Popular Passion

"Pretended miracles" and "presumed visions" have been getting far too much attention lately, warned Msgr. Alfredo Ottaviani of the Holy Office, in the Vatican's official L'Osservatore Romano:

"Throngs of the faithful go to the scene of presumed visions and pretended miracles and desert the church, the sacraments and the sermon.

"The period through which we are going is between two excesses: open and implacable lack of religion or boundless and blind religiosity. The church, persecuted by one, compromised by the other, only repeats her motherly warning; but her words are unheard among the denials from one and the exaltations of the other."

Among many current examples of the popular passion, Msgr. Ottaviani cited last summer's alleged apparitions of the Virgin to Mrs. Mary Anna Van Hoof at Necedah, Wis.

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