Vatican sharpens rules on investigating supernatural

AFP | Vatican City

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Vatican sharpened its rules for investigating supernatural events such as visions of Christ or the Virgin Mary, acknowledging yesterday that overactive imaginations and outright “lying” risked harming the faithful.

The new norms allow for a more “prudent” interpretation of events that generally avoids declaring them outright a supernatural event.

They were published by the Holy See’s powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Francis.

“In certain circumstances not everything is black or white,” Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, who leads the dicastery, told journalists.

“Sometimes a possible divine reaction mixes with... human thoughts and fantasies,” Fernandez added.

The history of the Catholic Church is filled with episodes of strange or unexplained phenomena involving religious statues or other objects.