08-30-2022, 01:17 PM
Taken from The Recusant #58 - September 2022
Not content with promoting chaos and anarchy (“no organisation, loose pockets only!”) amongst those few still trying to resist the slide into liberalism; not content with overturning the teaching of the Council of Trent on the need for seminaries to form priests; not content with promoting highly dubious alleged Novus Ordo “miracles”; not content with promoting even attendance at the New Mass (remember when he told some of his own followers in America that their grandchildren would only be able to keep the Faith by going to New Mass?); not content with pushing bogus visionary Maria Valtorta and her purported messages from heaven (“The Gospel as Revealed to Me” aka “The Poem of the Man-God”), condemned by the Church and placed on the Index, as being excellent family reading in the home, whilst simultaneously pouring scorn on the 1950s Holy Office of Cardinal Ottaviani and Fr Garrigou Lagrange OP, perhaps the last sane, uninfected part of the Church at that time; not content with punishing any priest who dares to voice a contrary opinion, whether or not he mentioned Bishop Williamson by name, using the sacraments of confirmation and holy orders as a weapon to cow any dissenting
voices amongst the clergy and laity; not content with so many such scandals and many more besides, alas, Bishop Williamson is still at it. Here is his latest.
Does He, indeed? And how may that be? The answer is to be found in the very first sentence:
Because of the high probability that it is authentic..?! So it isn’t certain, then? If only there were a way for the lay Catholic-in-the-street to be certain as to whether this or that supposed private revelation is authentic. Oh, wait, hold on. There is. The local bishop said it wasn’t real.
Case closed.
This is very misleading. In fact, Garabandal is condemned by the Church. I suppose, in a way, you could just about get away with saying that the Church “has still to give it approval” - in the same way that one might say that St. Pius X still has to give his approval to modernism, or Our Lord has still to give his approval to the Pharisees. And it had nothing to do with timing.
“Vatican II (1962-1965) was a gigantic betrayal of Truth, of the Faith, of the Catholic Church. Garabandal (1961-1965) was a gigantic affirmation of Catholic Truth, of the Faith, of the Church.”
So was Palmar de Troya, which began at roughly the same time (1968). That is no doubt why, in its early stages, some Traditionalists believed it: it told them what they wanted to hear. One would hope, however, that no Traditional Catholics today regard the messages of Palmar de Troya as authentic. No more authentic are the messages of Garabandal.
Yes. How about some mention of the infiltration of the Church by her enemies? “...on the road to perdition and taking many souls with them” is true as far as it goes, but it leaves out a lot of important information. It makes it sound as though the problem is only clerics leading sinful, worldly lives and not that they are actively promoting heresy and destroying the Church from within. One might think that there was no organised plot. And why is it only “many”..?
How about the New Mass? How about mentioning that the true Mass, the Mass said by St. Gregory the Great, St. Pius V, St. Pius X and virtually every Catholic priest in the world at that time, was about to be replaced by a neo-Protestant schismatic rite?
How about mentioning the Pope in connection with the evils afflicting the Church - is it only the cardinals, bishops and priests who are the problem? Is the Pope somehow a good guy surrounded by bad guys? I remember Novus Ordo conservatives telling me that back in the 1990s: poor old JPII wants to fix the church, but he’s surrounded by all these wicked, evil bishops and Cardinals. And I remember thinking to myself: “Who appointed them..?!” Even Palmar de Troya maintained that Paul VI was a saintly man who was somehow being kept a prisoner in the Vatican. When he died they declared him “Saint Paul VI” - a ludicrous idea, made all the more ludicrous when the conciliar church followed suit in recent years. “Saint Paul VI” - what a joke! It just goes to show, in some ways the conciliar church is as ridiculous as Palmar de Troya! But we digress. La Salette told us that specifically Rome would lose the Faith - Garabandal makes it sound as though the problem is only lower down in the hierarchy.
Why isn’t Vatican II mentioned in connection with this? Given the part played by Vatican II in souls being led to hell and given the coincidence of timing… isn’t it worth a mention? We could go on. There are many, far more accurate ways to describe the crisis in the Church. Saying that “many cardinals bishops and priests” are on the way to hell and taking lots of people with them sounds just about conservative/Traditionalist enough to keep everyone happy whilst being vague enough not to cause trouble in the future or risk offending one faction or another among the message’s eager recipients. It is exactly the sort of thing, in other words, that one would expect a bogus apparition to say. But let’s get to the heart of the matter. Here is how you can know for certain that Garabandal isn’t real.
1. It was condemned by the local bishop.
Garabandal is located in the diocese of Santander. Every Bishop of Santander, from 1961 onwards, has ruled that the apparitions are not real. In 1961, the apostolic administrator of Santander diocese, Mgr. Doroteo Fernandez, decreed that the events were not from heaven and told people not go to Garabandal. When Mgr. Eugenio Beitia Aldazabal became bishop of Santander in January 1962, he reiterated the judgement of his predecessor and again forbade priests or people from gathering there.
This decision was upheld by a third bishop in 1965. In 1967 a fourth Bishop of Santander, Mgr. Vicente Puchol Montiz, issued an official declaration, stating: “There was no apparition either of the Blessed Virgin or of St. Michael the Archangel or of any other celestial personage. There was no message. All the phenomena which occurred have a natural explanation.” (See: The Catholic News Archive) The supporters of Garabandal appealed to Rome. Rome upheld the decisions of four successive ordinaries of Santander diocese.
To be continued below ...
In October 1996, Mgr. Jose Vilaplana the newly-appointed Bishop of Santander diocese issued the following letter.
Continued from above... [see original Recusant link at top for accompanying photographic evidence concerning Garabandal- The Catacombs]
In cases such as this, the judgement of the Church is all that matters. By rights, we could close the list here.
Let this point be emphasised: the local bishops, the men who held ordinary jurisdiction in the diocese where these supposed “apparitions” took place, all consistently decided that they were not to be believed and told priests and faithful to stay away. Let us also emphasise that the first two such bishops did so in 1961 and again in early 1962, before Vatican II in other words. We ought therefore to regard this as the judgement of the Church. Everything else is just “extra,” this is the one fact that matters. If anyone still wants more, however, here are some facts of lesser importance, but which also point to Garabandal being at best fraudulent and at worst, well…
2. None of the ‘seers’ pursued a religious vocation.
All four went on to live worldly lives the same as you or I. Three of them married Americans and moved to the United States. Jacinta ended up living in California; Mari Loli in Massachusetts; Conchita in Long Island, New York. Not one of the four ‘seers’ spent her last days doing extraordinary penance, in poverty, etc. Compare with Sr. Lucy, for instance, who ended up in a Carmelite convent, or St. Bernadette who entered the Sisters of Charity and ended her days doing great penance.
3. None of their children became priests or nuns either.
And in a similar vein, what about the other relatives of the ‘visionaries,’ their siblings for instance: are they at least devout Traditional Catholics? Are they even decent people who can be relied on to treat others justly and with charity? At least one or two of our readers know very well the scandalous answer to this question, but we will say no more here.
4. The ‘seers’ exhibited unnatural behaviour and grotesque bodily posture.
For instance: being thrown down violently onto their knees on very rocky ground; bending backwards with neck and back arched, eyes rolling upwards into the back of the head; over falling over backwards or sideways; or being made to walk backwards downhill whilst in a supposed ‘ecstasy’. These are the sort of things one cannot imagine God or His mother making anyone do, but which the devil, who hates human nature and who delights in the grotesque, might very well do. The video footage is, if anything, more disturbing than the pictures.
5. The failed prophecy that “there will be three more Popes” after the death of John XXIII.
And no, being a sedevacantist doesn’t really help with that one! Think about it…
6. The failed prophecy that Joey Lomangino would get back his eyesight before he died.
He was supposed to be going to be given back his eyesight so that he could see the Great Miracle (the one which still hasn’t happened yet). He died in June 2014, still blind. The specious and laughable claim that he now has “beatific vision” in heaven just goes to show what a lot of nonsense this prophecy was to begin with. If that was what it meant all along, what’s the point in even making such a prophecy? (Once again, do I detect a similarity with Palmar de Troya…? Wasn’t Clemente Dominguez, aka Pope Gregory the Very Great told in a ‘heavenly prophecy’ that he would regain his eyesight, right before he was to die fighting the antichrist in Jerusalem? Hmm...)
7. The failed prophecy that Pope Paul VI would live to see the Great Miracle.
This ‘prophecy’ spectacularly failed, as did a later one that John Paul II would live to see it. As did the prophecy that Padre Pio would live to see it. (For many of these failed ‘prophecies’ see for instance: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” III, p.188)
8. The failed prophecy that Fr. Luis Andreu would live to see the Great Miracle.
This priest joined the four children and claimed that he too had seen the visions, making him known to some as the “fifth visionary.” He died shortly thereafter. Following his death, the girls claimed that he had begun appearing to them in visions too, along side the Virgin Mary.
9. The failed prophecy that Fr. Luis Andreu’s body would remain incorrupt.
On 2nd August 1964, Concita wrote to Fr. Luis Andreu’s brother, Fr. Ramon Andreu, telling him that she had had a locution in which it had been revealed to her that his brother’s body would remain incorrupt until the Great Miracle. In 1976 his body was disinterred: it had rotted away and was skeletal.
10. The failed prophecy that Pepe Luis would become a priest.
During an ‘ecstasy,’ one of the girls responded as though the Virgin Mary had told her that her younger cousin would become a priest. He never became a priest. (See “Garabandal: The Village Speaks” p.42)
11. The whole thing began with a sin. For an action to be good, says St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises, it has to be good at the beginning, good in the middle and good at the end. And yet, according to the ‘seers’ themselves, Garabandal began with the children stealing fruit from their neighbour’s tree. The fact that these ‘apparitions’ began with the children, by their own admission, committing a sin, ought to be troubling to anyone who is paying attention.
12. Problems with the apparition’s appearance.
Images of ‘Our Lady of Garabandal’ drawn scrupulously at the dictation of the children consistently show her with her head unveiled and her feet are never visible. St. Michael the Archangel is depicted as a teenage boy.
13. The ‘seers’ admitted faking miracles.
As pointed out by Fr. Mark Higgins (here: 8:55 onwards), two of the other ‘seers,’ Mari Loli and Jacinta were caught planning fake ‘miracles’ one of which would have involved the ‘miraculous’ unearthing of a buried statue (which they were going to secretly bury in advance), and another involving magical levitating powder. Yes, seriously. Concita, too, later admitted:
“It’s true that we did many stupid things too … For example, the thing about the powders, the statue of the Virgin that we were going to hide, and some other things.” (See: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” II, Ch.8, p.102)
Very revealing is in a report written for the Bishop of Santander by one Fr. Luis Lopez Retenga, shortly after he visited Garabandal in February 1963.
“This is the fourth time that I have visited the mountain village … During my previous visit, in the final months of the past year, I heard of rumours that were circulating with regard to the realization, rather imminent, of a miracle predicted by Loli and Jacinta. It was not possible in those circumstances to check personally on the accuracy of such predictions. But I know that at the beginning of the month of January of the present year, seeing that the hoped-for miracle predicted by the two girls was not crystallizing into
reality, the hopes of many people were seen to fall. Not only the families but also the majority of the villagers felt themselves cheated and humiliated.
Subject to the rough manners and the extreme attitudes that are characteristic of the masses, the people changed the admiration that they felt for the girls into an attitude of rejection and distrust, converting them into a continuous object of their complaints. Such an attitude was directed principally against Conchita, who always has been considered as the most responsible, or culpable of the four. […]
Conchita mentioned to me that on returning one day from Cabezón de la Sal, Loli and Jacinta were speaking of a miracle that had occurred to them and which consisted in burying a statue of the Virgin in order to tell the people later when they were in ecstasy, ‘Dig here and you will find a Virgin.’
Conchita took it for a joke, and continuing in the same line of jesting, she spoke of some magic powders that had the power to suspend whoever took them up in the air ... The three girls then tried the marvellous powders, which were nothing more than dentifrice. [i.e. toothpaste - Ed.] Only Loli, perhaps because of the mixture of the marvellous and ingenuousness in which she had been involved for the preceding year and a half, seemed to take the thing seriously, and tried the powders with the hope of seeing herself suspended in
the air. Conchita assured me that her involvement in this incident was no more than this: a practical joke./i]” (See: “[i]She Went in Haste to the Mountain” III, p.107)
Also revealing is a letter from Conchita to a friend that same month, February 1963, admitting:
“You know what has happened … Well there’s trouble here now. Some of those who believed in the apparitions now believe nothing, due to the problems there have been lately. And furthermore, do you know the cause of this mess? Because of some toothpowder that I gave Loli and Jacinta, telling them it would raise them up in the air…” (Ibid.)
‘[/i]Practical joke’ or not, the villagers and other devotees had been promised a miracle by two of the ‘seers’ which would take place within a specific time, before the end of the year. When the year ended and still nothing had happened, the crowds had begun to get angry with them or stop believing altogether. In desperation those ‘seers’ had then resorted to trickery and deception but had been caught. That is not what a harmless ‘practical joke’ looks like.
14. The suspiciously large number of apparitions.
With the apparitions we know to be genuine, Our Lady appeared only a relatively small number of times. With bogus apparitions such as Medjugorje, it is a huge number of times. That is no doubt because bogus ‘seers’ need to stay relevant and keep their followers from getting bored and wondering off in search of fresh sensational novelties. In a genuine apparition, the Mother of God has a simple message and does not waste time or words in delivering it.
These apparitions happened in more than one location and as many as 2,000 times according to some estimations. Conchita’s mother said that she was aware of “hundreds of them” (“Garabandal: The Village Speaks” p.185). Not very helpfully, Conchita Gonzalez herself was unable to say, when asked by an Irish TV host, how many times the Blessed Mother appeared, replying merely: “I don’t remember, but a lot of times.” Too many to remember, in other words! (See: https://youtu.be/_5ClSXVm1vE 3:16 - 3:27)
What had started off as apparitions every other day or every few days, quickly became every day and before long several times a day: “The visions of the children of Garabandal could not be counted by days. Beginning from July [1961] they began to increase so that they frequently occurred several times each day. The time of the ecstasies varied greatly. Sometimes they occurred at the first ray of dawn, sometimes after dinner. For a long period the usual time for the ecstasies to take place was between seven and nine in the evening. Later they began to occur during the night, ending at times at five o’clock in the morning. (See: “[i]She Went in Haste to the Mountain[/i]” I, Ch.5 p.59).
Some of these “apparitions” only lasted a couple of minutes, so that the ‘Blessed Virgin Mary’ could deliver some tiny message about some relatively trivial day-to-day detail, including when she was going to appear next (so… apparitions about apparitions?); some of the longer ones even had intermissions so that they could rest!
“There also was much variation in the duration of the ecstasies. Sometimes they lasted only a short time, from two to five minutes. This occurred on few occasions, and always with the purpose of some advice or information with regard to the visions themselves, as:
Today I will not come, since they are singing so much, or I will come to see you at such an hour. But ordinarily they lasted a half hour or more. Sometimes (recalling the time when Loli was in ecstasy from nine at night until five in the morning) the ecstasies were interrupted for a time, as a pause for resting between visions.
And the duration of these Conchita Gonzalez appearing on ‘The Late, Late Show’ with Gay Byrne, Irish TV, 1970s interludes varied, as in the case just mentioned, when there were two intermissions lasting about an hour and a half. ” (Ibid.) The ‘apparitions’ would happen in all sorts of different places, too: in the house, at the pines, in the church, in the streets, at the cemetery. (See: “Garabandal: The Village Speaks” p.187).
15. The apparitions are remarkably chatty.
From the evidence of the main “seer” herself, it seems as though the “Virgin Mary” indulged in idle chit-chat and small talk and took a while to finally get to the point. From the same television interview:
“Interviewer: What did you talk about to her?
Conchita: The first time we talked about a lot of things.” (https://youtu.be/_5ClSXVm1vE)
She told the same story about a chatty Virgin Mary to the housemistress at her boarding school only a couple of years later:
“We talked to her about everything, even about our cows . . . She laughed very much. We also played together.” (Interview with Sr. Maria Nieves, 29th October, 1966)
And from Conchita’s diary, July 1961:
“That day we talked much with the Virgin, And she talked with us. We told her everything. We told her that we walked to the pastures, that we were tanned, that we took the hay to the barns. And she laughed. We told her about so many things!” (Quoted in “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” I, Ch.3 p.65)
Are we to believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary came from heaven with an urgent message for all humanity and then spent hours chatting to the girls about their suntan or the local farm economy? In a similar way, even the supposed “Archangel Michael” chats to the girls. As one of them put it, “the Angel was in a mood to speak without restriction too.” (Ibid.) At one point he even compliments them on the whiteness of their teeth!
16. The ‘seers’ themselves admitted that they faked ecstasies.
They did, of course, maintain that some of their ‘ecstasies’ were real, they weren’t all fake! A priest who was himself a believer in the apparitions, Fr. Jose Ramon Garcia de la Riva, recounts how he caught them faking ecstasy and that when he confronted them about it, they turned red and admitted to him that this was not the only time when they had been pretending, but that they had: “only pretended when there were trusted people and residents of the village present.” Concerning this issue of fake ecstasies, Conchita’s diary says that: “We never faked the entire ecstasy.” So that’s alright then! (See: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” II, Ch.2 p.59).
17. The visionaries retracted their claims more than once.
For instance, in 1961 Conchita signed a sworn statement in the presence of the bishop, that she had not seen the Virgin Mary or received messages from her. She also promised that she would not have any more apparitions or even talk about what she had done. From that moment her ‘apparitions’ and ‘ecstasies,’ which up to that point had been happening multiple times a day and wherever she happened to be, including in one of the main city streets of Santander, suddenly stopped!
Sadly, a little while later, once she returned to Garabandal and the three other girls, she spectacularly went back on her word. (“She Went in Haste to the Mountain” I, Ch.6, p.146 ff.). In 1966 she again signed a statement denying that any of it had really taken place. The other ‘seers’ also retracted their claims, but none of them ever kept to their word for very long.
The girls even went to confession and confessed to having lied and made up the apparitions, although Conchita would later claim that she had been lying in the confessional. One cannot really see a way out of this one: either they lied and made up the apparitions, or they lied in their written sworn statements and in the confessional.
“During the month of 1963 … we even denied that we had seen the Virgin. We even went one day to confess it. When we went to confession, it was without thinking about it, without believing that it was a sin. We went because the parish priest told us that we should go to confession. And we, I don't know how it was, well . . . We doubted a little, but a doubt of a type that seems from the devil, who wants us to deny the Virgin. … In my heart, I was surprised to say these things. But my conscience was completely calm about having seen the Most Holy Virgin. ” (Conchita’s diary, quoted in: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” III, p.110)
18. All four ‘seers’ physically abandoned Garabandal.
According to the “message” which they conveyed to the world, everyone in the world will have to make his own way to Garabandal so as to be physically present there when the time comes. And yet not one of the four ‘seers’ remained in that place herself. Surely the fact that three of the four went to live in the United States wouldn’t make a lot of sense if their message were true? Conchita has her main home in Long Island and is said to own another house in Fatima (By the by, how many of us have the financial means to own a second home in Fatima?! How the other half lives...).
19. There is a suspicious lack of suffering.
This is at first difficult to pinpoint, but it is nonetheless there throughout. Both psychological and physical suffering of the prolonged type one sees in the lives of St. Bernadette or the three children of Fatima are rather conspicuous by their absence. We have already seen how the four girls went on to marry and lead what appear to be comfortable, middle-class lives.
Even psychological suffering caused by the disbelief and ridicule of those around them in their immediate circle, which one might reasonably expect to have happened, is not really evident. Indeed, it is remarkable how quickly and easily the girls’ story was accepted and how little opposition it appears to have encountered. There is some talk of an initial scepticism, but it never reached anything like the violent pitch which the children of Fatima experienced, nor was it anything like as prolonged. On the contrary, almost from the very start everyone around them believes their story and treats them with special consideration as a result. As early as 3rd July 1961, a mere two weeks in, we are told for instance, that not only their own parents but all the other children at school and even their teacher treated them virtually as though they were living Saints:
“And then we went to the school. At the class we met our schoolmistress Serafina Gómez. She began crying and kissed us saying, ‘How lucky you are,’ etc. When we left the classroom everybody was talking about the same thing. All were very impressed and happy. And they believed very much. And our family felt the same way. As for Loli’s family, her father Ceferino said, There’s never been anything like this. It was the same also with her mother Julia. And Maria the mother of Jacinta, believed very much too, and her father Simón even more. If we performed some practical joke, Jacinta’s father would say that the apostles had done the same. And he would begin to explain the things we did; to him it appeared that everything we did was good.” (Conchita’s diary, quoted in: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” I, Ch.4 p.70)
Doesn’t it sound as though their “visions” and “experiences” had gained the girls a privileged life and even a free pass for bad behaviour in the eyes of their parents? And yet, is it not the case that the friends of God can expect to suffer the more and that a life free of suffering is generally regarded by the Saints as not auguring well for eternity? Does this special treatment not also provide a ready-made motive for fraud, dishonesty and sensationalism? As usual, it is instructive to compare this with the experience of St. Bernadette of Lourdes or with the three children of Fatima.
20. Reliance of Garabandal’s proponents on half-truths, lies and deceptions.
There are too many to list them all here, but here is just one example. It was claimed that Padre Pio had written a letter to Conchita endorsing her fantastical tales. But Padre Pio was given a clear order by his superiors in 1924 not to write to anyone, an order which he obeyed to the day he died, meaning that this claim cannot possibly be true:
The point is not merely that the supporters of Garabandal put out this kind of misleading propaganda. The point is why they feel the need to do so. Surely a genuine apparition would never need to rely on such trickery?
We could go on and fill pages with such examples. Any one of these things might be explained away on its own, but taken as a whole can they all be explained away? One is left with the impression that there is always a clever answer on hand to wriggle out of it. Joey Lomangino now has heavenly vision, you know, in heaven. This or that failed prophecy wasn’t part of the official message of Garabandal, it was only what the children said. And so on and so forth.
Very well. Ask yourself this: can you imagine any of these convoluted word games in relation to Fatima? With regard to Lourdes? ‘Oh yes, the Blessed Virgin said there’d be water there, and it turns out there isn’t any water, but maybe it’s somehow just heavenly water which we can’t see…” It is ludicrous. What is the point in prophecies or messages if they require so much effort to explain why they didn’t really fail? Doesn’t that rather defeat the object?
It is also perhaps worth noting in passing that almost all the sources used here are, as far as possible, from the supporters and proponents of Garabandal. Let nobody claim that we have only sought out evidence from the apparitions opponents. “The Village Speaks” contains the words of villagers in the late ’60s or early ’70s who believed in the apparitions. “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” is a big three-volume work by a priest who believed in the apparitions and whose sole object is to promote Garabandal. One website which carries the entire book as a pdf describes it as: “the Bible of Garabandal.” Most of the idiocies, contradictions and other crazy things which we have already noted were found there. Indeed, there are so many insane, crazy, idiotic things in those pages that no critic would ever need to lie about Garabandal!
So what is the verdict? Lies and fakery, or something more sinister from the devil? Who knows. I think one can afford to leave that question open: after all one can often detect that one is being lied to without knowing what the truth of the matter is. And besides, those two options aren’t mutually exclusive - why couldn’t it be both? Why wouldn’t the devil make full use of lies and fakery on that scale? Is it reasonable to expect the average person to dig through all of this and work it out on his own? No. That is why the Church decides, in the person of the local ordinary of the diocese. Let us return to this point and emphasise it one last time. Two successive diocesan bishops before Vatican II condemned this and forbade people from having anything to do with it, two more during the mid-1960s and every bishop since then has repeated the condemnation. In the sixty-one years since this began, there hasn’t been a bishop of Santander who hasn’t condemned in some way or other. That surely is as far as anyone need go. It is a fake apparition which has been condemned by the Church. Case closed.
And yet Bishop Williamson actively promotes it among his followers. The reader will look in vain for any mention of the Church’s condemnation in Eleison Comments - it doesn’t even get a passing mention. Why might that be? To ask such a question is to answer it.
And that surely is another important point: notice that Fatima is almost, as it were, superseded, pushed into the background by the sensationalism of Garabandal. It is no longer current, no longer relevant. Genuine apparitions, genuine messages from heaven are always the main losers wherever false ones appear the winners. How many of us have known otherwise wellmeaning Novus Ordo Catholics who have ended up going to places like Medjugorje or Garabandal instead of going to, say, Lourdes or Fatima? False apparitions will always make gains at the expense of genuine ones. That is one reason why the devil has always trafficked in them. For Bishop Williamson to believe in this nonsense himself is bad enough. For him to continue to promote it publicly is truly delinquent.
“Are we not in these latter times when the devil employs every means to disperse us, to tear us apart, to divide us, so as to reduce the flock to nothing? In these critical moments, we must remain with that which is surest. We must avoid doubtful things.”
“It is to my sorrow that I see you overly preoccupied with extraordinary visions. The Holy Father [Pius IX] does not put his trust in the imaginations of women; do likewise. Have confidence in God and live the Faith without becoming passionately fond of revelations. What is more worthy than all the prophecies is the certitude that the Faith gives us, that we are in the hands of God, and that not one hair will fall from our head without His permission. Bearing this always in mind, we remain in peace in the midst of all worldly tribulations.”
Sowing Even More Confusion: Bishop Williamson Promotes Garabandal
![[Image: aiZwaWQ9QXBp]](https://imgs.search.brave.com/g2Iy1uFDyarPTnGGxybCsd0jwM0X17P4R0VlNJhC29I/rs:fit:632:225:1/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly90c2Uy/Lm1tLmJpbmcubmV0/L3RoP2lkPU9JUC4y/ZmpCR29RVkdfNG5D/Zm5BT2h3bHRRSGFG/aiZwaWQ9QXBp)
Not content with promoting chaos and anarchy (“no organisation, loose pockets only!”) amongst those few still trying to resist the slide into liberalism; not content with overturning the teaching of the Council of Trent on the need for seminaries to form priests; not content with promoting highly dubious alleged Novus Ordo “miracles”; not content with promoting even attendance at the New Mass (remember when he told some of his own followers in America that their grandchildren would only be able to keep the Faith by going to New Mass?); not content with pushing bogus visionary Maria Valtorta and her purported messages from heaven (“The Gospel as Revealed to Me” aka “The Poem of the Man-God”), condemned by the Church and placed on the Index, as being excellent family reading in the home, whilst simultaneously pouring scorn on the 1950s Holy Office of Cardinal Ottaviani and Fr Garrigou Lagrange OP, perhaps the last sane, uninfected part of the Church at that time; not content with punishing any priest who dares to voice a contrary opinion, whether or not he mentioned Bishop Williamson by name, using the sacraments of confirmation and holy orders as a weapon to cow any dissenting
voices amongst the clergy and laity; not content with so many such scandals and many more besides, alas, Bishop Williamson is still at it. Here is his latest.
“ELEISON COMMENTS DCCLXXXII (July 9, 2022) : WORLDWIDE WARNING
Almighty God is good, and plans to tell,
Once more, how to avoid our self-made Hell.”
Does He, indeed? And how may that be? The answer is to be found in the very first sentence:
“At the risk of laying before a number of readers a matter of which they are already well aware, let these “Comments” present the Warning of Garabandal, because of the high probability that that Warning is authentic...”
Because of the high probability that it is authentic..?! So it isn’t certain, then? If only there were a way for the lay Catholic-in-the-street to be certain as to whether this or that supposed private revelation is authentic. Oh, wait, hold on. There is. The local bishop said it wasn’t real.
Case closed.
“However, the Church authorities have still to give to the Garabandal apparitions of Our Lady their official approval because of the events’ timing and their content.”
This is very misleading. In fact, Garabandal is condemned by the Church. I suppose, in a way, you could just about get away with saying that the Church “has still to give it approval” - in the same way that one might say that St. Pius X still has to give his approval to modernism, or Our Lord has still to give his approval to the Pharisees. And it had nothing to do with timing.
“Vatican II (1962-1965) was a gigantic betrayal of Truth, of the Faith, of the Catholic Church. Garabandal (1961-1965) was a gigantic affirmation of Catholic Truth, of the Faith, of the Church.”
So was Palmar de Troya, which began at roughly the same time (1968). That is no doubt why, in its early stages, some Traditionalists believed it: it told them what they wanted to hear. One would hope, however, that no Traditional Catholics today regard the messages of Palmar de Troya as authentic. No more authentic are the messages of Garabandal.
“[In 1965, ‘Our Lady’ warned] that ‘Many cardinals, bishops and priests are on the road to perdition, and they are taking many souls with them.’ Could there be a more accurate summary of what was happening at Vatican II?”
Yes. How about some mention of the infiltration of the Church by her enemies? “...on the road to perdition and taking many souls with them” is true as far as it goes, but it leaves out a lot of important information. It makes it sound as though the problem is only clerics leading sinful, worldly lives and not that they are actively promoting heresy and destroying the Church from within. One might think that there was no organised plot. And why is it only “many”..?
How about the New Mass? How about mentioning that the true Mass, the Mass said by St. Gregory the Great, St. Pius V, St. Pius X and virtually every Catholic priest in the world at that time, was about to be replaced by a neo-Protestant schismatic rite?
How about mentioning the Pope in connection with the evils afflicting the Church - is it only the cardinals, bishops and priests who are the problem? Is the Pope somehow a good guy surrounded by bad guys? I remember Novus Ordo conservatives telling me that back in the 1990s: poor old JPII wants to fix the church, but he’s surrounded by all these wicked, evil bishops and Cardinals. And I remember thinking to myself: “Who appointed them..?!” Even Palmar de Troya maintained that Paul VI was a saintly man who was somehow being kept a prisoner in the Vatican. When he died they declared him “Saint Paul VI” - a ludicrous idea, made all the more ludicrous when the conciliar church followed suit in recent years. “Saint Paul VI” - what a joke! It just goes to show, in some ways the conciliar church is as ridiculous as Palmar de Troya! But we digress. La Salette told us that specifically Rome would lose the Faith - Garabandal makes it sound as though the problem is only lower down in the hierarchy.
Why isn’t Vatican II mentioned in connection with this? Given the part played by Vatican II in souls being led to hell and given the coincidence of timing… isn’t it worth a mention? We could go on. There are many, far more accurate ways to describe the crisis in the Church. Saying that “many cardinals bishops and priests” are on the way to hell and taking lots of people with them sounds just about conservative/Traditionalist enough to keep everyone happy whilst being vague enough not to cause trouble in the future or risk offending one faction or another among the message’s eager recipients. It is exactly the sort of thing, in other words, that one would expect a bogus apparition to say. But let’s get to the heart of the matter. Here is how you can know for certain that Garabandal isn’t real.
1. It was condemned by the local bishop.
Garabandal is located in the diocese of Santander. Every Bishop of Santander, from 1961 onwards, has ruled that the apparitions are not real. In 1961, the apostolic administrator of Santander diocese, Mgr. Doroteo Fernandez, decreed that the events were not from heaven and told people not go to Garabandal. When Mgr. Eugenio Beitia Aldazabal became bishop of Santander in January 1962, he reiterated the judgement of his predecessor and again forbade priests or people from gathering there.
This decision was upheld by a third bishop in 1965. In 1967 a fourth Bishop of Santander, Mgr. Vicente Puchol Montiz, issued an official declaration, stating: “There was no apparition either of the Blessed Virgin or of St. Michael the Archangel or of any other celestial personage. There was no message. All the phenomena which occurred have a natural explanation.” (See: The Catholic News Archive) The supporters of Garabandal appealed to Rome. Rome upheld the decisions of four successive ordinaries of Santander diocese.
To be continued below ...
Garabandal: Approved by the Church?
In October 1996, Mgr. Jose Vilaplana the newly-appointed Bishop of Santander diocese issued the following letter.
Quote:“Some people have been coming directly to the Diocese of Santander (Spain) asking about the alleged apparitions of Garabandal and especially for the answer about the position of the hierarchy of the Church concerning these apparitions.
I need to communicate that:
1. All the bishops of the diocese since 1961 through 1970 agreed that there was no supernatural validity for the apparitions.
2. In the month of December of 1977 Bishop Dal Val of Santander, in union with his predecessors, stated that in the six years of being bishop of Santander there were no new phenomena.
3. The same bishop, Dal Val, let a few years go by to allow the confusion or fanaticism to settle down, and then he initiated a commission to examine the apparitions in more depth. The conclusion of the commission agreed with the findings of the previous bishops. That there was no supernatural validity to such apparitions.
4. At the time of the conclusions of the study, in 1991, I was installed bishop in the diocese. So during my visit to Rome, an ad limina visit which happened in the same year, I presented to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the study and I asked for pastoral direction concerning this case.
5. On Nov. 28, 1992, the Congregation sent me an answer saying that after examining the documentation, there was no need for direct intervention (by the Vatican) to take away the jurisdiction of the ordinary bishop of Santander in this case. Such a right belongs to the ordinary. Previous declarations of the Holy See agree in this finding. In the same letter they suggested that if I find it necessary to publish a declaration, that I reconfirm that there was no supernatural validity in the alleged apparitions, and this will make a unanimous
position with my predecessors.
6. Given that the declarations of my predecessors who studied the case have been clear and unanimous, I don’t find it necessary to have a new public declaration that would raise notoriety about something which happened so long ago. However, I find it necessary to rewrite this report as a direct answer to the people who ask for direction concerning this question, which is now final: I agree with [and] I accept the decision of my predecessors and the direction of the Holy See.
7. In reference to the Eucharistic celebration in Garabandal, following the decision of my predecessors, I ruled that Masses can be celebrated only in the parish church and there will be no references to the alleged apparitions and visiting priests who want to say Mass must have approval from the pastor, who has my authorization. It’s my wish that this information is helpful to you.
My regards in Christ,
Jose Vilaplana
Bishop of Santander
Oct. 11, 1996
1961: The Original Condemnation by the Church
Quote:My Most Beloved Children,
In answer to the constant questions that have been asked us concerning the nature of the events that are occurring in the village of San Sebastián de Garabandal, and with the desire to instruct the faithful in the correct interpretation of these events, we have felt ourselves obligated to study these things closely in order to fulfil our pastoral duty.
With this end, we have named a commission of persons of well-known prudence and knowledge to inform us with complete assurance of objectivity and competency about these events.
In view of the information that they have presented to us, we believe it premature to pronounce any definite decision on the nature of the phenomena in question. Nothing up to the present obliges us to affirm that the events occurring there are supernatural. Considering all this, and withholding a final judgment on the things that may happen in the future, we have to say:
1) It is our wish that the diocesan priests, as well as the priests from other dioceses and religious of both sexes who are not under our jurisdiction, abstain from visiting San Sebastián de Garabandal from now on.
2) We would advise the Christian people not to come to this place until the ecclesiastical authority gives a final statement on the case. By these temporary measures, we are not hindering God's action on souls; on the contrary, by avoiding the spectacular character of these events, the light of truth is greatly facilitated.
Doroteo, Apostolic Administrator of Santander
26th August, 1961
Quote:[…] Concerning the events that have been happening at San Sebastián de Garabandal, a town in our diocese, you should be told that in the fulfilment of our pastoral duty and to avoid the unfounded and bold interpretations of those who venture to give a definitive judgment where the Church does not believe it still prudent to do so, and also to guide souls, we have to come to declare the following:
1. It is clear that the above-mentioned apparitions, visions, locutions and revelations up to now cannot be presented or held to have a serious foundation for truth and authenticity.
2. Priests should absolutely abstain from whatever would contribute to create confusion among the Christian people. Thus they should cautiously avoid, as far as it depends on them, the organization of visits or pilgrimages to the place referred to.
3. Priests should instruct the faithful with wisdom and charity concerning the true feeling of the Church in these matters. They should make them understand that our faith does not require such aids of supposed revelations and miracles to maintain it. […]
Doroteo, Apostolic Administrator of Santander
24th October, 1961
Continued from above... [see original Recusant link at top for accompanying photographic evidence concerning Garabandal- The Catacombs]
In cases such as this, the judgement of the Church is all that matters. By rights, we could close the list here.
Let this point be emphasised: the local bishops, the men who held ordinary jurisdiction in the diocese where these supposed “apparitions” took place, all consistently decided that they were not to be believed and told priests and faithful to stay away. Let us also emphasise that the first two such bishops did so in 1961 and again in early 1962, before Vatican II in other words. We ought therefore to regard this as the judgement of the Church. Everything else is just “extra,” this is the one fact that matters. If anyone still wants more, however, here are some facts of lesser importance, but which also point to Garabandal being at best fraudulent and at worst, well…
2. None of the ‘seers’ pursued a religious vocation.
All four went on to live worldly lives the same as you or I. Three of them married Americans and moved to the United States. Jacinta ended up living in California; Mari Loli in Massachusetts; Conchita in Long Island, New York. Not one of the four ‘seers’ spent her last days doing extraordinary penance, in poverty, etc. Compare with Sr. Lucy, for instance, who ended up in a Carmelite convent, or St. Bernadette who entered the Sisters of Charity and ended her days doing great penance.
3. None of their children became priests or nuns either.
And in a similar vein, what about the other relatives of the ‘visionaries,’ their siblings for instance: are they at least devout Traditional Catholics? Are they even decent people who can be relied on to treat others justly and with charity? At least one or two of our readers know very well the scandalous answer to this question, but we will say no more here.
4. The ‘seers’ exhibited unnatural behaviour and grotesque bodily posture.
For instance: being thrown down violently onto their knees on very rocky ground; bending backwards with neck and back arched, eyes rolling upwards into the back of the head; over falling over backwards or sideways; or being made to walk backwards downhill whilst in a supposed ‘ecstasy’. These are the sort of things one cannot imagine God or His mother making anyone do, but which the devil, who hates human nature and who delights in the grotesque, might very well do. The video footage is, if anything, more disturbing than the pictures.
See: youtu.be/TCA487J39aU
See: youtu.be/VgTrY3yd3KM?t=62
5. The failed prophecy that “there will be three more Popes” after the death of John XXIII.
And no, being a sedevacantist doesn’t really help with that one! Think about it…
6. The failed prophecy that Joey Lomangino would get back his eyesight before he died.
He was supposed to be going to be given back his eyesight so that he could see the Great Miracle (the one which still hasn’t happened yet). He died in June 2014, still blind. The specious and laughable claim that he now has “beatific vision” in heaven just goes to show what a lot of nonsense this prophecy was to begin with. If that was what it meant all along, what’s the point in even making such a prophecy? (Once again, do I detect a similarity with Palmar de Troya…? Wasn’t Clemente Dominguez, aka Pope Gregory the Very Great told in a ‘heavenly prophecy’ that he would regain his eyesight, right before he was to die fighting the antichrist in Jerusalem? Hmm...)
7. The failed prophecy that Pope Paul VI would live to see the Great Miracle.
This ‘prophecy’ spectacularly failed, as did a later one that John Paul II would live to see it. As did the prophecy that Padre Pio would live to see it. (For many of these failed ‘prophecies’ see for instance: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” III, p.188)
8. The failed prophecy that Fr. Luis Andreu would live to see the Great Miracle.
This priest joined the four children and claimed that he too had seen the visions, making him known to some as the “fifth visionary.” He died shortly thereafter. Following his death, the girls claimed that he had begun appearing to them in visions too, along side the Virgin Mary.
9. The failed prophecy that Fr. Luis Andreu’s body would remain incorrupt.
On 2nd August 1964, Concita wrote to Fr. Luis Andreu’s brother, Fr. Ramon Andreu, telling him that she had had a locution in which it had been revealed to her that his brother’s body would remain incorrupt until the Great Miracle. In 1976 his body was disinterred: it had rotted away and was skeletal.
10. The failed prophecy that Pepe Luis would become a priest.
During an ‘ecstasy,’ one of the girls responded as though the Virgin Mary had told her that her younger cousin would become a priest. He never became a priest. (See “Garabandal: The Village Speaks” p.42)
11. The whole thing began with a sin. For an action to be good, says St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises, it has to be good at the beginning, good in the middle and good at the end. And yet, according to the ‘seers’ themselves, Garabandal began with the children stealing fruit from their neighbour’s tree. The fact that these ‘apparitions’ began with the children, by their own admission, committing a sin, ought to be troubling to anyone who is paying attention.
12. Problems with the apparition’s appearance.
Images of ‘Our Lady of Garabandal’ drawn scrupulously at the dictation of the children consistently show her with her head unveiled and her feet are never visible. St. Michael the Archangel is depicted as a teenage boy.
13. The ‘seers’ admitted faking miracles.
As pointed out by Fr. Mark Higgins (here: 8:55 onwards), two of the other ‘seers,’ Mari Loli and Jacinta were caught planning fake ‘miracles’ one of which would have involved the ‘miraculous’ unearthing of a buried statue (which they were going to secretly bury in advance), and another involving magical levitating powder. Yes, seriously. Concita, too, later admitted:
“It’s true that we did many stupid things too … For example, the thing about the powders, the statue of the Virgin that we were going to hide, and some other things.” (See: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” II, Ch.8, p.102)
Very revealing is in a report written for the Bishop of Santander by one Fr. Luis Lopez Retenga, shortly after he visited Garabandal in February 1963.
“This is the fourth time that I have visited the mountain village … During my previous visit, in the final months of the past year, I heard of rumours that were circulating with regard to the realization, rather imminent, of a miracle predicted by Loli and Jacinta. It was not possible in those circumstances to check personally on the accuracy of such predictions. But I know that at the beginning of the month of January of the present year, seeing that the hoped-for miracle predicted by the two girls was not crystallizing into
reality, the hopes of many people were seen to fall. Not only the families but also the majority of the villagers felt themselves cheated and humiliated.
Subject to the rough manners and the extreme attitudes that are characteristic of the masses, the people changed the admiration that they felt for the girls into an attitude of rejection and distrust, converting them into a continuous object of their complaints. Such an attitude was directed principally against Conchita, who always has been considered as the most responsible, or culpable of the four. […]
Conchita mentioned to me that on returning one day from Cabezón de la Sal, Loli and Jacinta were speaking of a miracle that had occurred to them and which consisted in burying a statue of the Virgin in order to tell the people later when they were in ecstasy, ‘Dig here and you will find a Virgin.’
Conchita took it for a joke, and continuing in the same line of jesting, she spoke of some magic powders that had the power to suspend whoever took them up in the air ... The three girls then tried the marvellous powders, which were nothing more than dentifrice. [i.e. toothpaste - Ed.] Only Loli, perhaps because of the mixture of the marvellous and ingenuousness in which she had been involved for the preceding year and a half, seemed to take the thing seriously, and tried the powders with the hope of seeing herself suspended in
the air. Conchita assured me that her involvement in this incident was no more than this: a practical joke./i]” (See: “[i]She Went in Haste to the Mountain” III, p.107)
Also revealing is a letter from Conchita to a friend that same month, February 1963, admitting:
“You know what has happened … Well there’s trouble here now. Some of those who believed in the apparitions now believe nothing, due to the problems there have been lately. And furthermore, do you know the cause of this mess? Because of some toothpowder that I gave Loli and Jacinta, telling them it would raise them up in the air…” (Ibid.)
‘[/i]Practical joke’ or not, the villagers and other devotees had been promised a miracle by two of the ‘seers’ which would take place within a specific time, before the end of the year. When the year ended and still nothing had happened, the crowds had begun to get angry with them or stop believing altogether. In desperation those ‘seers’ had then resorted to trickery and deception but had been caught. That is not what a harmless ‘practical joke’ looks like.
14. The suspiciously large number of apparitions.
With the apparitions we know to be genuine, Our Lady appeared only a relatively small number of times. With bogus apparitions such as Medjugorje, it is a huge number of times. That is no doubt because bogus ‘seers’ need to stay relevant and keep their followers from getting bored and wondering off in search of fresh sensational novelties. In a genuine apparition, the Mother of God has a simple message and does not waste time or words in delivering it.
These apparitions happened in more than one location and as many as 2,000 times according to some estimations. Conchita’s mother said that she was aware of “hundreds of them” (“Garabandal: The Village Speaks” p.185). Not very helpfully, Conchita Gonzalez herself was unable to say, when asked by an Irish TV host, how many times the Blessed Mother appeared, replying merely: “I don’t remember, but a lot of times.” Too many to remember, in other words! (See: https://youtu.be/_5ClSXVm1vE 3:16 - 3:27)
What had started off as apparitions every other day or every few days, quickly became every day and before long several times a day: “The visions of the children of Garabandal could not be counted by days. Beginning from July [1961] they began to increase so that they frequently occurred several times each day. The time of the ecstasies varied greatly. Sometimes they occurred at the first ray of dawn, sometimes after dinner. For a long period the usual time for the ecstasies to take place was between seven and nine in the evening. Later they began to occur during the night, ending at times at five o’clock in the morning. (See: “[i]She Went in Haste to the Mountain[/i]” I, Ch.5 p.59).
Some of these “apparitions” only lasted a couple of minutes, so that the ‘Blessed Virgin Mary’ could deliver some tiny message about some relatively trivial day-to-day detail, including when she was going to appear next (so… apparitions about apparitions?); some of the longer ones even had intermissions so that they could rest!
“There also was much variation in the duration of the ecstasies. Sometimes they lasted only a short time, from two to five minutes. This occurred on few occasions, and always with the purpose of some advice or information with regard to the visions themselves, as:
Today I will not come, since they are singing so much, or I will come to see you at such an hour. But ordinarily they lasted a half hour or more. Sometimes (recalling the time when Loli was in ecstasy from nine at night until five in the morning) the ecstasies were interrupted for a time, as a pause for resting between visions.
And the duration of these Conchita Gonzalez appearing on ‘The Late, Late Show’ with Gay Byrne, Irish TV, 1970s interludes varied, as in the case just mentioned, when there were two intermissions lasting about an hour and a half. ” (Ibid.) The ‘apparitions’ would happen in all sorts of different places, too: in the house, at the pines, in the church, in the streets, at the cemetery. (See: “Garabandal: The Village Speaks” p.187).
15. The apparitions are remarkably chatty.
From the evidence of the main “seer” herself, it seems as though the “Virgin Mary” indulged in idle chit-chat and small talk and took a while to finally get to the point. From the same television interview:
“Interviewer: What did you talk about to her?
Conchita: The first time we talked about a lot of things.” (https://youtu.be/_5ClSXVm1vE)
She told the same story about a chatty Virgin Mary to the housemistress at her boarding school only a couple of years later:
“We talked to her about everything, even about our cows . . . She laughed very much. We also played together.” (Interview with Sr. Maria Nieves, 29th October, 1966)
And from Conchita’s diary, July 1961:
“That day we talked much with the Virgin, And she talked with us. We told her everything. We told her that we walked to the pastures, that we were tanned, that we took the hay to the barns. And she laughed. We told her about so many things!” (Quoted in “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” I, Ch.3 p.65)
Are we to believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary came from heaven with an urgent message for all humanity and then spent hours chatting to the girls about their suntan or the local farm economy? In a similar way, even the supposed “Archangel Michael” chats to the girls. As one of them put it, “the Angel was in a mood to speak without restriction too.” (Ibid.) At one point he even compliments them on the whiteness of their teeth!
16. The ‘seers’ themselves admitted that they faked ecstasies.
They did, of course, maintain that some of their ‘ecstasies’ were real, they weren’t all fake! A priest who was himself a believer in the apparitions, Fr. Jose Ramon Garcia de la Riva, recounts how he caught them faking ecstasy and that when he confronted them about it, they turned red and admitted to him that this was not the only time when they had been pretending, but that they had: “only pretended when there were trusted people and residents of the village present.” Concerning this issue of fake ecstasies, Conchita’s diary says that: “We never faked the entire ecstasy.” So that’s alright then! (See: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” II, Ch.2 p.59).
17. The visionaries retracted their claims more than once.
For instance, in 1961 Conchita signed a sworn statement in the presence of the bishop, that she had not seen the Virgin Mary or received messages from her. She also promised that she would not have any more apparitions or even talk about what she had done. From that moment her ‘apparitions’ and ‘ecstasies,’ which up to that point had been happening multiple times a day and wherever she happened to be, including in one of the main city streets of Santander, suddenly stopped!
Sadly, a little while later, once she returned to Garabandal and the three other girls, she spectacularly went back on her word. (“She Went in Haste to the Mountain” I, Ch.6, p.146 ff.). In 1966 she again signed a statement denying that any of it had really taken place. The other ‘seers’ also retracted their claims, but none of them ever kept to their word for very long.
The girls even went to confession and confessed to having lied and made up the apparitions, although Conchita would later claim that she had been lying in the confessional. One cannot really see a way out of this one: either they lied and made up the apparitions, or they lied in their written sworn statements and in the confessional.
“During the month of 1963 … we even denied that we had seen the Virgin. We even went one day to confess it. When we went to confession, it was without thinking about it, without believing that it was a sin. We went because the parish priest told us that we should go to confession. And we, I don't know how it was, well . . . We doubted a little, but a doubt of a type that seems from the devil, who wants us to deny the Virgin. … In my heart, I was surprised to say these things. But my conscience was completely calm about having seen the Most Holy Virgin. ” (Conchita’s diary, quoted in: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” III, p.110)
18. All four ‘seers’ physically abandoned Garabandal.
According to the “message” which they conveyed to the world, everyone in the world will have to make his own way to Garabandal so as to be physically present there when the time comes. And yet not one of the four ‘seers’ remained in that place herself. Surely the fact that three of the four went to live in the United States wouldn’t make a lot of sense if their message were true? Conchita has her main home in Long Island and is said to own another house in Fatima (By the by, how many of us have the financial means to own a second home in Fatima?! How the other half lives...).
19. There is a suspicious lack of suffering.
This is at first difficult to pinpoint, but it is nonetheless there throughout. Both psychological and physical suffering of the prolonged type one sees in the lives of St. Bernadette or the three children of Fatima are rather conspicuous by their absence. We have already seen how the four girls went on to marry and lead what appear to be comfortable, middle-class lives.
Even psychological suffering caused by the disbelief and ridicule of those around them in their immediate circle, which one might reasonably expect to have happened, is not really evident. Indeed, it is remarkable how quickly and easily the girls’ story was accepted and how little opposition it appears to have encountered. There is some talk of an initial scepticism, but it never reached anything like the violent pitch which the children of Fatima experienced, nor was it anything like as prolonged. On the contrary, almost from the very start everyone around them believes their story and treats them with special consideration as a result. As early as 3rd July 1961, a mere two weeks in, we are told for instance, that not only their own parents but all the other children at school and even their teacher treated them virtually as though they were living Saints:
“And then we went to the school. At the class we met our schoolmistress Serafina Gómez. She began crying and kissed us saying, ‘How lucky you are,’ etc. When we left the classroom everybody was talking about the same thing. All were very impressed and happy. And they believed very much. And our family felt the same way. As for Loli’s family, her father Ceferino said, There’s never been anything like this. It was the same also with her mother Julia. And Maria the mother of Jacinta, believed very much too, and her father Simón even more. If we performed some practical joke, Jacinta’s father would say that the apostles had done the same. And he would begin to explain the things we did; to him it appeared that everything we did was good.” (Conchita’s diary, quoted in: “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” I, Ch.4 p.70)
Doesn’t it sound as though their “visions” and “experiences” had gained the girls a privileged life and even a free pass for bad behaviour in the eyes of their parents? And yet, is it not the case that the friends of God can expect to suffer the more and that a life free of suffering is generally regarded by the Saints as not auguring well for eternity? Does this special treatment not also provide a ready-made motive for fraud, dishonesty and sensationalism? As usual, it is instructive to compare this with the experience of St. Bernadette of Lourdes or with the three children of Fatima.
20. Reliance of Garabandal’s proponents on half-truths, lies and deceptions.
There are too many to list them all here, but here is just one example. It was claimed that Padre Pio had written a letter to Conchita endorsing her fantastical tales. But Padre Pio was given a clear order by his superiors in 1924 not to write to anyone, an order which he obeyed to the day he died, meaning that this claim cannot possibly be true:
“Letters supposed to have been written by him after 1924 are AUTOMATICALLY SPURIOUS by the very fact that Padre Pio scrupulously and reverently obeyed his superiors who forbade him to write after that year.” (Rev. Fr. Charles Mortimer Carty, “Padre Pio: The Stigmatist”, TAN, 1973)
The point is not merely that the supporters of Garabandal put out this kind of misleading propaganda. The point is why they feel the need to do so. Surely a genuine apparition would never need to rely on such trickery?
* * * * *
We could go on and fill pages with such examples. Any one of these things might be explained away on its own, but taken as a whole can they all be explained away? One is left with the impression that there is always a clever answer on hand to wriggle out of it. Joey Lomangino now has heavenly vision, you know, in heaven. This or that failed prophecy wasn’t part of the official message of Garabandal, it was only what the children said. And so on and so forth.
Very well. Ask yourself this: can you imagine any of these convoluted word games in relation to Fatima? With regard to Lourdes? ‘Oh yes, the Blessed Virgin said there’d be water there, and it turns out there isn’t any water, but maybe it’s somehow just heavenly water which we can’t see…” It is ludicrous. What is the point in prophecies or messages if they require so much effort to explain why they didn’t really fail? Doesn’t that rather defeat the object?
It is also perhaps worth noting in passing that almost all the sources used here are, as far as possible, from the supporters and proponents of Garabandal. Let nobody claim that we have only sought out evidence from the apparitions opponents. “The Village Speaks” contains the words of villagers in the late ’60s or early ’70s who believed in the apparitions. “She Went in Haste to the Mountain” is a big three-volume work by a priest who believed in the apparitions and whose sole object is to promote Garabandal. One website which carries the entire book as a pdf describes it as: “the Bible of Garabandal.” Most of the idiocies, contradictions and other crazy things which we have already noted were found there. Indeed, there are so many insane, crazy, idiotic things in those pages that no critic would ever need to lie about Garabandal!
So what is the verdict? Lies and fakery, or something more sinister from the devil? Who knows. I think one can afford to leave that question open: after all one can often detect that one is being lied to without knowing what the truth of the matter is. And besides, those two options aren’t mutually exclusive - why couldn’t it be both? Why wouldn’t the devil make full use of lies and fakery on that scale? Is it reasonable to expect the average person to dig through all of this and work it out on his own? No. That is why the Church decides, in the person of the local ordinary of the diocese. Let us return to this point and emphasise it one last time. Two successive diocesan bishops before Vatican II condemned this and forbade people from having anything to do with it, two more during the mid-1960s and every bishop since then has repeated the condemnation. In the sixty-one years since this began, there hasn’t been a bishop of Santander who hasn’t condemned in some way or other. That surely is as far as anyone need go. It is a fake apparition which has been condemned by the Church. Case closed.
And yet Bishop Williamson actively promotes it among his followers. The reader will look in vain for any mention of the Church’s condemnation in Eleison Comments - it doesn’t even get a passing mention. Why might that be? To ask such a question is to answer it.
“[God] offers an extraordinary event, freeing them from all confusion, before they have to answer at death for how they will have spent their lives. What a grace! And it will be confirmed by the great Miracle, due to take place in Garabandal itself, and exceeding the miracle of the sun spinning, in 1917, at Fatima.”
And that surely is another important point: notice that Fatima is almost, as it were, superseded, pushed into the background by the sensationalism of Garabandal. It is no longer current, no longer relevant. Genuine apparitions, genuine messages from heaven are always the main losers wherever false ones appear the winners. How many of us have known otherwise wellmeaning Novus Ordo Catholics who have ended up going to places like Medjugorje or Garabandal instead of going to, say, Lourdes or Fatima? False apparitions will always make gains at the expense of genuine ones. That is one reason why the devil has always trafficked in them. For Bishop Williamson to believe in this nonsense himself is bad enough. For him to continue to promote it publicly is truly delinquent.
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“Are we not in these latter times when the devil employs every means to disperse us, to tear us apart, to divide us, so as to reduce the flock to nothing? In these critical moments, we must remain with that which is surest. We must avoid doubtful things.”
(Archbishop Lefebvre, 2nd May 1976)
“It is to my sorrow that I see you overly preoccupied with extraordinary visions. The Holy Father [Pius IX] does not put his trust in the imaginations of women; do likewise. Have confidence in God and live the Faith without becoming passionately fond of revelations. What is more worthy than all the prophecies is the certitude that the Faith gives us, that we are in the hands of God, and that not one hair will fall from our head without His permission. Bearing this always in mind, we remain in peace in the midst of all worldly tribulations.”
(Fr. A. V. Jandel OP, Superior General of the Dominicans)
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre