Posted on 10/17/2013 7:53:07 PM PDT by RBStealth
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The first point I wish to make is that I personally believe that Our Ladys apparitions in 1917 to Jacinta Marto, Francisco Marto, and Lucia Santos (who died in 2005) really took place, and I note here that the evidence for the Miracle of the Sun is overwhelming. During my print publishing days, I published some works by Fr. Robert Fox on Fatima, and also the brilliant history by the late Warren Carroll, 1917: Red Banners, White Mantle. I commend the spiritual insights offered by Our Lady at Fatima, and I have said the Rosary at least once daily now for more than thirty years, including the family Rosary. I recommend this spiritual practice more highly than anything except the sacraments of the Church.
But the second point I wish to make is that even if the Church judges a private revelation as authentic and suitable for the devotion of the faithful, she requires nobody to believe it. These things are not matters of Faith. Not even a pope has to believe in them, even though a prior pope may have reached an affirmative judgment. Some avid promoters of Fatima, however, have tried to impose this private revelation on the Church herself, by referring to it as a special category of revelation, as I indicated. But no such category exists in the Churchs theological lexicon. It is rather a category invented by some ill-advised proponents of the Fatima message who are disgruntled by what they see as the Churchs failure to respond to Fatima as these same proponents would have her do.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...
Till now. Thank you.
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