Posted on 03/17/2008 7:57:04 AM PDT by Gamecock
Erumeli, Mar 12, 2008 / 10:41 pm (CNA).- At least 50 in India have been blinded after staring at the sun in the hope of seeing an apparition of the Virgin Mary, the Telegraph reports.
Devotees have flocked to a hotel manager’s house in Erumeli, near where the apparition is rumored to have occurred. The hotelier claimed that statues of the Virgin Mary in his house had been crying honey and bleeding oils and perfume. The hotelier has since moved, but the house has been the object of attention for months.
Health authorities in the Kottayam district have tried to dispel rumors of a miraculous image in the sun. They warn of the dangers of looking into direct sunlight. Forty-eight cases of sight loss, possibly caused by photochemical burns on the retina, have been recorded at St. Joseph’s ENT and Eye Hospital since Friday.
"All our patients have similar history and symptoms… They have developed photochemical, not thermal, burns after continuously gazing at the sun," Dr. Annamma James Isaac, the hospital's ophthalmologist said, according to the Telegraph.
Clergy have disavowed the apparition after being approached by health officers and doctors.
Ping
The Catholic Church authorities thoroughly discouraged having anything to do with this alleged apparition. Meanwhile, do you suppose such unfortunate oddities could happen elsewhere within Christian circles? Indeed, I don't doubt for a minute that, had all of those who contributed to Oral Roberts' challenge to pay-up or "God will take me home!" could have been assembled together, and they were told that the 900-foot Jesus' face would be in front of the sun, at least 50 of those gullible fools would have been blinded in an identical fashion as these people in India were. Were the people in India all even Christians? It's entirely possible they were mostly Hindus who merely heard something about this "apparition" and were curious enough to look into it. Hindus are certainly prone to such gullibility, no?
My mother always told me not to look into the sun...
BS! If Hindus were gullible, then we wouldn’t have remained Hindus despite repeated attacks from Muslims in the 10-16th centuries and thereafter British and European rule in 16-19th century periods. However, most of those who converted to Christianity in India are very gullible because the primary reason they convert to Christianity is for money and the real love for Jesus! I am sorry to state it so bluntly but thats the ground truth. This is not to say there are those converted out of real faith in Christ but the majority do not and thats why Evangelicals disgust me! Not only are they selling a religion as though it were a product by offering money and material wealth but they are doing it under name of Christ!
It’s an article from the Catholic News Service.
Don’t be so touchy.
I am not being “touchy.” The article, in and of itself, is merely stating facts. And, thank you, I already read the fact beforehand that it was from CNS. The question in my mind is what was the particular “purpose” in its being broadcast here? That, I submit, we both already know.
LOLOL.
“Fortitude” (which I concede in the cases you describe) and “gullibility” are not synonyms.
Reading of others minds is verboten on the RF. Are you aware of that?
Ping
Did I read your mind? No. I ascertained a purpose. I did not state what that purpose was. Would you care to elaborate what your purpose was, then, in your own words? I’d be curious to know.
Same thing.
It certainly doesn't advance the cause of Christianity in general, since it makes it look generically "stupid" to the many fence-sitting lurkers on this forum. Yet this doesn't worry you. How curious.
Anyway, since I did nothing worse than what you did by posting the thing in the first place (unless, of course, you were trying to "help out" Catholicism somehow, in which case I stand corrected), I would only ask you to take your own advice and "Don't be so touchy."
I wish you and yours a suitably reflective Holy Week and a glorious Easter.
I’m merely pointing out the rules.
Mariolatry. They are already spiritually blind, which is far worse than the physical.
Hindus are certainly prone to such gullibility, no?
________
No more or less than anyone else.
People are people all over.
They were roosting like crows in trees the day the rapture was supposed to occur.
I understand there were several deaths from women slipping from the upper branches and plummeting to the ground.
Oops.
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