Posted on 08/21/2008 8:12:08 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Dottie Zimmerman is a 63-year-old mother of three, an award-winning religion teacher at a Toledo Catholic school, a former Ursuline nun, and a director of the Children's Theatre Workshop.
For the last five years, Mrs. Zimmerman also says she has been "channeling" Padre Pio, letting the dead Italian Catholic saint mystically speak through her.
It is a "gift," she said, and although she never asked for it she believes she must use it to help others, especially children.
Last month, Mrs. Zimmerman channeled the saint during a meeting of the Toledo Lightworkers Co-op, a group of people who explore alternative spirituality.
It was the fifth or sixth time she has publicly channeled Padre Pio, a Capuchin friar from Pietrelcina, Italy, who was known for bearing stigmata, or the wounds of Christ, on his hands and feet. He died in 1968 at age 81 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002.
Mrs. Zimmerman said in a recent interview that although she doesn't channel Padre Pio publicly very often, she hears from him almost daily.
"He'll make these pithy little comments. He has a wonderful sense of humor," she said. "One of the things that he insists is that we breathe deeply and we laugh - love, laugh, and breathe are his three words."
An eighth-grade religion teacher at St. Patrick of Heatherdowns School for nearly 30 years, Mrs. Zimmerman said she felt as though spiritual conversations had been percolating within her for years before she began to explore her gift...
(Excerpt) Read more at toledoblade.com ...
sorry that is creepy.
One word: Counterfeit
Leni
she really has no idea what spirit if any she is allowing into her being. it is just creepy.
a lot of catholics believe in posession. the whole thing is just out there.
Faker.
Channeling is of the devil, period.
It is creepy on several levels, and I am a practicing Roman Catholic. I think it is interesting this woman is a “ex-nun” who married and had children, and she was urged to begin “channeling” by her brother, a “former priest.”
Show me a channeler, medium, professional psychic, etc and I’ll show you a liar and a fraud.
A hand full of them are just delusional. The vast majority of them are con artist. NONE of them are legitimate.
Ummmm, guys? It’s called “necromancy”, and it’s rather harshly dealt with in Deuteronomy, I believe. This woman needs an exorcism, not a cheery little puff piece.
her head can prolly spin 360 degrees.
Lev 19:31 Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I [am] the LORD your God.
Isa 8:19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?
For those not familiar with the term "familiar spirit" it's exactly what she's doing. She's not channeling the dead. Nobody channels the dead. She is communicating with a demon who is pretending to be the dead person. A spirit that seems familiar. That's why God prohibits the practice in the strongest term.
So, we have a morbidly obese ex-nun who is encouraged by her brother - who is a psychologist and an ex-Jesuit - to engage in this behavior.
The scammitude just drips from this little circus freakshow.
Maybe she could conjure up King Saul and ask him how things turned out with the Witch of Endor and that time he conjured up the spirit of the Prophet Samuel?
Once again, mysticism and the occult raise their heads in the “church.” My sense is that she is not channeling Padre Pio...but someone else...if the Scriptures are to be believed!
"Mrs. Zimmerman said she channels other spirits besides Padre Pio. Every Saturday, for example, she channels her mother, who died two years ago, by typing out a letter to her surviving father, which she has collected in a looseleaf binder. "He really looks forward to it because he misses her so dreadfully," she said. She also channels her late husband, John, who "crossed over" 16 years ago."
But wait - there's more:
"Regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy, Mrs. Zimmerman said while channeling that everyone who 'transitioned' that day went immediately 'home,' or into heaven, 'including those who perpetrated this particular incident. They didn't have their 21 virgins in their party but they were celebrated for three days in partying and love and acceptance because they did what they thought they were supposed to do.' "
This woman may not be a scam artist per se - she may just need to be hospitalized.
Believing in a deity is not anymore rational than believing in channeling. One could say, using some people’s logic on this thread, that Priests, nuns, etc are all con artists. I would not agree with them, but it is funny what people decide to believe or accept and what they see as absolutely nuts. Just my observation:)
An actress. 'nuff said.
2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.
Regarding the 21 virgin thing....I always have wondered, is that a one time thing or do the women have perpetually regenerating hymens? You know eternity is a long time and only 21 virgins doesn't seem like much to me.
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