a complete set of references, is available in the Articles/Papers section of WRSP along with the book manuscript, A Pope of Their Own: El Palmar de Troya and the Palmarian Church.

Post Date:
28 September 2015

THE LADY OF ALL NATIONS TIMELINE

1945 (March 25):  Thirty nine year old Ida Peerdeman experienced an apparition of a woman in her home in Amsterdam, and identified her as the Virgin Mary. This was to be the first vision in a series in three phases continuing up until 1959.

1950 (November 1):  Pope Pius XII solemnly declared the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.

1950 (November 16):  Ida understood that she was to call Mary the “Lady of All Nations.” This was the beginning of the second phase of apparitions.

1951 (February 11):  A new prayer was revealed to Ida by the Lady.

1951 (4 March):  Ida saw a new image of the Lady, which she was to have distributed.

1951 (May 31) :  Ida received the new dogma: Mary, the Lady, wished to be defined by the pope as “Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate.”

1954 (May 31):  The beginning of the third phase of apparitions.

1956 (May 7):  Bishop Huibers of Haarlem confirmed the prohibition on public devotion to the apparitions, and announced that the diocesan investigation into the apparitions concluded that they could not be established as having a supernatural origin.

1957 (March 13):  The Holy Office at the Vatican confirmed the Bishop’s position.

1959 (May 31):  The formal period of the series of apparitions experienced by Ida Peerdeman ended.

1966 (February 19):  The first major conference in Paris on the Amsterdam apparitions was held.

1973 (29 January):  The second diocesan commission under Bishop Zwartkruis reached no new conclusions about the supernatural status of the apparitions, yet it did recommend that public devotion could be allowed.

1973 (June 12):  The start of phenomena including a bleeding and weeping statue and apparitions in Akita, Japan, based upon a statue of the Lady of All Nations.

1974 (May):  The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith advised the diocese to keep to the disciplinary measure of 1956, and thus public devotion remained prohibited.

1979 (December):  The Lady of All Peoples Foundation bought a property for Ida in Diepenbrockstraat, Amsterdam, the present site of the chapel.

1984 (April 22):  Bishop Ito of Niigata, Japan, recognised the supernatural character of the Akita phenomena.

1993:  Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici was founded to promote the cause for the dogma.

1995:  A congregation of young nuns, the Family of Mary Co-Redemptrix, was founded. They became the custodians of the chapel.

1996 (May 31):  Public devotion was finally approved by Bishop Bomers. There was no statement about the authenticity of the apparition themselves.

1996 (June 17):  Ida Peerdeman, aged 90, died in Amsterdam.

1997 (May 31):  The first annual International Day of Prayer in honour of the Lady of All Nations was held in Amsterdam.

2002 (May 31):  Bishop Punt declared that the apparitions were considered to be of supernatural origin (constat de supernaturalite).

2004 (June 30):  President Gloria Arroyo, at her inauguration, placed the Philippines under the protection of the Lady of All Nations.

2005:  The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asked that the words in the Amsterdam prayer “who once was Mary” be replaced by “the Blessed Virgin Mary” to avoid misunderstanding.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

Ida Peerdeman (born in Alkmaar on August 13, 1905 as Isje Johanna Peerdeman, the youngest of five children) was a remarkable woman who launched a global movement of campaign for the dogma of Mary as Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate. [Image at right] While the classic popular understanding of visions is that the visionary is a passive medium for the communication of divine revelation, nevertheless official Catholic teaching concurs with anthropological models in attributing the content of visions to the creative and interpretive faculties of the seer herself, even where they are considered to have originated in a divine initiative (for Catholic theology on the subject, see the summary by the future Pope Benedict XVI in Bertone and Ratzinger, the Message of Fatima, 2000, and Karl Rahner, Visions and Prophecies, 1963). While the Marian titles in the proposed dogma and aspects of the prayer and image go back much further in tradition than Ida’s lifetime, no one else has stated them in this combination which has had so much impact. Thus it can be claimed that Ida Peerdeman is an important contributor to the development of twentieth century Catholic Marian devotion.

She stands in a widespread European Catholic tradition of the wise woman/seer/mystic, suffering for the sins of society. The women of this type (usually older women and frequently [but not always] unmarried like Ida) are often regarded with some ambivalence by the all-male Church priestly hierarchy, but in their locality, they elicit interest, respect and devotion. They have visions and dreams; they claim to see souls in purgatory; they make prophecies about historical developments. In the 1930s, several German Catholic women seers foresaw the downfall of Hitler, and suffered the displeasure of the Gestapo in doing so. Some of Ida’s contemporaries, like Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth, Bavaria (1898-1962), Léonie van den Dijck of Onkerzele, Belgium (1875-1949), and Grete Ganseforth of Heede, Lower Saxony (1926-1996) were stigmatics. Ida did not display the visible signs of stigmata in terms of wounds or the flow of blood but she did claim to suffer the agonies of the Cross. She was highly sensitive; the short biography by Fr Sigl on the Lady of All Nations Foundation website indicates that Ida sometimes believed herself to be under demonic attack. The visions of 1945 were not the first supernatural experiences in her life; Ida claimed to have had an apparition of Mary on the same day as the miracle of Fátima (October 13, 1917), when she was only twelve.

The Amsterdam image in which Mary is depicted as standing in front of the Cross, with Christ’s loincloth as a girdle and suffering with him the sins of humanity, illustrates in a powerfully symbolic form the role of women as sufferers in the drama of redemption. Many women in Catholic Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw themselves in this way, especially mystics and visionaries (the scholarly literature on this phenomenon includes Richard Burton, Holy Tears, Holy Blood, 2004). Mary as co-sufferer with Christ aptly represents these women experiencing the pains of the Passion on a psychological level in their “hearts.”

Ida’s first apparition of Mary in the series occurred at her home in Amsterdam on March 25, 1945, with her three sisters and her spiritual director, a Dominican named Fr Frehe, in attendance. The date was close to the six hundredth anniversary of the “Eucharistic Miracle of Amsterdam” (March 13, 1345), still honoured by Catholics in the city. Ida thought that the figure in her vision was the Virgin Mary and asked her whether this was true. The woman affirmed this and answered, “They will call me ‘The Lady’, ‘Mother’” (the apparitions and messages are recounted in detail in The Messages of the Lady of All Nations, published by The Lady of All Nations Foundation, Amsterdam). The Lady gave the first prophecy of several that supporters claim to have been fulfilled: the revelation of the date of the liberation of the Netherlands (May 5, 1945).

The dates March 25, 1945 – August 15, 1950 comprise the first phase of apparitions, twenty three in all. Ida’s visionary messages during this period included themes such as the importance of the Cross and humanity’s rejection of it; the lack of love, truth and righteousness in the world; future disasters; exhortations to the Vatican to lead the world in dark times; the need for the Church to modernise and train priests for this task; calls to certain nations (especially England, Italy and Germany) to proclaim the Christian truth; concern about communism and the Soviet Union (following the tradition of the messages of Fátima in Portugal).

The second phase of apparitions, twenty six altogether, occurred between November 16, 1950 and April 4, 1954. On November 16, 1950, the title of the woman was revealed to Ida as “The Lady of All Nations” (De Vrouwe van alle Volkeren). This followed on from the concern in previous messages for the nations of the world. During 1951, the other central concepts of the apparitions took shape, the widespread publication of which Ida stated that the Lady required. Firstly, there was a prayer, in these words: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, send now your Spirit over the Earth; Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations, that they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war. May the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary, be our advocate; Amen.” The idea of the Holy Spirit renewing the nations of the world and bringing peace was as important to Ida in her messages as the presence of the Lady.

Secondly, there was to be a new image of Mary, the Lady. In it, she stands in front of the Cross upon the globe of the Earth withrays emanating from her hands. [Image at right] This resonates strongly with traditional Marian motifs, particularly those associated with the Immaculate Conception. The globe is surrounded by black and white sheep, symbolising the peoples of the world. The image was soon afterwards given form in a commissioned painting by the German Heinrich Repke; this still hangs in Amsterdam and many copies have been made, including small prints on cards bearing the prayer.

Thirdly, Ida announced a new Marian dogma that the Lady asked the Church to define. This would be the fifth and last Marian dogma (following the first four: Mother of God/Theotokos; Ever Virgin; Immaculate Conception; Assumption), but the Lady foresaw that this would be contested in the Church. It would define Mary as Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate. This related to Mary suffering with the Son at the Cross.

Between May 31, 1954 and May 31, 1959, the third phase of the apparitions settled into a pattern with an annual apparition on May 31, which became the day associated with The Lady of All Nations (later that year this date was designated as the feast of the Queenship of Mary by Pius XII, but since 1969, it has been allocated to the feast of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth). There were just seven apparitions in this phase; in addition to those on May 31 each year, there was another on Ash Wednesday, February 19, 1959, predicting the death of Pope Pius XII (he died in October). In this third phase, there was an emphasis on the Eucharist, reflecting Ida’s powerful experiences during the Mass. May 31, 1959 saw the end of the formal period of the apparitions. Nevertheless, up until the 1980s, Ida recorded occasional further experiences and messages.

In the wake of public interest, the Bishop of Haarlem, Johannes Huibers, initiated a diocesan commission in the 1950s and prohibited public devotion. In 1956, he disclosed the findings of the investigation as non constat de supernaturalite, i.e. that the evidence did not necessitate a supernatural explanation for the apparitions. The Holy Office of the Vatican confirmed their support for this decision in 1957. A second commission in the 1970s came to the same conclusion, again with the support of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which replaced the Holy Office in 1965). However, this decision did leave open the possibility of future approval.

Despite the diocese’s reluctance to support or approve Ida’s apparitions, she steadily gained followers. While Peter Jan Margry (in the edited collection Moved by Mary, 2009) describes how the devotion was weak in the 1950s and relied on a small group to survive, he also shows how the international network of the Lady of All Nations took root, starting with a member of the wealthy Dutch Brenninckmeijer family helping to fund the movement and providing premises. On February 19, 1966, Marian author Raoul Auclair set up a conference in Paris on the Amsterdam apparitions, which encouraged the global promulgation of the prayer revealed by Ida in 1951. This led to the support of several bishops for the prayer, giving their imprimatur, i.e. permission for the prayer to be used in Catholic dioceses. The devotion to the Lady of All Nations spread on an international scale. In Akita, Japan, a nun, Sister Agnes Sasagawa, began to report experiences which focused on a wooden statue of the Lady of All Nations. This statue was said to have bled from July 6, 1973 until September 29, and then wept for six years from 1975 to 1981. Sister Agnes received messages, and her experiences were authenticated by the local bishop in 1984. This is an indication of the strong support for the Lady of All Nations movement in East Asia, where devotion is especially strong in the Philippines, the country with the most derivative shrines. The extent of the global popularity of the movement of the Lady of All Nations is demonstrated by the fact that, on June 30, 2004 Gloria Arroyo, at her inauguration as president, placed the Philippines under the protection of the Lady of All Nations.

In December 1979, The Lady of All Nations Foundation bought a property in Diepenbrockstraat, Amsterdam; there Ida was housed and a chapel was built that became the focal centre of the apparition cultus. The 1990s saw renewed growth in the movement. The Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici, a global movement dedicated to the promotion of the dogma, was founded in 1993. Its most prominent spokesman has been Deacon Professor Mark Miravalle of the Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio, a prolific writer on Mariology and other Christian topics. The Vox Populi has petitioned the Vatican with millions of signatures, which include those of many cardinals and bishops. Then a congregation of young nuns from Austria was founded in 1995 with the title Family of Mary Co-Redemptrix, under the leadership of supporter Fr Paul Maria Sigl. They based themselves in Ida Peerdeman’s house in Diepenbrockstraat as custodians of the shrine. On May 31, 1997, the first annual International Day of Prayer in honour of the Lady of All Nations was held in Amsterdam (and subsequently, in other locations and throughout the year). These are large gatherings which attract several thousand attendees.

On May 31, 1996, as Ida was dying, public devotion was finally approved by Bishop Hendrik Bomers, encouraged by the suffragan bishop Jozef Punt (apparently despite the reservations of the Dutch Bishops’ Conference). The decision meant that the cultus of the Lady of All Nations was now official. Six years later, on May 31, 2002, Bishop Punt, on the strength of a personal investigation of the original documents and consulting a new commission, declared that the apparitions were considered to be of supernatural origin (constat de supernaturalite). However, he also restated the Church caveats on apparitions, i.e. that (1) the visionary’s subjective faculties play their part in the phenomenon, so that the supernatural origin of the apparition messages and images cannot be confirmed in every detail, and (2) Catholics are not constrained to believe in apparitions even when they are approved by the Church.

DOCTRINES/BELIEFS

Ida has brought together familiar ideas in the Catholic Marian tradition during a time in which a very large sub-community of Catholics has become ever more receptive to them. This includes those who wish to re-invigorate Marian devotion because it seems to have declined since the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Apparitions have reinforced the importance of Mary at a time when Mariology seems to have been circumscribed within a greater emphasis on Christocentricity in the Church’s doctrine and liturgy. The impact of this change of direction has been felt more at a local rather than universal level: the papacy has not wavered in its promotion of devotion to Mary as Mother of God, but parish devotions such as processions, the rosary, and attendance at small Marian chapels have declined, in Europe and North America, at least.

The proposed fifth Marian dogma includes three components: Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate.

Co-Redemptrix. The classic formulation of this doctrine was articulated by Edward Schillebeeck in Mary, Mother of the Redemption (1964). Redemption is achieved objectively by Christ’s incarnation and death on the Cross. The believer co-operates in her or his redemption on the subjective level by her or his faith and participation in the sacramental life of the Church. Whilst Mary is also a believer, receiving through grace like others the fruits of redemption, she is unlike other believers in that her co-operation was necessary for the incarnation to take place: she is the Mother of God who bore Christ, having assented to this at the Annunciation. Therefore, she is a participant not only subjectively in her own redemption, but also objectively in the redemption of everyone else.

In 1993, Mark Miravalle wrote Mary: Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate promoting the dogmatic definition initiated in Ida’s visions. There Miravalle accepts that the title “Co-Redemptrix” is not found in that explicit form until the fourteenth century. However, he also argues that much earlier texts, including the New Testament and the writings of the second century apologists Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, implied belief in this title through their description of Mary’s actions and their significance. For example, Mary is the one who replies “let it be according to your word” to the message of the archangel announcing Christ’s birth, and Mary is the “new Eve” who, together with Christ as the new Adam, undoes the knot of sin with which Adam and Eve have bound humanity. Mary also suffers with Christ at the cross: Hilda Graef’s compendium, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Belief (latest edition published in 2009), traces the explicit idea of Mary as a co-sufferer with Christ on behalf of humanity back to Byzantine theologians such as John the Geometer (d. c 990).

Mediatrix. This term can be understood on two levels. Firstly, at the more general level, any Christian can be referred to as a mediator or mediatrix if they act as agents in the coming to faith of others, for example through praying for them, showing them the truth of the gospel through instruction, or in practical ways that provide a Christian example. Karl Rahner, in his Mary, the Mother of the Lord (1974) shows that, while Mary is a supreme example of the Christian faith, the first to believe, what can be said of her can be attributed to all members of the Church. In this sense, Mary is a mediatrix like all Christians, i.e. an agent in the redemption of others, but not the source of that redemption.

However, secondly and in a unique category, Mary has been called the “Mediatrix of All Graces.” The Amsterdam proposal refers to this sense of “mediatrix” rather than the general one. This title places her in a different category to other believers and relates to the idea of Mary as the only person apart from Christ to participate actively in objective redemption. All graces from God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) come to the believer through her. Graef traces this teaching back to the seventh century (Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem), but it is most explicitly stated by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). He saw Mary as the neck of the Body of Christ, through whom graces flowed from Christ as Head to the rest of the body. In his terms, she was the “Mediatrix with the Mediator.”

After the definition of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX in 1854, other Marian teachings were considered as possible candidates for successive definitions, including the Assumption, eventually defined in 1950 by Pius XII. A campaign to define Mary as “Mediatrix of All Graces” began in 1896, encouraged by the references to Mary’s mediation in the writings of Leo XIII. Its history is recounted in Gloria Falcão Dodd’s The Virgin Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace (2012) . A Belgian Jesuit, René-Marie de la Bloise, proposed the idea and Belgian bishops, led by Cardinal Mercier, took the movement forward as it grew in the early twentieth century. The movement waned after the First World War, but it would be fair to suggest that Ida’s request for a new Marian dogma is the natural successor to the original movement with its basis in a neighbouring country.

Advocate. Stephen Shoemaker’s book, Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion, shows that belief in Mary as an intercessor was established by the fourth century. In medieval Europe, Mary’s power to intercede on behalf of individuals, sometimes against the due process of divine justice against sinners, was celebrated in popular stories of miracles and many murals in churches. The idea of Mary’s intercession is central to the most well-known Marian prayers still important in devotion today, the Ave Maria and Salve Regina. The idea that Mary is an advocate for human beings before God is ancient, common and uncontroversial in the Catholic tradition.

The Vatican II constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (chapter 8 on Mary), refers to Mary as “Mediatrix” and “Advocate” but not “Co-Redemptrix.” It is also careful to put the first two titles in the context of the scriptural statement that Christ is the one mediator between God and humanity. The term “Co-Redemptrix,” although it has a long history in the Catholic tradition, could be considered to be more likely than the others to compromise this principle. Since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has been concerned to develop ecumenical ties, firstly with the Orthodox, then with other episcopal churches such as the Lutherans and Anglicans, then all Christian denominations, and finally other religions. Any dogmatic definition that appeared to exalt Mary would have been considered unwise. No pope since Pius XII, not even that most Marian of popes, John Paul II, has been persuaded to do add to the list of Marian dogmas. The movement for the dogmatic definition of Mary as Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate is therefore swimming against the tide, but it is nevertheless a very large movement including senior clergy that has articulated its ideas clearly on theological and historical grounds, particularly through the organisation Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici. Therefore, if any further dogmatic definition of Mariology is possible, it would be this one.

It should be noted that Ida Peerdeman was never an opponent of Vatican II. On the contrary, she claimed to have foreseen it and some of her early messages call for a reforming of the Church to make it fitter for the task of leading the nations back to the Cross in a time of extreme danger for the world. Later on, she became nervous about the possibility of internal challenges to the centrality of the Eucharist, clerical celibacy, and some of the fundamentals of Church teaching. Nevertheless, she did not regard the Council has having reversed important Catholic doctrine, and her movement has not been anti-conciliar. The Lady of All Nations Foundation sees her as a promoter of the principles of Vatican II, anticipating them in her messages.

Like many other Marian visionaries of the twentieth century, Ida foresaw calamities for the human race; she spoke of “degeneration, disaster and war.” However, as in other cases, this was underpinned by a confidence in a future time of peace, the reign of Christ, which needed to be hastened by prayer, devotion and righteous lives. Hence Mary in her apparition was called “the Lady of All Nations;” she would be the one to lead the nations to peace. The reference to nations and to papal actions on their behalf echoes the visions of Lúcia dos Santos of Fátima, who saw devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a papal consecration of Russia to it as the means by which a future time of peace would arrive. A little nearer in time and geography, Mariette Beco of Banneux in Belgium was led by her vision of Mary to a spring which was “reserved for all nations… to heal the sick.”

RITUALS/PRACTICES

The groups that support the Amsterdam apparitions and the call for a new dogma participate in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. There are no rituals specific to this movement. There are regular days of prayer, sometimes international in their scope. Ida Peerdeman’s most pressing concern, especially in the third phase of the apparitions, was the Eucharist.

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

Ida lived in Amsterdam, in the diocese of Haarlem; in 2008, this diocese was renamed Haarlem-Amsterdam. Therefore, successive bishops of Haarlem were responsible for the discernment of the apparitions and, as the timeline above indicates, this has evolved from lack of certainty and support to wholehearted acceptance (although devotees claim that even bishops before Huibers came to respect Ida and her claims despite their reservations in making this public). The bishop of the diocese does have the responsibility and power to make decisions about apparitions drawing on the counsel of a commission of theologians and psychologists appointed by him. While he is well advised to consult the national episcopal conference and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican, and usually does so, they in turn should respect his decision (the one case where this system broke down was in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Hercegovina, where, because of the bishop’s opposition against the sheer weight of support, the power of decision was transferred to the national episcopate and thence to the Vatican).

Bishop Punt, the bishop who finally authenticated the apparitions of Ida Peerdeman, has a key role in the movement as the leader of the diocese in which it began and in which its primary shrine is located. [Image at right] As he has come to believe that these apparitions in his diocese are genuine supernatural charismata, then he has an obligation to support, encourage and guide the movement which follows them.

The Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici arguing for the definition of the “fifth dogma” is international in scope and its president is Mark Miravalle of the Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio. Its office is based in Santa Barbara, California. It has a website and many publications, both in books and audio-visual material.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

Ida’s movement cannot be seen in isolation from other Marian apparitions of the modern period. For many devotees, these form all of a piece, reassuring believers through many examples that Mary has come to be present with them in times of crisis; despite the warning prophecies, prayer and faithfulness would be rewarded. However, some interested parties are liable to setting up rivalries between apparition cases; many websites will extol one or more while denigrating others. One apparition is compared to others in order to cast doubt about it. Like other famous cases, for example, San Sebastián de Garabandal in Spain (1961-1965); San Damiano, Italy (1964-1981); Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Bosnia-Hercegovina (1981-present), Amsterdam’s apparitions have the potential to cause controversy and division.

Unlike these other controversial examples, Amsterdam has gained the formal approval of the local diocese. Therefore, one challenge to Amsterdam’s visionary movement has been to suggest that the local bishop, Jozef Punt, is a maverick and that other Dutch bishops and the Vatican disapprove of him. For example, it has been claimed that Punt was influenced by Bishop Hnilica (who died in 2006), a Slovak supporter of apparitions with a questionable role and status in the Catholic Church. Opponents also point out the fact that the Vatican itself has changed the words of the original prayer, disliking the words “who once was Mary” and replacing them with “the Blessed Virgin Mary.” Surely, they suggest, if the words are unsuitable, they cannot be attributed to Mary herself? Another objection is to ask why, if the apparitions are genuine, the papacy has not responded to the call for the new dogma.

Yet of course, devotees and opponents of apparitions alike misunderstand the official Church model for visionary phenomena which are “private revelations” even where they have public impact. Even where they are accepted as being of divine origin, the content of the messages and revelations is always qualified by the fact they are received through the subjective faculties of the visionary, and therefore it is the spirit of the phenomenon rather than the detail that is being authenticated, as well as the extent to which the messages refer the devotee back to the scriptural origin and central truths of Christian teaching. Unlike the latter, apparition messages never become binding; while they may be, in Catholic understanding, the visionary’s articulation of a profound encounter with a supernatural being, the perception and memory of that encounter are also considered to be affected by the subjectivity of the seer.

The movement of devotion to the Lady of All Nations has suffered from an association with the heretical “Community of the Lady of All Nations” or “Army of Mary,” led by Marie-Paule Giguère in Quebec, who claimed to be an incarnation of the Virgin Mary. The Lady of All Nations Foundation and Bishop Punt strenuously deny any support for this group. There are also misleading websites such as www.ladyofallnations.org , often quoted by people researching the movement, but not an official mouthpiece of it. This website has in the past associated Ida’s messages with a future war between Christianity and Islam, projecting back the Islamophobic hysteria of the early twenty-first century onto Ida’s visions in the mid-twentieth.

To conclude, the apparitions of Amsterdam have taken their place alongside others authenticated by the diocesan bishops in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Lourdes and Fátima (these are the most famous, although there are several more across the world). The messages that Ida Peerdeman of Amsterdam attributes to the Virgin Mary have an equal right to those of the visionaries at Lourdes or Fátima to be considered carefully by Catholics before being adopted or ignored. The movement supporting the papal definition of a dogma of Mary as Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate is one of the largest visionary campaigns in the Catholic world today, rivalling that calling for the authentication of the visions of Medjugorje (many Catholics belong to both). On the outcome of this request to the pope hangs the future direction of Catholic Mariology. Will the Church acknowledge the development of Marian tradition over centuries by declaration and definition, clarifying and strengthening its doctrinal boundaries, or will the belief prevail, held since Vatican II, that pastoral and ecumenical concerns override this and that the age of solemn pronouncement in the face of a secularising world has passed?

IMAGES

Image #1: Photograph of visionary Ida Peerdeman.
Image #2: Photograph of a painting depicting Our Lady of all Nations.
Image #3: Photograph of the Our Lady of All Nations shrine in Haarlem-Amsterdam.

REFERENCES

Bertone, Tarcisio and Ratzinger, Joseph. 2000. The Message of Fatima. Vatican City: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Accessed from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html on 10 August 2016.

Boss, Sarah J., ed. 2007. Mary: The Complete Resource. London and New York: Continuum.

Burton, Richard E. 2004. Holy Tears, Holy Blood: Women, Catholicism, and the Culture of Suffering in France, 1840–1970. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Dodd, Gloria Falcao. 2012. The Virgin Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace. Bedford, MA: Academy of the Immaculate.

Graef, Hilda and Thompson, Thomas A. 2009. Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion, new edition. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria.

Laurentin, René and Sbalchiero, Patrick, eds. 2007. Dictionnaire des ‘Apparitions’ de la Vierge Marie: Inventaire des Origines à nos Jours, Methodologie, Bilan Interdisciplinaire, Prospective. Paris: Fayard.

Margry, Peter J. 2009. “Paradoxes of Marian Apparitional Contestation: Networks, Ideology, Gender, and the Lady of All Nations.” Pp. 183-99 in Moved by Mary: The Power of Pilgrimage in the Modern World, edited by Anna-Karina Hermkens, Willy Jansen, annd Catrien Notermans. Farnham: Ashgate.

Maunder, Chris. 2016. Our Lady of the Nations: Apparitions of Mary in 20th-Century Catholic Europe. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Miravalle, Mark, ed. 1995. Mary Coredemptrix Mediatrix Advocate, Theological Foundations: Towards a Papal Definition? Santa Barbara: Queenship Publishing.

Miravalle, Mark. 1993. Mary: Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate. Santa Barbara: Queenship Publishing. 

Rahner, Karl. 1974. Mary, Mother of the Lord. Wheathampstead: Anthony Clarke.

Rahner. Karl. 1963. Visions and Prophecies (Questiones Disputatae 8–10). New York: Herder and Herder.

Schillebeeckx, Edward. 1964. Mary, Mother of the Redemption. London: Sheed and Ward.

Shoemaker, Stephen J. 2016. Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

The Lady of All Nations/Family of Mary and The Lady of All Nations Foundation websites have much material in common: Accessed from http://www.de-vrouwe.info and http://www.devrouwevanallevolkeren.nl respectively (add /en for English language), both accessed on 10 August 2016.

The Lady of All Nations Foundation. 1999. The Messages of the Lady of All Nations. Amsterdam.

Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici website. Accessed from http://www.fifthmariandogma.com on 10 August 2016.

Post Date:
22 August 2016

NATIONAL SHRINE GROTTO OF LOURDES

NATIONAL SHRINE GROTTO OF LOURDES TIMELINE

1805:  St. Mary’s on the Hill, a Catholic church, was built at the site of the current shrine.

1808:  Mt. St. Mary’s College (now Mt. St. Mary’s University and Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary) was founded. Rev. John DuBois discovered a natural grotto on the mountain, the site of the present-day Emmitsburg shrine.

1858:  St. Bernadette reported a series of apparitions in Lourdes, France.

1875:  The replica grotto was built by Reverend John Waterson, then-president of Mt. St. Mary’s College.

1891:  Monsignor James Dunn provided money for the Our Lady statue in the niche above the Grotto.

1906:  The Corpus Christi Chapel was built where the “Old Grotto,” discovered by Rev. DuBois, once stood.

1913:  St. Mary’s on the Hill was destroyed by fire.

1964:  Pangborn Memorial Campanile, the bell tower topped by the golden statue of Our Lady, was built on the site of St. Mary’s on the Hill.

1965:  Cardinal Shehan of Baltimore declared the Grotto a Public Oratory, and appointed Msgr. Hugh J. Phillips chaplain of the Grotto.

1976:  The Glass Chapel was built at the site.

2007:  Bishop Jacques Perrier, bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, presented the Emmitsburg Grotto with the gift of a stone from the Lourdes Grotto. It was built into the stone wall of the Emmitsburg replica.

2013:  The Richard and Mary Lee Miller Family Visitors Center and St. Bernadette’s Gift Shoppe opened.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

Many local Catholics believe that the Emmitsburg area was special even before the Grotto was built there. It was the site of a seventeenth century Marian apparition reported by a Native American man who had converted to Catholicism, and the site of a series of contemporary Marian apparitions reported by Gianna Talone Sullivan. Catholic settlers named landmarks in the area “Mary’s Mountain” and “St. Joseph’s Valley.” Elizabeth Ann Seton lived and worked in Emmitsburg, and her shrine is located at the basilica in town. Mt. St. Mary’s University and Seminary, called the “Cradle of Bishops” for the number of U.S. bishops who are alumni, was founded in Emmitsburg in 1808.

The site of the Grotto itself, on a mountain above Mt. St. Mary’s, has long been a site for devotion. It was home to a church, St. Mary’s on the Hill, founded in 1805 and built by Rev. John DuBois. Fr. DuBois discovered a natural spring and grotto on the mountain, some fifty years prior to the Lourdes apparitions. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (the first U.S.-born Catholic saint) reportedly walked and prayed on the mountain as well. Since the founding of Mt. St. Mary’s College in 1808, seminarians have hiked up the hillside to pray, using trails carved through the woods, past crosses affixed to trees (Lombardi n.d.). Fr. Simon Gabriel Bruté, of Mt. St. Mary’s, was a leader in these projects.

Rev. John Waterson is credited with building the replica grotto in 1875, and additional statues and buildings have been added since that time. Currently, visitors pass by St. Anthony’s Cemetery and Mt. St. Mary’s Cemetery on their way up the mountainside toward the Grotto. Once inside the gates, there is a parking lot at the foot of a bell tower with a huge golden statue of Our Lady, the Pangborn Campanile, which rings “Immaculate Mary” and other songs at intervals throughout the day. This golden statue, visible for miles around, is a landmark for cars driving on Maryland Rt. 15 as well as for planes flying to nearby Camp David. Over the hillside to the right, a log cabin belonging to a nineteenth century caretaker sits overlooking Frederick County. The Chapel of St. Mary on the Hill, a modern-looking chapel with large windows dating to 1976, sits across the parking lot. Popularly called “The Glass Chapel,” Mass is held at this chapel weekly. There is a new visitor’s center housing St. Bernadette’s Gift Shoppe as well. Some of the beams in the visitor’s center were taken from trees that fell at the shrine during Hurricane Sandy in 2012; miraculously, no statues or buildings at the shrine were damaged.

A large gate and mosaics of Our Lady of Guadalupe and of Jesus mark the entrance to the holy site. Two paved paths wind their way through the trees: one featuring small alcoves depicting the Stations of the Cross, the other the Mysteries of the Rosary. Both paths lead to a wide pool with a statue of Our Lady in the middle. This statue, put in place in 1958 at the 100-year anniversary ofthe Lourdes apparitions, is a replica of the Our Lady statue in Lourdes. To the side are faucets where visitors collect blessed water. Just beyond the pool is a tiny stone chapel, the Corpus Cristi Chapel, and then the grotto replica itself, featuring statues of St. Bernadette and Our Lady, benches, and an altar with devotional candles and slips of paper for prayer intentions. A sign informs pilgrims of the special indulgences granted to anyone visiting the Grotto.

Finally, a short, steep path beyond the Grotto leads to the “Calvary Scene” in large metal statues. Surrounding the parking lot and throughout the walking paths, Catholic saints and other important figures are remembered with statues in alcove shrines. These shrines are dedicated to a number of figures, including Blessed John Paul II, St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, Padre Pio, St. Jude, St. Faustina, and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. There are also shrines to Our Lady, under various titles: Our Lady of Grace, Our Lady of Fatima, the Pieta, and the Virgin of the Poor (Banneux, Belgium).

This is a Catholic pilgrimage site, one fairly well-known in the mid-East region, and reports between 200,000 and 400,000 visitors every year. These numbers are estimates; currently, visitors are only counted informally when Grotto staff tally the number of cars in the parking lot. Summer weekends may draw 3,000 visitors, but significant numbers of visitors come year round. Some visitors even arrive during snow storms; the staff field complaints from would-be visitors when the Grotto closes during inclement weather. Visitors are racially and ethnically diverse: Hispanic, white non-Hispanic, and Asian (particularly Vietnamese) visitors are common, as are older adults, younger people, and families with children. Visitors come from around the United States, and not all are Catholic or even Christian.

DOCTRINES/BELIEFS

The Grotto is a Catholic pilgrimage site and is on the grounds of Mt. St. Mary’s, a Catholic university. Beliefs espoused at the site align with official Church teachings.

The variety of statues attests to the broad range of devotions accommodated at the shrine. It is international in scope; statues of Our Lady of Lavang, Padre Pio, St. Faustina, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Our Lady of Medjugorje reflect the diversity of visitors to the Grotto.

Local Catholics speak of the guiding presence of Our Lady in general, and the importance of the campanile topped with its golden Our Lady in particular. For years, floodlights had lit the campanile in the evenings until Grotto staff decided to save money by turning off the lights. Soon after, a government agent contacted Mt. St. Mary’s University requesting that the lights be turned back on: pilots flying into nearby Camp David needed the illuminated campanile to guide them.

RITUALS/PRACTICES

Visitors’ practices are common among devout Catholics: praying the Rosary, organizing Stations of the Cross and Rosary walks, praying, and attending Mass at the Glass Chapel. Sometimes people simply stroll around the site, and families bring picnic lunches to eat at the wooden picnic benches near the parking lot.

Common practices center around prayer, especially prayer for healing. Pilgrims purchase candles to leave at the Grotto cave, and it is common to see dozens of candles lit behind the altar. Slips of paper for prayer requests are also available; these are collected every week so that the priest performing Mass at the Glass Chapel can pray over them. Pilgrims pray for healings (emotional and physical) and for family members to return to the Church; often people return to the shrine to thank Our Lady for taking their prayers to Jesus. A few visitors have reported that they received an apparition of Our Lady or saw deceased family members at the site, though the Grotto neither keeps official records of these reports nor attempts to authenticate them.

In one unique story, a woman brought a bag of rare coins to the Grotto, worth about $40,000. She buried her bag of coins under some leaves near a statue, believing they would be safe there. A staff member discovered the bag, at first thinking that someone had made a large donation to the shrine. The owner of the rare coins, however, returned to retrieve them a few days later, explaining that she had not wanted to leave them at her house while she was away (Stern 2009).

The practice of collecting water from the site or even bathing in the pool, common in Lourdes, is also common in Emmitsburg. Pilgrims bring water bottles to collect spring water from the Emmitsburg site, and it is not uncommon for pilgrims to haul five-gallon water coolers with a hand truck. St. Bernadette’s Gift Shoppe sells empty bottles of various sizes for pilgrims who have forgotten their own; some of these bottles are shaped as St. Bernadette kneeling before Our Lady of Lourdes. It seems that pilgrims treat the water from the Emmitsburg site just as pilgrims treat Lourdes water, and some have attested to blessings associated with this water.

The Emmitsburg Grotto further commemorates the 1858 apparitions to St. Bernadette with special services, such as an Anointing of the Sick on February 11, the date of St. Bernadette’s first apparition. The Emmitsburg Grotto also displays a rock from the Lourdes apparition site prominently, in the rock face of its own Grotto. The gift shop, named for the Lourdes visionary, features an entire wall of shelves with items from Lourdes, including Lourdes water and products made with Lourdes water; statues, magnets, candles, and prayer cards of St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes; and books and films about the Lourdes apparitions.

Churches in the region organize pilgrimages to the Grotto. In 2014, two pilgrimages organized by a Vietnamese church will draw between 3,000 and 5,000 people. Some pilgrimage groups include a priest so that they can celebrate Mass during their trip on the grounds of the Grotto.

Pilgrims also donate money for benches in memory of loved ones or dedicate trees in their honor. Plaques indicate that windows (in the Corpus Christi Chapel), statues, benches, and trees have been dedicated by or to people all over the eastern seaboard, from Florida to New York.

The Grotto is currently overseeing Mt. St. Mary’s Cemetery and selling space in new columbaria.

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

Rev. John DuBois, a priest who came to the Emmitsburg area in the early 19 th century, is considered a leader in the founding of the Grotto. He is credited with erecting a cross at the current site of the “Calvary Scene,” though he did not found a shrine per se; indeed, it was not for another 50 years that St. Bernadette reported her visions of Our Lady. Fr. Simon Gabriel Bruté, along with other seminarians at Mt. St. Mary’s, cleared walking trails up the mountainside and attached crosses to trees so that visitors could hike to the area and pray (Lombardi n.d.).

Rev. John Waterson built the replica of the Lourdes grotto in Emmitsburg in 1875 (Mount Saint Mary’s University n.d.).

Msgr. Hugh J. Phillips, chaplain of the Grotto, is credited with many improvements to the site (Kelly 2004). He was pressured to expand the shrine and make it more accessible to visitors, reportedly by Amleto Cardinal Cicognani, former Apostolic delegate to the U.S., who visited the Grotto frequently. It was Cardinal Cicognani who arranged with Pope Paul VI in the 1950s for indulgences to be granted to pilgrims at the Emmitsburg Grotto.

Currently, leadership of the Grotto site falls into the hands of a board of directors, seminarians from Mt. St. Mary’s, and the Student Grotto Team, comprising students from Mt. St. Mary’s who lead Grotto tours and assist pilgrims.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

The Grotto has faced some struggles developing and maintaining the site. In its early years, the Grotto was rugged; the site was inaccessible except for the hardiest individuals who could hike up the mountainside. Over the years (and especially in the past few decades) the site has been developed into an easily accessible place. Presently, safety is a primary concern for Grotto staff: walkways must be kept clear of ice and debris, and pavers must be kept level. The parking lot outside the visitors center has closed so that the area could be opened for pedestrians; it was too dangerous with visitors (including school children on field trips) walking across the parking lot while cars were parking. Visitors now park past St. Anthony’s Cemetery and walk the short distance to the visitor’s center. A donor has enabled the Grotto to buy golf carts to run a shuttle service for visitors who cannot walk the distance, or who need assistance accessing other areas of the site. All of these improvements require fundraising, so financial support has been a major hurdle over time. Since the time of Msgr. Phillips, there has been a tremendous amount of development at the site, and the Grotto relies on donations for improvements as well as upkeep.

An additional concern for Grotto Director Lori Stewart is to make visitors aware that the Grotto is affiliated with Mt. St. Mary’s University and its extraordinary history. Some visitors are unaware of this connection, and some students are unaware that the Grotto is so close to their campus or unwilling to hike the steep hillside to visit.

Finally, the Grotto is seeking a chaplain who will split time between the Grotto and the Mt. St. Mary’s campus. Currently, pilgrimage groups must bring a priest with them if they wish to celebrate Mass at the shrine during their visit. The Grotto would like to be able to organize retreats and pilgrimages rather than simply host groups that have organized their own retreats. Priests are more likely to be assigned to parishes rather than a site like the Grotto, however, so finding a chaplain has been a struggle.

REFERENCES

Lombardi, Fr. Jack. (n.d.) The National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. Accessed Mar 17, 2014 from www.emmitsburg.net/grotto/index.htm.

Kelly, Jacques. 2004. “Monsignor Hugh J. Phillips, 97, Mount Saint Mary’s College President.” The Baltimore Sun , July 13. Accessed from http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2004-07-13/news/0407130046_1_monsignor-mount-st-mary-college. on 3 April 2014.

Mt. St. Mary’s University. n.d. National Shrine Grotto of Lourdes. Accessed from http://www.msmary.edu/grotto/ on 17 March 2014.

Stern, Nicholas C. 2009. “Woman Leaves $40,000 in Valuable Coins at Grotto for Safekeeping.” The Frederick News Post, November 19. Accessed from http://www.fredericknewspost.com/archive/woman-leaves-in-valuable-coins-at-grotto-for-safekeeping/article_3a26af60-a0ec-5498-bbd3-40e64a15d2d2.html on 10 April 2014.

Author:
Jill Krebs

Post Date:
30 March 2014

NECEDAH SHRINE
(QUEEN OF THE HOLY ROSARY, MEDIATRIX OF PEACE SHRINE) 

NECEDAH SHRINE TIMELINE

1909 (July 31):  Mary Ann Van Hoof (née Anna Maria Bieber) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1934:  Mary Ann married Godfred “Fred” Van Hoof. They had seven children.

1949 (November 12):  Van Hoof had a vision of a tall female figure entering her bedroom and standing by her bed.

1950 (February 9):  Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy announced that communists had infiltrated the State Department.

1950 (April 7):  On Good Friday, Van Hoof saw a crucifix in her room begin to glow. She heard the voice of Mary, who commissioned her to go the parish priest with a request that everyone be directed to recite the rosary each evening at eight o’clock. Mary announced that she would appear again “where and when the flowers bloom, trees and grass are green.”

1950 (May 28):  Van Hoof experienced her first vision of Mary. The site of the apparition, a group of four ash trees, became known as “The Sacred Spot.” Mary promised to return the next two days (May 29 and 30) and on June 4 (Trinity Sunday), June 16 (The Feast of the Sacred Heart), August 15 (The Feast of the Assumption), and October 7 (The Feast of the Rosary).

1950 (June 4):  Twenty-eight people arrived at the Van Hoof farm to witness Van Hoof’s apparition.

1950 (June 15):  A team of priests visited Van Hoof’s home. They expressed skepticism of her claims.

1950 (June 16):  1,500 people arrived to witness an apparition. Some announced that the apparition had cured them of disease. Father Lengowski, the parish priest, had guards placed at the home to keep out strangers. The Chancery of the La Crosse Diocese urged restraint and said that no pronouncement would be made on the apparitions until a thorough investigation had been completed.

1950 (June):  Henry Swan, president of the Necedah Chamber of Commerce, organized pilgrims into a group called “The Necedah Committee” to promote the apparitions.

1950 (August 9):  John Patrick Treacy, Bishop of La Crosse, Wisconsin, issued of a statement discouraging Catholics from attending the apparition on August 15.

1950 (August 15):  100,000 people gathered to see the apparition. Reporters arrived from Newsweek, Time, Life, and The New York Times. 

1950 (October 4):  Father Lengowski was transferred to Wuerzburg, Wisconsin, seventy-five miles away from Necedah. His support for Van Hoof was likely a factor in his transfer.

1950 (October 7):  30,000 pilgrims arrived for Mary’s final announced appearance. Cardinal Samuel Stritch of Chicago had prohibited Chicago Catholics from attending, resulting in cancelled charter buses and a significantly smaller crowd.

1950 (November):  Van Hoof reported symptoms of stigmata. This was interpreted as penance for those who did not heed Mary’s message from the apparitions.

1951:  The stigmata-like symptoms continued through Lent and Advent of 1951. Beginning in Advent, Van Hoof also announced that she could no longer eat food and was subsisting on a liquid diet.

1951 (May 28):  Bishop Treacy sent Van Hoof a letter ordering her to take down the statues affiliated with her shrine and to cease disseminating literature about her visions. Van Hoof refused.

1952 (April):  Bishop Treacy asked Van Hoof to report to Marquette University Medical University for a ten-day medical exam. The exam coincided with Holy Week (April 7-12). The results of these tests convinced Church authorities that Van Hoof’s experiences were not supernatural.

1954 (August 22):  Van Hoof reported that Mary desired her two closest followers, Henry Swan and Clara Hermans, to write an account of their movement.

1955:  Swan compiled accounts of Van Hoof’s apparitions and her sufferings during Lent and Advent.

1955 (June):  Bishop Treacy officially condemned the apparition at Necedah.

1959:  Swan edited four volumes of material entitled My Work with Necedah published by Van Hoof’s followers through the corporation “For My God and My Country.”

1960 (July 19):  Godfred Van Hoof died of leukemia.

1964:  Bishop Treacy died and was succeeded by Frederick W. Freking.

1969 (September):  Frederick W. Freking ordered a new investigation of the shrine.

1970:  Bishop Freking reiterated Treacy’s condemnation of Van Hoof and her movement.

1975:  Bishop Freking placed Van Hoof and six of her followers under an interdict. Van Hoof’s followers were denied sacraments in their parish.

1977:  An order of nuns was created known as The Sisters of the Seven Dolors of the Sorrowful Mother. They created the Seven Dolors of Our Sorrowful Mother Infants Home to serve unwed mothers and care for unwanted babies.

1978:  Van Hoof married Ray Hirt.

1979 (May):  An announcement was made that that the Necedah shrine had been consecrated by Edward Stehlik, an archbishop of the North American Old Catholic Church, Ultrajectine.

1981 (January):  Stehlik quit the American National Catholic Church, returned to the Roman Catholic Church as a layman, and denounced the Necedah apparition as a hoax. Francis diBenedetto, a bishop of the Old Catholic Church, succeeded him as clerical leader of the shrine.

1982:  Queen of the Holy Rosary School was founded near the shrine.

1983:  diBenedetto also returned to the Roman Catholic Church and denounced the Necedah apparition as a hoax. Many shrine members defected with the loss of these bishops.

1984 (March 18):  Mary Ann Van Hoof died. Several hundred followers remained in Necedah and continued to promote the shrine.

FOUNDER/GROUP HISTORY

Mary Ann Van Hoof [Image at right] was born Anna Maria Bieber in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was one of seven children, and four of hersiblings were still living in 1950 when her career as a seer began. (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:40). Mary Ann was baptized Catholic but was not raised in the Church. Her childhood was an unhappy one and she was repeatedly beaten by her father. Several of her later messages from Mary appear to allude to this abuse. Regarding one message, Van Hoof stated, “She [Mary] said I was an unhappy child, always abused, misunderstood” (Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace Shrine 2014:20).

The family moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Anna Maria received an eighth-grade education. Her mother, Elizabeth, was a Hungarian immigrant and a Spiritualist. Elizabeth joined the Kenosha Assembly of Spiritualists and served as its vice president from 1945-1948. Although Anna Maria was never in the group’s membership rolls, she reportedly participated in Spiritualist gatherings (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:41).

According to a Church investigation reported on by Father Claude H. Heithaus, Van Hoof moved to Philadelphia at the age of eighteen and worked as a waitress. She fell in love with a Philadelphia man with whom she had a child. As Van Hoof explained to Church investigators, she had received a marriage license from someone the couple believed to be a justice of the peace. However, they learned the man had not been a justice of the peace, and the couple separated. Van Hoof moved back to her family in Kenosha. These events are never discussed in Van Hoof’s own writings (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:40).

In 1934, Van Hoof answered an ad for a housekeeper placed by Godfred “Fred” Van Hoof in The Wisconsin Farmer and Agriculturalist. Fred hired her and four months later they were married. The Van Hoofs eventually had seven children. Van Hoof’s mother, Elizabeth, moved in with the Van Hoofs. When they lost their Wisconsin farm, the Van Hoofs moved with Elizabeth to the southwest where they worked as sharecroppers before they finally purchased as 142-acre farm in Necedah, Wisconsin (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:41). Fred was a devout Catholic, and he drew Van Hoof back into his faith. Van Hoof’s interpretations of her visions initially vacillated between those of her Spiritualist mother and her Catholic husband (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:52-53). In 1949, as Van Hoof lay awake in bed worrying about her health and the future of their farm, a tall female figure entered her room and stood by the bed. Van Hoof was initially terrified, thinking the apparition might be a ghost. It was her husband who first suggested that the apparition might be Mary and that Mary had come to bring an important message to the world (Garvey 2003:213).

On Good Friday, 1950, Van Hoof saw a crucifix in her room begin to glow. She also heard a voice, which she attributed to Mary. Mary commissioned her to go the parish priest with a request that everyone be directed to recite the rosary each evening at eight o’clock. Father Sigismund R. Lengowski of St. Francis of Assisi Church was initially supportive of Van Hoof’s request. Mary also announced that she would appear again “where and when the flowers bloom, trees and grass are green” (Zimdars-Swartz 1991:264-65).

On May 28, 1950, Van Hoof experienced her first full vision of Mary, who appeared near a group of four ash trees on her farm. This area became known as “The Sacred Spot.” Mary promised to return the next two days and to make appearances on the dates of June 4 (Trinity Sunday), June 16 (The Feast of the Sacred Heart), August 15 (The Feast of the Assumption), and October 7 (The Feast of the Rosary) (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:36-37).

Twenty-eight people arrived on June 4 to witness Van Hoof’s encounter with Mary. This drew the attention of Church authorities and on June 15 a team of priests, one of whom was the editor of the diocesan newspaper, visited Van Hoof’s home. They asked to see if her crucifix would glow in the dark. It did not (Garvey 2003:217). Their skepticism left Van Hoof feeling defensive toward Church authorities.

At Mary’s second appearance on June 16, 1,500 people arrived at the Van Hoof farm. Six pilgrims gathered on the cellar door trying to peer into the house, causing it to collapse. Father Lengowski placed guards to keep out strangers after a woman burst into the home announcing that the apparition had cured her asthma (Garvey 2003: 217-218). The Chancery of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin urged restraint and said that no pronouncement would be made on the apparitions until a thorough investigation had been completed (Kselman 1986:414; Kselman 2020).

Following the June 16 apparition, Henry Swan, president of the Necedah Chamber of Commerce, began to organize the pilgrims. [Image at right] He created an organization called “The Necedah Committee” and began preparing literature and buying radio time to promote the shrine. Benefactors built toilets and kneeling rails around The Sacred Spot as well as a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. A hand-carved cross from Italy was erected on a bluff overlooking Necedah. John Horning, a businessman from Milwaukee, purchased sixty acres north of the Van Hoof farm to provide parking (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:49). Before the next apparition, the Necedah Committee distributed 176,000 pieces of literature. Swan prepared an additional 173,000 pieces of literature for distribution on August 15 (Kselman 1986:415).

On August 9, 1950, John Patrick Treacy, Bishop of La Crosse, issued of a statement discouraging Catholics from attending the apparition on August 15 (Zimdars-Swartz 2012:36). Despite this, over 100,000 people arrived in Necedah to see the apparition on August 15 along with reporters from Newsweek, Time, Life, and The New York Times (Garvey 2003:219) .

As the final apparition drew close, Church authorities moved to stifle the shrine’s growing momentum. On October 4, Father Lengowski, who had been supportive of the apparition, was transferred to Wuerzburg, Wisconsin, seventy-five miles away from Necedah (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:79). Samuel Stritch, Cardinal of Chicago, prohibited Chicago Catholics from attending the apparition. Charter buses hired to take pilgrims from Chicago were cancelled as a result of this pronouncement (Maloney 1989:23). Despite this, 30,000 people still arrived for the final apparition on October 7 (Garvey 2003:220).

This was not the end of Van Hoof’s career as a seer. In November 1950 she began experiencing stigmata. Friends reported seeing her convulse and then collapse to the floor in a cruciform pose. Van Hoof had always been sickly and Mary explained that she was a “victim soul.” The stigmata was said to be a penance to be suffered on behalf of those who had not heeded the apparitions. Van Hoof’s afflictions continued throughout Lent and Advent of 1951. During Advent she claimed to have acquired the saintly phenomenon of inedia in which she could survive without food. All solid food reportedly made her vomit and she subsisted entirely on liquids (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:44).

Around this time several hundred pilgrims relocated to Necedah (a town of less than one thousand) and began creating a community around the shrine on the Van Hoof’s farm. Locals came to refer to the area where the pilgrims settled as “the shrine belt” (Garvey 2003:230). In May 1951, Bishop Treacy sent Van Hoof a letter ordering her to take down the statues affiliated with her shrine and to cease disseminating literature about her visions. According to Fidelity magazine, Van Hoof replied to this order , “I am a free American citizen. This is my own property, and I’ll do as I wish” (Maloney 1989:24).

In 1952, Bishop Treacy asked Van Hoof to report to Marquette University Medical University for a ten-day medical exam. Van Hoof agreed, possibly thinking the tests would prove to Church authorities that her claims were genuine. The exam coincided with Holy Week (April 7-12). Van Hoof’s head, arms, and hands were bandaged and sharp objects taken away. Under these conditions, her stigmata ceased. To test her claims of inedia, blood samples were taken and her salt levels were tested. Upon arriving at the hospital, her salt levels were normal suggesting that she was eating solid food. When she maintained a liquid diet during her hospital stay, she lost weight and her salt levels declined (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:44). A panel of three psychiatrists concluded that she suffered from “hysteria and repressed sexual anxiety.” Adding insult to injury, Father Claude H. Heithaus, a member of the bishop’s investigating committee, discussed the results of the study with the press and described the convulsions associated with Van Hoof’s stigmata as a “disgusting performance” (Garvey 2003:229). Some of Van Hoof’s followers objected to the study’s findings and argued that supernatural phenomena cannot be studied using normal medical tests (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:44).

In 1954, Van Hoof communicated Mary’s desire that her two closest followers, Henry Swan and Clara Hermans, write an account of the history of their movement. The following year, Swan compiled accounts of Van Hoof’s apparitions and her sufferings during Lent and Advent of 1951. In 1959, Swan edited four volumes of material entitled My Work with Necedah (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:39). The shrine formed the corporation “For My God and My Country, Inc.” to publish these materials. It may have been these publications that motivated Bishop Treacy to officially condemn the apparition at Necedah in 1955. He issued a statement prohibiting all public and private worship associated with the apparition (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:37).

Van Hoof’s followers continued despite this censure and in 1969 bishop Treacy’s successor, Frederick W. Freking, ordered a new investigation into the shrine. The following year he re-affirmed Treacy’s findings and ordered Van Hoof and her followers to close down the shrine. When this second condemnation went unheeded, bishop Freking placed Van Hoof and six officers of For My God and My Country, Inc. under an interdict. Father James Barney, the new pastor of Saint Francis of Assisi Church, denied communion to anyone who would not renounce Van Hoof. During one mass, Father Barney reportedly asked “the loyal and obedient” Catholics to approach the altar and for the rest (meaning Van Hoof’s supporters) to leave (Garvey 2003:232-33).

Van Hoof and her followers refused to yield but also desired the approval of Church authorities. In May 1979, Van Hoof’s followers announced that the Necedah shrine had been consecrated by Edward Stehlik, an archbishop of the North American Old Catholic Church, Ultrajectine. However, in 1981, Stehlik quit the Old Catholic Church, returned to the Roman Catholic Church as a layman, and denounced the Necedah apparition as a hoax. He was succeeded by Francis diBenedetto, a bishop of the Old Catholic Church, who became the new Church authority for the shrine. Then in 1983, diBenedetto also returned to the Roman Catholic Church and denounced the Necedah apparition. These events were demoralizing to Van Hoof’s followers and by some accounts as many as two-thirds of the community left (Garvey 2003:234).

Van Hoof died in 1984, but several hundred followers remained in Necedah and continued to promote the shrine. Today the shrine is officially known as “Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix Between God and Man, Shrine” and is aligned with the North American Old Catholic Church, Ultrajectine tradition (DeSlippe 2016:274).

DOCTRINES/RITUALS

From 1950 until her death, Van Hoof received numerous messages from Mary as well as a variety of saints, popes, and other holy figures. Much of the content of these messages resembles that of previous Marian apparitions. Catholics are called to repent and renew their faith and warned of a coming chastisement. Van Hoof’s messages also urge the Church to consecrate Russia to Mary’s heart, a trope that began with the apparition at Fatima. As time went on, the prophecies became more innovative. Van Hoof’s messages contain apocalyptic and conspiracy-driven elements that reflect the Cold War era in which the apparition occurred. The messages also contain themes of Catholic nationalism and ecumenism, as well as a few elements that seem more reminiscent of Spiritualism than Catholic tradition.

In the 1950s many American Catholics took pride in their staunch opposition to communism. Van Hoof’s messages described Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy as a kind of saint, and then as a martyr. McCarthy’s claim in 1950 that communists had infiltrated the State Department seems to have set a conspiratorial tone for the messages. Van Hoof warned of poisons deployed in food, water, and air that weakened the minds of Americans and made them more susceptible to evil influences. Many of Van Hoof’s visions describe people dying from radiation poisoning and other horrific scenes of nuclear war. Mary would often relay tactical details to Van Hoof including Soviet invasion plans and the location of Soviet submarines. In one message, Van Hoof reported that “baby subs” were sailing up the St. Lawrence Seaway (Zimdars-Swartz 1991:261).

Henry Swan, an early promoter of Van Hoof, seems to have introduced Van Hoof to a number of conspiracy theories that began to inform her messages. In time, Van Hoof outlined “Satan’s Chain of Command.” This was a super conspiracy in which a group a “grand masters” oversaw the “Learned Elders of Zion,” whom Swan described as “Yids.” The Elders of Zion in turn controlled Communism and Freemasonry, which they used toward their goal of creating a one world government.

Even though this conspiracy theory was clearly derivative of the anti-Semitic hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903), Swan denied that his views were anti-Semitic. He stated that most Jews were unaware of the Elders of Zion and that some were “good, patriotic Americans.” Nevertheless, a racialist paranoia runs throughout some of the messages. Swan made a distinction between “true Jews,” whose blood was unsullied, and “Yids,” whose bloodlines and become “mongrelized.” At least one prophecy alluded to a scenario in which white Christians would have to battle the black and yellow races, which the forces of evil would incite against them (Zimdars-Swartz 1991: 261-262).

Just as The Soviet Union was seen as the agent of Satan, Van Hoof’s visions presented America as a nation chosen by God. In one message, Mary related how she had appeared to George Washington and told him that the new nation would withstand five great sieges: the American Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and finally a fifth siege that would be the most terrible of all (Zimdars-Swartz 1991:262). The story of Mary appearing to George Washington located the United States within a “theology of history,” culminating in an apocalyptic battle (Zimdars-Swartz 1989:53). By insinuating Catholic tradition into an American foundational myth, it also worked to establish Catholicism as truly American rather than an immigrant religion. Today, the Necedah shrine features the “For My God and My Country Shrine” with a statue of Jesus flanked by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. [Image at right]

Van Hoof’s messages also emphasized that America was a multi-religious society and that Catholics and Protestants “must work together” to fulfill the nation’s destiny (Kselman 1986:422; Kselman 2020). This call for ecumenism may have reflected religious tensions in Necedah. A new wave of Catholic immigrants had settled in the late 1940s and Protestant residents had complained of efforts to make Necedah a “Catholic town” (Frakes 1950:1020).

Finally, some elements of Van Hoof’s visions deviate from the elements commonly found in Marian apparitions. Van Hoof reported that she could see beings she called “celestials” and that some of these beings were the spirits of her departed friends and family members. Celestials are still described in shrine literature. Some of her messages also suggest a “hollow earth” theory in which the faithful will be transported to a paradise inside the Earth where they will wait out the apocalypse (Marlene 1989:26). The shrine’s newsletter features a column called “Diamond Star Researcher;” this discusses a wide milieu of stigmatized ideas and conspiracy theories, including speculation about planet X, coming pole-shifts, and secret military technology.

RITUALS/PRACTICES

A journalist describing one the apparitions gives some insight into the ritual surrounding these events. Van Hoof emerged from her home accompanied by her mother, her husband, her daughter Joanne, and a few other supporters. She faced the crowd and raised a large crucifix in blessing, before turning to face the statue of Mary that stood on her yard. After a few moments, she faced the crowd again and spoke for about twenty minutes. The journalist surmised that she was listening to Mary and then immediately repeating her words back to the crowd, or at least that this was the impression she sought to give. After she spoke, she collapsed weeping and her family escorted her back into the home (Zimdars-Swartz 2012:37).

Today the Necedah Shrine survives as a small but dedicated community with a shrine complex surrounding the old Van Hoof farm. On October 7, 1950, Van Hoof announced that Mary requested a large heart-shaped shrine to be built at the Sacred Spot. Thisstructure, known as the House of Prayer, has been under construction for decades and currently consists of little more than a concrete foundation. However, the shrine grounds also feature shrines and grottos depicting various saints that appeared to Van Hoof as well as scenes from the life of Jesus. There is a lecture hall as well as meeting hall and workroom. There is a replica of the original Van Hoof home, [Image at right] which burned down on February 9, 1959. An information center is open from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Guided tours, literature, and scapulars are offered visitors. The shrine also hosts an elaborate annual Christmas pageant that is free and open to the public.

The shrine hosts “Anniversary Day Vigils” that commemorate Mary’s appearances to Van Hoof in 1950. These are held on November 12, April 7, May 28, May 29, June 4, June 16, August 15, October 7. The shrine also holds so-called monthly vigils that honor the feast days of saints who were important to Van Hoof or other important days. Monthly vigils actually occur about once a week. Vigils typically consist of a candle light procession and a fifteen-decade rosary, as well as prayers and hymns. The shrine also coordinates a constant vigil of prayer in which various community members pledge to pray at a certain hour. The shrine’s goal is to have someone praying at all hours of day with the intention of saving America from destruction by evil forces.

Modesty is valued at the Necedah shrine, and in one message Van Hoof encouraged her female followers to wear blue wrap-around skirts. The information center keeps a supply of wrap-around skirts for visitors who are dressed immodestly (For My God and My Country, Inc 2011).

ORGANIZATION/LEADERSHIP

In addition to the worship centers, [Image at right] the shrine also runs a private K-12 school, Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine, and the Seven Sorrows of Our Sorrowful Mother Infants Home orphanage. The shrine relies heavily on volunteers to run services and continue construction of the Hall of Prayer. Little is known about the organization’s leadership; however, Theodore Bodoh is listed as the head of Seven Sorrows of Our Sorrowful Mother Infants Home orphanage in databases of non-profits.

ISSUES/CHALLENGES

As with many contentious Marian apparitions, Van Hoof’s followers have had a complex relationship with the Catholic Church, in which they have challenged Church authorities while simultaneously desiring their approval. Tensions between Van Hoof and diocesan authorities began almost immediately and continued to mount as her movement gained momentum. Although the 1950 apparitions drew tens of thousands in, condemnation by Church authorities nearly eliminated the movement.

In the 1960s, Van Hoof criticized Vatican II and the vernacular mass. She also warned that the Catholic Church had become compromised by traitors, heretics, and communist agents (Thavis 2015:78). These claims appealed to traditionalist Catholics who opposed the reforms of Vatican II. In this, the movement’s history resembles that of other apparitions rejected by the Church such as the Baysiders.

However, being placed an interdict in 1975 appears to have demoralized Van Hoof’s followers, driving them to seek Old Catholic bishops. When the Old Catholic bishops defected, many shrine members defected, suggesting that Van Hoof’s followers still greatly desired Church authority.

Although the shrine continues to receive letters of support from around the country, it is unclear how long it will continue to exist. With the decline of communism as an oppositional threat, the shrine has increasingly focused on the pro-life movement.

IMAGES

Image #1: Photograph of Mary Ann Van Hoof.
Image #2: Photograph of the entrance to the Necedah Shrine.
Image #3: Photograph of the “For My God and My Country Shrine” which features a statue of Jesus flanked by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Image #4: Photograph of a replica of Van Hoof’s original home.
Image #5: Photograph of pilgrims praying at the Shrine.

REFERENCES

DeSlippe, Philip. 2016 “Necedah Apparitions” Pp. 273-74 in Miracles: An Encyclopedia of People, Places and Supernatural Events from Antiquity to the Present, edited by Patrick J. Hayes. 2011. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

For My God and My Country, Inc. 2011. “Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix Between God and Man Shrine.” Accessed from http://www.queenoftheholyrosaryshrine.com/default.aspx on 9 September 2016.

Frakes, Margaret. 1950. “Setting for a Miracle.” The Christian Century, August 30: 1019-21.

Garvey, Mark. 2003. Waiting for Mary: America in Search of a Miracle. Cincinnati, OH: Emmis Books.

Jones, Meg. 2008. “Honoring a Vision.” Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel , May 29). Accessed from http://archive.jsonline.com/news/religion/29568074.html on 9 September 2016).

Kselman A, 2020. “Marian Piety and the Cold War in the United States.” Pp. 211-30 in Cold War Mary. Ideologies Politics and Marian Devotional Culture, edited by Peter Jan Margry. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Kselman, Thomas A., and Steven Avella. 1986. “Marian Piety and the Cold War in the United States.”The Catholic Historical Review 72:403-24.

Laycock, Joseph. 2015. The Seer of Bayside: Veronica Lueken and the Struggle to Define Catholicism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Maloney, Marlene. 1989. “Necedah Revisited: Anatomy of a Phony Apparition” Fidelity Magazine 8:18–34.

Thavis, John. 2015. The Vatican Prophecies: Investigating Supernatural Signs, Apparitions, and Miracles in the Modern Age. New York: Viking.

Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace Shrine. 2014. Shrine Newsletter, Vol. 1. (Summer): Necedah, WI: Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace Shrine.

Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra. 2012. “Bodies in Motion: Pilgrims, Seers and Religious Experience at Marian Apparition Sites.” Journeys 13 (2):28-46.

Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra. 1991.  Encountering Mary: from La Salette to Medjugorje. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra L. 1989. “Religious Experience and Public Cult: The Case of Mary Ann Van Hoof.” Journal of Religion and Health 28:36-57.

Publication Date:
28 September 2016