Leo Cardinal Scheffczk, who was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in February 2001, and who has been involved in the Emmerich beatification case, compared this servant of God to St. Teresa of Avila while he spoke at the 1990 episcopal Emmerich symposium in Munster. Referring to her stigmata, Scheffczyk remarked that her life can be seen as a "path of union with the suffering of Christ and her person as a paradigm of mystical suffering worthy of being entered into the ranks of a Teresa of Avila."
In his address, this now prince of the Church examined the signs that speak for the authenticity and supernatural origin and character of Emmerich’s stigmata, childhood life of penance, and visions. These are "not to be explained by a natural religious inclination" in Emmerich, and they can "without the working of a special grace scarcely be explained.... Her mystical grace was of the highest order.... Emmerich was marked with the highest mystical grace, represented as the ‘mystical betrothal’ and the ‘spiritual wedding.’ The knowledge and spiritual instructions which she communicated in conversations and speeches with her contemporaries and which she could not have gathered through reading or self-study, are also an indirect proof for the authenticity of her elevated mystical state?’
The recorded visions of Emmerich were praised and recommended by, among others, St. John Neumann, St. Sophie Madeleine Barat (canonized 1925), St. Mary Euphrasia (canonized 1940), and Leon Dupont, the famous "holy man of Tours."
In further comments, Scheffczyk stated that Emmerich’s was an anima ecciesiastica and that her calling was to suffer for souls and for the Church as a whole. It was furthermore "not without significance" that historically Emmerich’s visions concerning the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, so closely anticipated the renewed interest among theologians in this aspect of the Church in the first four decades of the 20th century, which of course found its culmination in Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Mystici Corporis.
In his final remarks, Scheffczyk noted the importance of Emmerich "in an epoch of advances in science and civilization. . . in which the meaning of the transcendence of human life is generally obscured, but in which especially the meaning of suffering has almost vanished. Without the wisdom of the cross, a supernatural healing cannot be achieved. The great bearer of suffering Anne Catherine Emmerich can teach us precisely this."
Sources
"Bischöfliches Offizialat Münster" (October 20, 2000) .
Göckener, Norbert, "Akte mit ‘wunderbarem’ Inhalt Seligsprechungsverfahren für Emmerick in entacheidender Phase" (March 24, 2001) .
" 'Mystikerin der Münsterlandes.’ Das ‘Wunderverfahren’ für Anna Katharina Emmerick hat begonnen" (October 23, 2000) http:// www.bistum-muenster.de .
Scheffczyk, Leo, "Die Mystik der Anna Katharina Emmerick," in: Anna Katharina Emmerick. Die Mystikerin des Münsterlandes. Symposion 1990 der Bischöflichen Kommission "Anna Katharina Emmerick" Münster. Clemens Engling, Hubert Festring, Hermann Flothkötter (Herausgeber). (Dülmen: Laumann-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1991), 39-62.
Seller, Hermann Josef, Im Banne des Kreuzes. Lebensbild der stigmatisierten Augustinerie A.K. Emmerick (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1949), 451-457. (This source records various miracles effected through the intercession of Emmerich.)
From http://www.emmerich1.com/VenerableEmmerich.htm