Should the Church Judge Its Own Case?

According to Catholic authorities, apparitions must satisfy two conditions. First, they must be in harmony with the church’s teachings. A striking example is the apparition at Lourdes, where the “Virgin” presented herself as “The Immaculate Conception.” Interestingly, a few years before this, Pope Pius IX had decreed that at conception Mary was preserved free from original sin. In 1933 the future Pius XII expressed his opinion that the two events were linked, stating: “The Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God and blessed among women, wished to confirm with her own lips that which was defined in Rome by her infallible Supreme Pontiff. This she did soon afterward in a famous apparition at the Massabielle Grotto [Lourdes].”

Second, the conduct of the one who saw the apparition must be considered. As the bishop of Tours stated: “The church . . . believed in the apparitions [at Lourdes] because of Bernadette’s holiness.” And the ecclesiastical authorities consider that both Bernadette and Lucie, who claimed to have seen Mary at Lourdes and Fátima respectively, met this condition by later becoming nuns.

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February 11, 1858.

A 14-year-old French girl named Bernadette Soubirous, her sister, and a friend were out gathering firewood near Lourdes, a town in southwest France near the Spanish border. Just as Bernadette was going to cross a stream, a “lady” appeared to her in a grotto. On other occasions, the same “lady” asked for a chapel to be built on that very spot and appealed to all mankind to repent.

Encountering yet another apparition, Bernadette heard the “lady” say in the local dialect: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Alone against civil and even religious authorities, Bernadette Soubirous maintained that her declarations were true. Finally, the Catholic Church officially recognized the apparitions of the “Virgin.” The sanctuary at Lourdes is the result.

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Lourdes