Those of you who have followed me in the past know that I am very interested in Catholic Prophecy. It is fascinating to read some of the prophetic messages of past Saints, Marian Apparitions, and the like. You will also know that I have a somewhat bi-polar relationship with prophecy. I fully and embrace the reality of prophecy and prophetic messages, but am also pretty skeptical by nature.
In the past I have noted what I believe to be one of the seminal works on the subject, “Trial, Tribulation, and Triumph” by Desmond A. Birch. The reason I am as fond as I am about this work is that he takes my own preferred approach to the subject. There is not whimsical adherence to random prophetic utterances. Instead, he starts with key statements about what private revelation is, rooted in the Catechism. He then lays the groundwork for what he decided to consider in presenting different statements or writings: if a Church approved apparition, or if the statement came from a venerable, blessed, or Saint then these statements carry more weight and are the focus of the book.
There is no statement for or against anyone else using this approach, but it is the safest approach to take.
Interestingly, and not surprisingly, there are many common themes that run throughout the book, and across the words of many Saints of many different times. One might wonder if the writings are really their own revelations or if they were simply instructional teachings, learned from others. I think it’s a fair question, but for the most part I believe the statements were from personal and private revelations of one type or another.
Perhaps more surprisingly (or not to some) is that there are many degrees of variations provided in prophetic messages that aren’t always easily reconciled. And this is where things get murky. First of all, Private Revelation can never rise to the level of Public Revelation. There is no guarantee of protection from error on any number of fronts: Did the seer hear or see something incorrectly? Did the seer misinterpret what they saw? Did the seer repeat the message properly? Is there possible translation error into other languages, either explicitly or in a contextual sense? Was the prophecy conditional (meaning the outcome has since changed based on our response to God’s warning embedded in a message?) And, there is always the possibility that the person simply did not receive a real message of divine origin at all, or conflated a real message with some confabulation or other assumptions made.
Because of this, we need to both take seriously the prophetic, but also be very careful and discerning.
In the past, I’ve openly mused about Medjugorje. I have never understood why it would be necessary for messages to be given/received over and over and over with very little differentiation in the message from day to day, week to week… Having said that, I simply don’t know, and one can’t deny the stories about experiences at Medjugorje. I’m completely open and uncommitted on that. It simply doesn’t make sense to me, but I also know I’m a simple man and God doesn’t always make “sense” to me. So I choose to await the Church on this one.
There are numerous other cases around the world of interest. I am generally both interested, but skeptical, of most of them. I choose not to spend too much of my time on them.
Every now and then you start to hear a lot about this person or that person. Usually, in my opinion, as you look more closely at them you can’t help but be somewhat disappointed, at least in regards to the reliability of the people and their messages. I don’t want to judge, but part of me thinks that some people receive very strong feelings or promptings that lead them to develop a message that seems divine or prophetic. Perhaps it even is. My sense is people have to guard against an almost addictive desire for this to continue, and move from a valid (or at least not invalid) experience to something they are forcing. I think many of those who “receive messages” are really not, but honestly think they are. The problem with this is that their overall message may be edifying, but the extraneous content – the more predictive elements – is nothing more than their own conjecture.
There was a series of messages that could be followed from a site called “Words From Jesus” some time ago. It started off as somewhat intriguing, but as I checked in and tracked the messages and followed them, I personally felt strongly that this was not authentic. Again, it was a case of message after message with not dissimilar warnings of a general nature, which may well have been something authentic. But any time the visionary ventured into specifics about upcoming events or outcomes, or even some specific prophecies of the Pope, they never really happened. One must be willing to walk away from something and not get too involved to the point that you can’t recognize error, whether in teaching or in more specific prophecy. You can’t get too emotionally involved or you risk being misled. Focus on the message and the character of the person and the rest wil take care of itself.
Another more pronounced example is a supposed seer in Brazil, named Pedro Regis. A big deal was made some time ago because he accurately predicted some devastating circumstance in this place or that place. It was compelling to me until I studied him further. I went back to the beginning of his documented messages, and interestingly I found that his early messages were all very vague and unspecific. There was very little actual “prophecy” in terms of forecasting future events. As time went on, there seemed to me to be a distinct shift in message to more of a constant declaration of some bad thing happening somewhere at some point. The issue I have is that he’s bound to get some right, and people made a big deal out of it when he did, but there are endless messages regarding different regions or countries or cities that nothing of the sort has happened. Now, there’s usually not timeline, so I suppose it could all come to pass, but the next question is “what’s the point?” OK, on a daily basis we’re told that some specific area of the world is going to suffer catastrophe. Theoretically, I suppose it could all happen at the same time. So why not just say “look, you’re all hosed unless you pray more.”
Now, again, I admit to being simple. God has a plan. He may be trying to reach others and this may all make perfect sense in the spiritual realm and doing what it’s supposed to do. I have no authority whatever in making a judgment of authenticity one way or another. I have my opinions, and will always state that opinion with the caveat that I will accept the truth whether that comes as a judgment from the Church or God someday whacking me upside the head and saying “How could you not figure out that good ol’ Pedro was my servant?” I will have no good reply other than I’m human and thick-headed.
To end this post, I’ll start with this: Be careful out there. Take it slow, don’t get caught up in a single message or “direct hit,” but take your time to read up on anyone you might start to get interested in following (I use that term a bit loosely – I mean “follow” in the sense of keeping tabs on or learning more about, or even getting to know. But never follow someone to the detriment of following Christ and His Church).
Now, having said all that, I plan on presenting my thoughts on a man named Charlie Johnston in some upcoming posts. I have taken a number of months to read over his entire blog history, and try to figure out what he’s saying, where he’s coming from, and whether anything he says makes me uncomfortable in the context of Public Revelation, the Catechism, and what I would consider to be the more authentic messages of the Saints. I can’t promise when I’ll be able to present my thoughts, but I’ll start putting those together.
Catholic Diatribes 