Tuesday, August 14, 2007
APPARITIONS DISCERNMENT
The 1978 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document on apparition discernment
The CDF document was issued in French. An unofficial English translation is posted here.
From the website:
I. Criteria of judgement, concerning the probability at least, of the character of the apparitions and supposed revelations.
A) Positive criteria:
a) Moral certainty, or at least great probability, as to the existence of the fact, [revelation] acquired at the end of a serious investigation.
b) Particular circumstances relating to the existence and the nature of the fact:
1. Personal qualities of the subject—in particular mental balance, honesty and rectitude of moral life, habitual sincerity and docility towards ecclesiastical authority, ability to return to the normal manner of a life of faith, etc.
2. With regard to the revelations, their conformity with theological doctrines and their spiritual veracity, their exemption from all error.
3. A healthy devotion and spiritual fruits which endure (in particular, the spirit of prayer, conversions, signs of charity, etc).
B) Negative criteria:
a) A glaring error as to the facts.
b) Doctrinal errors that one would attribute to God himself, or to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Holy Spirit in their manifestations (taking into account, however, the possibility that the subject may add something by their own activity—even if this is done unconsciously—of some purely human elements to an authentic supernatural revelation, these having nevertheless to remain free from any error in the natural order. Cf. St Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, n. 336).
c) An obvious pursuit of monetary gain in relation with the fact.
d) Gravely immoral acts committed by the subject, or his associates, at the time of the facts, or on the occasion of these facts.
E) Psychic disorders or psychopathic tendencies concerning the subject, which would exert an unquestionable influence on the allegedly supernatural facts, or indeed psychosis, mass hysteria, or other factors of the same kind.
It is important to consider these criteria, whether they are positive or negative, as indicative standards and not as final arguments, and to study them in their plurality and in relation with the other criteria.
