Apparitions Exposed!

Proclaiming the Gospel ^ | former Director for a "Mary, Queen of Peace Center."

[bkaycee]

Can a born again Christian be a member of a cult and be involved in idol worship? I once thought this was an impossibility until it happened to me. Now I understand why Jesus warned us that, in the end times, there would be an appearance of great signs and miracles that would deceive even the elect, if possible. I confess I have been seduced by signs and miracles associated with apparitions of Mary, and I offer my testimony so others may be warned and delivered.

Until recently I was serving as Director of Public Relations for the Queen of Peace Center in Dallas, Texas. This non-profit organization disseminates information and messages from Marian apparitions in Medjugorje and around the world. I co-authored a full page ad that was published in the June 25, 1993, Dallas Morning News at a cost of $10,000. This add announced "Mary's" prescription for peace and listed locations of her recent appearances. It also listed phone numbers to call for up-to-day recorded messages of Mary's latest apparitions, such as the one in Dallas (214) 233-MARY. I once thought it was special to be the only non-Catholic on the Queen of Peace board . . . that is, until I met Mike Gendron and his wife, Jane.

A Divine Appointment

Neighbors and close friends of mine knew I was seriously contemplating becoming Roman Catholic. They told me that Mike had been a Roman Catholic for 37 years and was now a pastor at a non-denominational church in the Dallas area. They said he understood many of the issues involved in being Roman Catholic and could help me with my decision. I looked forward to meeting both Mike and his wife, not for my sake, but for theirs. I felt certain the information I had collected about "Our Lady's apparitions" in Medjugorje would surely lead them back home to the "true" (Roman Catholic) church. Providentially it appeared, I attended a Queen of Peace board meeting the night before we met and asked the board to pray for this lost pastor and his wife, who had fallen away. When I arrived at their door the next morning, I first introduced myself, before returning to my car for the large stack of books and newspapers I had brought to persuade them. The materials would help explain what was happening in Medjugorje and how the Virgin Mary would help change their lives.

Confronted by Contradictions

After we met, they showed me a film titled Catholicism: Crisis of Faith. This film lovingly and objectively contrasted how the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church contradicts the teachings of the Sacred Scriptures. Mike would stop the film after each segment for my questions and comments. Initially, I was argumentative and felt uneasy and rather adamant about what I was witnessing. Mike realized he had forgotten to pray before starting the film and asked if we could ask God to make His truth clear, and that all deception would be exposed. After the prayer my whole countenance changed.

Each question I asked, Mike validated his answers using Vatican II documents and an official Roman Catholic catechism. It was amazing to me how Roman Catholic teaching contradicts the very Word of God. Question after question, he would bring the Bible over to me and knell to show me verses in context. His servant's demeanor and patient, understanding heart helped in unraveling falsehood after falsehood. There wasn't a question I could have asked him that would have provoked anger. As a reflection of our Lord, this man allowed Jesus to pull the scales away from my eyes.

There were three things in the film and our discussion that were most alarming to me. First, a church in South America has Mary placed on a crucifix rather than Christ. It reminded me of my visit to Our Lady of Guadeloupe Cathedral in downtown Dallas where Mary is positioned as the focal point at the alter and the crucifix is placed in another part of the church. These two scenes made me realize idolatry is practiced within the church.

Second, the Roman Catholic Catechism by Rev. William Cogan, now in its 44th year of print, has altered the 10 commandments of God. The 2nd commandment given to Moses reads, "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth" (Exodus 20:4). The Roman Catholics have deleted this commandment but still came up with ten by splitting the 10th one into two separate commands. "You shall not covet your neighbor's good; and you shall not covet your neighbor's wife" (Exodus 20:17). I was reminded of the scriptural warnings for those who add to or subtract from the Bible.

Third, Mike told me the only place in the Bible in which the queen of heaven was referred to was in the Book of Jeremiah. He encouraged me to study the passage and it would expose another false doctrine concerning Mary. Anyone who is familiar with the prayers and meditations of the rosary can tell you that in one of the mysteries Christ supposedly crowned Mary the queen of heaven after she was assumed into heaven. Neither of these events have scriptural validity, but I had decided to blindly accept these doctrines because all of the other meditations on the life of Christ were verified by Scripture.

The Queen of Heaven

After returning home, I looked in the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible for the passage in Jeremiah 44. Here, the Lord was angered by the wickedness of the people choosing to serve other gods. The people refused to listen to the Lord. Instead, they would "burn sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pour out libations to her." The woman "made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out libations to her?" (Jeremiah 44:17, 19).

In Hebrew the word for queen has reference to "the heavenly handiwork" or "the stars of heaven." The reference might be to Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility, who is identified with the Venus Star and is actually entitled "Mistress of Heaven." (The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, p. 975)

My head was spinning and filled with questions after reading this. Doesn't Mary usually appear with stars for her crown? Who then is the woman in Revelation 12:3-6? And most importantly, why would the Roman Catholic Church give the mother of Jesus the title of a pagan goddess? Had I been promoting the ministry of a pagan goddess whose messages were inconsistent with the Bible? Indeed her messages do contradict the Bible. In fact, she speaks of another gospel, another plan of salvation that nullifies and opposes the all sufficient sacrifice of Jesus. The apparition of Fatima said, "You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go, so save them, God wishes to establish in the world, devotion to my Immaculate Heart." The apostle Paul condemned anyone, even an angel from heaven, who would dare preach a different way to be saved other than through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ (Galatians 1:6-10).

As for the woman described in Revelation, she is not Mary, the mother of Jesus, but God's chosen people, the Jews. When the passage in chapter 12 is read in context with the rest of the book, and Genesis 37:9-10, this clearly refers to the nation Israel. God fulfills His promise to the Jews, by protecting them in the desert during 3 1/2 years of tribulation.

I later realized my prayers to Mary and the saints, the reciting of rosaries and chaplets of divine mercy, and the wearing of Marian medals and scapulars had taken my focus off of Jesus. I had allowed doctrines of the Roman Catholic church to do the very thing Saint Paul warned against, "But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." (2 Cor. 11:3).

An Angel of Light

Recently, a person whom I love dearly, and who has a "Marian devotion" asked me, "Why are you bothering the people who are already good people instead of worrying about those who are lost?" The answer came to me the other evening as the Lord continues to guide me through His sacred Word. Saint Paul wrote that "Satan masquerades as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). We know the mother of Jesus would never oppose her Son, and since the apparitions do just that, they could very well be Satan masquerading as Mary. Saint Paul also wrote, "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them . . . everything exposed by the light becomes visible" (Ephesians 5:11-14). Therefore, I feel called to expose these attempts by the evil one to divert people's devotion away from Jesus. The most authoritative way to do this is with the light of God's Holy Word. My new test for truthfulness is -- if it does not agree with the Scriptures then it must be rejected.

Freedom in the Truth

Now that I have torn down the altar in my bedroom, where I knelt and prayed to St. Anthony of Padua each night, and now that I have placed my rosaries, scapular and medals away, I have found a new freedom. The truth really does set people free! I have found special peace in knowing Jesus alone is my Savior, and not co-redemptrix with His mother. The Holy Spirit continues to lead me into all truth and is now the only teacher I need (1 John 2:27).

To all my precious friends who I have encouraged to seek Mary and to obey the misleading messages of her apparitions, I pray these Scriptures would minister to you -- "And it came about while He said these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, 'Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which you nursed.' But He said, 'On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and observe it." (Luke 11:27-28)

This article was submitted by a former Director for a "Mary, Queen of Peace Center."

[Cronos]

Papertyger: I'm the guy exposing your only answer for uncomfortable bible truths is aggression and spite.

Sadly, he's not the only one who has no answers, just hatred against Christ and His Church

[Cronos]

pnsm will never tell us what he believes in, because his groups beliefs are outlandish enough to dissuade any Christian from acknowledging them

They won't answer simple questions like

1. Does your group believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
2. Does your group believe as we Christians do, that Jesus Christ was fully man and fully God? Does your group believe that Jesus Christ, God the Son became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, was born of a virgin through the Holy Spirit. That God truly became human in Jesus Christ. Does your group believe in ONE Lord Jesus Christ, The Only Son of God, Eternally Begotten of the Father, begotten, not made, ONE in being with the Father, through whom all things was made Does your group believe that it is ok to pray to Jesus Christ or to the Holy Spirit (there are some who say that one should pray only to the Father)

No answers to these, no response to papertyger's verses from Scripture, just "who the **** are you?" as responses.... sad...

[Mad Dawg]

Wouldn't it be nice to have a mature, respectful dialog where opposing viewpoints can be aired and everyone goes away knowing they gave it their best shot and the results belong to God? I HAVE seen it happen, but it is rare. It would be wonderful if in this season of remembrance of our Savior's sacrifice and resurrection for our new birth, we also determine to post in “newness of life”.

I come from writing a defense of the Catholic attitude toward sex. Metmom's post, to which I was responding included several falsehoods. One of them she herself admitted earlier (maybe a year ago?) to be wrong. And yet here it is again.

When I first came to the RF,one of the first things I saw -- and I have seen it a hundred times or more since -- was a gross misrepresentation of our teaching on the Eucharist. I don't mind discussing -- even debating -- what we DO teach. I think it wrong for our antagonists to insist that we teach what we do not teach and to attack that untaught thing.

But -- and, again,it was metmom recently -- who said we teach that the Eucharist is "literally" and "physically" the body and blood of Christ. Now I have seen "literal" used by imprecise speakers, not by theologians. I know of no theologian who uses "physically", and if I were to find one, I am confidant that he would not be using it in the usual way.

When one asks the run-of-the-mill non-Catholic contender "What is a thing?" one usually gets a huffy, "you know perfectly well what a thing is!" sort of answer. That explains the misrepresentation of our Eucharistic thought. We are saying one thing miraculously becomes another. We are most certainly not saying it "physically" becomes another -- not as the normal occurrence. Those who have not thought hard about what a thing is simply cannot coherently criticize what we say -- they don't have the tools or don't know how to use them. But that impossibility does not stop them from cluttering discourse with falsehoods about what we teach.

And at this point they are gratuitous, if not malevolent, falsehoods. Plenty of introductory explanations have been offered and been ignored by all except for one or two folks.

As a subset of this perversion of discourse there is the tactic of weighing in with a massive attack on ONE aspect of our Eucharistic thought and piety. And when we have brought all our troops over to meet this assault, then we are told that we think nothing of the many other aspects of the Mass. Thatis, of course, false as an hour with, say Fr, Louis Bouyer's Liturgical Piety would make plain.

In one of Dylan's songs there is the line, "Don't criticize what you can't understand." I won't say that the non-Catholics CAN'T understand. I will say that they don't understand and don't take the trouble to understand. They just burst through the doors, guns blazing and shoot at anything that moves.

And then, ludicrously, they complain that they are not welcomed with gentle courtesy.

I just made (as you noted) a sincere defense of the OPC. I don't see how I could reach out any more than to defend the denomination which has produced arguably the most aggressive, relentless and offensive of our assailants, for such they are, when they attack us with falsehoods, KNOWN falsehoods.

It takes two to tango. I have gone to the center of the dance floor and am waiting for a dance partner. What I get is lies and mockery shouted from those standing along the walls.

I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for warre.

- Psalm 120:7 KJV

[Cronos]

Who is this that darkens council with words without knowledge?

I dunno -- we have such a variety of choice here, don't you think MD, notwithstanding? So many examples of our non-Christian friends who attack Christ and His Church (and when they have spare time, they attack Christian Protestants)

[Mad Dawg]

“Who is this that
darkens council with words without
knowledge?”

Oh, Touche’!

I cain't 'member whur I read that, 'cept the book had a zipper to it. Bein' Catholic and all, I cain't hardly read 't all!

[presently no screen name]

If you are so interested in exposing - start with your church.

[Mad Dawg]

I suggest you be able to back it up with scripture, because any “explanation” that isn't in scripture makes you no better than Job's comforters.

YOU suggest? Who the flip are you?

I'm not feeling the love here.

Once again, the analogy to Islam is clear. You are kaffir, haram! You must not speak. Only obey.

[Cronos]

On pnsm's post: You are kaffir, haram! You must not speak. Only obey.

True and what is worse is that each has their own interpretation. Some at least have a Christian interpretation or try. Then you have the OPC/PCA and the Westboro Baptist Club which are just out to give people the hate...

[papertyger]

Thanks for your time.

In my many years of FReeping, I have learned that when an opponent is reduced to one or another variation of “I know you are, but what am I” the argument is over, because I won and they lack the intellectual integrity to admit it.

[Cronos]

Your group is no more than a larger version of the Westboro Baptists -- and like them they do not serve Christ.

The bible refers to such as these when we read:

Proverbs 6:12-14

A worthless person, a wicked man (OPC/PCA),
Walks with a perverse mouth;
He winks with his eyes,
He shuffles his feet,
He points with his fingers;
Perversity is in his heart,
He devises evil continually,
He sows discord.

Let's examine the two groups and let's see:

Westboro Baptist:

OPC:

I'd say that the Westboro church is a little more colour ful.

Dr. Eck, Gamecock and Alex's group, the OPC continues it's preaching of hatred against Pentecostals, Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, Jews, Catholics, Orthodox, Christian martyrs in the Middle East etc.

[Quix]

In terms of the elements of the Lord’s Supper . . .

imho,

I suspect that many Proddys find that a

distinction without a difference.

. . .

Just as we find . . . no significant FUNCTIONAL, BEHAVIORAL, ATTITUDINAL

DIFFERENCE

between adore, venerate, worship.

---

I think I remarked to you years ago . . . that the two camps come from

EXTREMELY DIFFERENT REALITIES.

IIRC, you go at some length into

What is “real,” etc.

I mean above, “realities” in the sense that our representations of what we perceive

in our own cognitions and mental space, emotions, spirit . . . one might say . . . body, mind, soul, spirit—the totality of our representations of what we perceive and experience . . .

THOSE representations are EXTREMELY DIFFERENT IN FUNDAMENTAL WAYS.

I don’t know that the analogies of ET’s vs Humans or Aardvarks vs collies quite gets at it . . . but hints, maybe . . . at the degrees of difference.

Given such horrendous DIFFERENCES in the very substrate, foundation, descriptions, experiences of

“REALITY”

How can there NOT be such excruciating and intense sparks, conflicts, jangling of sensibilities, incongruence, discord?

I don’t know that any of us are so saintly as to much at all and certainly not easily eradicate such huge spans of DIFFERENCE.

I’m not too terrible a boundary worker, normally.

Have sure done 100’s of hours of such between groups, between family members etc.

And, I’ve earnestly tried my hardest to translate between our two groups in redemptive ways.

My EXPERIENCE is that ALWAYS, the RC side has RUTHLESSLY SHREDDED SUCH EFFORTS and certainly me, in the process.

And that’s with me sheathing my horns!

There’s a thread in the News/Activism section about the Alaskan cases where 80% of the children of a village were molested by RC priest(s).

The facts are indisputable. For a larger geographic area $166 million is being paid out for the abuse.

And STILL RC apologists are assaulting the messengers, rationalizing and DEFENDING the INSTITUTION

and dancing every rationalizing, self-justifying, absurd 2-step tango they can to avoid anything close to saying anything substantive about—YUP—GUILTY AS CHARGED—HORRENDOUS, MEA CULPA . . .

The message that comes across loud and clear for the 10,000th time is

THE INSTITUTION IS purported to be, defended as SAINTLY—AT ALL COSTS—REGARDLESS OF HOW MANY DEMONS AND DEMONIC ACTIONS ARE HANGING OFF OF EVERY LOCAL PART OF IT.

Proddys watch such a chronic phenomenon on FR and shake our heads.

How CAN there be ANY reasoning with such a mentality?

Certainly, I’ve frequently added that Proddys need to be cautious about pointing any fingers about any kind of sin. Sinning in one point of the law = guilt of the whole law. NONE of us is righteous, no, not one. But for the grace of God, go we all. etc. etc.

Nevertheless, these ARE horrendous cases of wholesale tragic abusive iniquitous sins perpetrated, covered up and excused by the Vatican system for decades.

And with very rare exceptions—probably less than 0.05% of the posts, RC’s do nothing but justify and excuse the INSTITUTION.

To Proddys, that is OBVIOUS BRAZEN DEMONSTRATED PROOF that SOME RC’s WORSHIP THE INSTITUTION MORE THAN GOD.

Yet, because of the huge differences, willful blindness, . . . whatever . . .

there appears to be ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that such issues can be discussed civilly between our two sides.

There’s just no way. Won’t happen. There’s no CAPACITY for that to happen—from the Proddy perspective—that lack of capacity seems to be virtually entirely on the RC side—an incapacity and unwillingness to

—see facts as facts;
—discuss facts as facts;
—admit facts as facts;
—reach rational conclusions about facts.

And if that’s SOOOOOOOO IMPOSSIBLE with something as fairly clear cut as these examples of rank sexual abuse . . .

HOW ON EARTH does ANYONE IMAGINE

rational reasonable discourse can occur between the two camps

when splitting hairs about The Lord’s Supper,

Mary’s sex life,

Mary’s trumped up deity,

etc.???

All the more so when virtually all the Proddys ever experience is being murdered as the messengers—regardless of the facts.

[Cronos]

I come from writing a defense of the Catholic attitude toward sex. Metmom's post, to which I was responding included several falsehoods. One of them she herself admitted earlier (maybe a year ago?) to be wrong. And yet here it is again.

Yes, and we have others on other threads repeating the same falsehoods after last year admitting that they were wrong and now they repeat it again and again. sigh....

[Cronos]

IWhen I first came to the RF,one of the first things I saw -- and I have seen it a hundred times or more since -- was a gross misrepresentation of our teaching on the Eucharist. I don't mind discussing -- even debating -- what we DO teach. I think it wrong for our antagonists to insist that we teach what we do not teach and to attack that untaught thing.

That is standard gameplay. Say "Caflix teach xYA" and then ask a Catholic to prove that they don't.

At no point does the accuser say what they themselves believe, at no point does that matter.

After going around in a circle for a long time, finally it is proved to the accuser that this was wrong. But the accuser does not admit to this and jumps to another topic

Par for the course.

the circle continues and then a few weeks later, the same initial question is repeated.... sigh...

Then you correctly point out that As a subset of this perversion of discourse there is the tactic of weighing in with a massive attack on ONE aspect of our Eucharistic thought and piety. And when we have brought all our troops over to meet this assault, then we are told that we think nothing of the many other aspects of the Mass. Thatis, of course, false

You forget that others think that as long as we bow down to them, we are nice, otherwise we are rude for not agreeing with their own personal interpretation -- you even have some who say quoting from the Bible is copy-pasting

[Notwithstanding]

Miss Eckles:

Your sect members rape children during sunday school.
They sodomize the little ones, while the congration just sings a little louder.
Your sect worships at satan’s altar.
Each word uttered by members of your sect is a lie.

[caww]

I see those named and others contributing opinions to this thread which address the issue of sexual child abuse by Priests and leadership toward children in the catholic church... which has a very serious problem with Priests who are perps. Even Rome admits this.

I see them questioning why more isn’t done to resolve the problem and why those who are guilty are not delt with immediately. I see them questioning why it has gone on without the membeership who was aware addressing the issue more forcefully then and today, and when the few did they were basically ignored.

I see concern for the children who remain and the question if or not they are at risk even today for the reason of the cover-up which is now known occurred.

I see the facts being presented that these acts of violence against children are in the hundreds worldwide.

But I also see too many within the catholic church excusing and/or attempting to avoidand detract from the issue of those who committed these atrocities and those who supported them...and make it a religious issue between catholics and protestants.

[Notwithstanding]

I think some of them simply seek out new sects.

[Mad Dawg]

Aw, Jeez. Does error make one non-Christian? Even heresy, does it necessarily make one non-Christian?

I think we have to look at comparatively invincible ignorance here as a mitigating factor.

I forget if you are a convert. I do know many lifelong Catholics who have trouble believing the almost automatic revulsion that many non-Catholics have toward the Catholic Church. Mary just gives them a MAJOR case of the skin crawls. I have seen many times the involuntary lip-curl, politely suppressed but still evident, on the face of people who learn I'm Catholic.

It's reminiscent of that passage in Chesterton's Orthodoxy where he describes the way the Church is criticized for contradictory things. Too liberal/too conservative; too intellectual/too superstitious; too anti-sex/too encouraging the joys of the marriage bed, too austere in her monasteries/too luxurious in her festivals and liturgies; and so on. We are either very wrong indeed or we are the center from which everything else deviates.

But I digress. While the appearance of self-inflicted blindness always gets my dander up, and the casual disregard our antagonists have for the truth amazes me, still their vision is impaired and the knowledge brittle and friable. Self-inflicted wounds are still wounds and require bandages and salves.

I don't know. God loves them, so I must be open, I think, to His Love.

I'm babbling. Sorry.

[caww]

Teaching on the Eucharist has been an issue ‘within’ the catholic church, both in the past to this day, so it is no surprise those who are not catholic would also find issue with how some within the catholic church view the Eucharist.

[Cronos]

Does error make one non-Christian?

Nope. but if a group persistently:

1. attacks all other Christians and Jews and curses them or calls them vile names
2. abandons Christian thought to persist in their brahman caste belief
3. Consistently reject Christian thought

then yes.

The Presbyterians may have started off Christian and many groups like the Cumberland Presbyterians are still Christian, but the ultra-fringe groups like the OPC have abandoned all such Christian thought just like the Westboro Baptist Club.

It is not "mistakes", which anyone can make, but persistently repeating it, and attacking those who don't follow their mistakes that makes them wrong.

[Cronos]

I'm a cradle Catholic and yes, I cannot believe the automatic revulsion and when I saw it on FR, I could not believe it.

you are correct: It's reminiscent of that passage in Chesterton's Orthodoxy where he describes the way the Church is criticized for contradictory things. Too liberal/too conservative; too intellectual/too superstitious; too anti-sex/too encouraging the joys of the marriage bed, too austere in her monasteries/too luxurious in her festivals and liturgies; and so on.