Will There Be Three Days of Darkness?

In certain Catholic prophetic circles, there is a concept known as the “three days of darkness,” according to which a judgment will come upon the earth, and it will be preternaturally shrouded in darkness.

One of the most famous quotations about this event is attributed to the Italian mystic Bl. Anna Maria Taigi (1768-1837). She is said to have stated:

There shall come over the whole earth an intense darkness lasting three days and three nights. Nothing can be seen, and the air will be laden with pestilence which will claim mainly, but not only, the enemies of religion. It will be impossible to use any man-made lighting during this darkness, except blessed candles. He, who out of curiosity, opens his window to look out, or leaves his home, will fall dead on the spot. During these three days, people should remain in their homes, pray the Rosary and beg God for mercy. All the enemies of the Church, whether known or unknown, will perish over the whole earth during that universal darkness, with the exception of a few whom God will soon convert. The air shall be infected by demons who will appear under all sorts of hideous forms.

Another mystic—Marie-Julie Jahenny (1850-1941)—is said to have claimed that only 100% wax candles will work, and this has led to people selling pure beeswax candles to Catholic households for use during the event.

Some Catholics have been very concerned about this event, because if it were to occur—as described—it would be terrifying.

What should we make of the prediction? How credible is it? And what does the Church have to say about it?

The answer to the last question is easy: Nothing. The Church has nothing to say about it. A search of the Vatican web site reveals no occurrences of the phrase “three days of darkness.” The three days of darkness is not a matter of Church teaching.

Can it be supported by the Bible? Web sites advocating the three days of darkness regularly appeal to the ninth plague of the Exodus (Exod. 10:21-29), in which God caused three days of darkness in Egypt. However, this is a reference to a historical event, not a prediction of a future one.

Appeal also is made to Revelation 6:12 and 16:10—the sixth seal and the fifth vial. These chapters in Revelation most likely pertain to events early in Church history, not our future, and while both passages involve darkness, there is no mention of it lasting three days.

Consequently, the Bible does not contain a prediction of the three days of darkness. However, he could still reveal it through credible private revelations, and it is here that we run into a problem. George Ryan—who passes no judgment on the three days of darkness—writes:

The origins of the prophecy are unclear, but it has been attributed to a number of saints and mystics throughout history. Some believe it comes from St. Hildegard of Bingen, while others attribute it to St. Patrick or St. Teresa of Avila.

This is a problem, because if any of these figures predicted the three days of darkness, it should be possible to find the prediction in their writings, and nobody has been able to do so. It thus appears that some advocates of the view have attempted to give it an air of antiquity by associating older saints with it (St. Patrick lived in the 400s, St. Hildegard of Bingen lived in the 1100s, and St. Teresa of Avila lived in the 1500s), even though they made no predictions about it. The idea thus appears to be of more recent origin.

Of course, there are numerous visionaries operating today, and some of them do speak of the three days of darkness. However, what these visionaries have in common is that none of them have been investigated and had their visions approved.

Some visionaries authentically receive private revelations, but some are hoaxers—because hoaxers exist in every age, including our own—while others may be innocently imagining things based on what they have read in visionary literature.

This is why it is important to have competent investigations done rather than simply giving credence to claims of purported revelations (see, for example, the case of the once very popular Canadian mystic Fr. Michel Rodrigue, who was repudiated by his bishops and whose prophecies have subsequently been falsified).

If we set aside disapproved and uninvestigated claims, what are we left with?

Some advocates of the three days of darkness have claimed that St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio, 1887-1968) predicted it. However, the quotation was given with no traceable source, and the Capuchin order that he belonged to has denied that he ever made such a prediction. This also appears to be a case of someone trying to lend the prediction credibility by associating it with a popular modern saint.

What about the most famous quotation concerning the three days of darkness—the one we quoted earlier that is attributed to Bl. Anna Maria Taigi?

Various web pages attribute it to a book titled Private Prophecy, which was published in 1863. This is good, because books of that era have been digitized and are searchable online. However, when we check Archive.org or Google Books, they turn up no book by this title. The same is true if you make the title plural—Private Prophecies (Archive.org, Google Books).

One web site lists the book as having the Italian title Profezie Privata and adds that it was published in Rome. However, the same thing happens again on Archive.org and Google Books. There are no books of this title on record.

After considerable searching (including by other means), it appears that this book simply never existed. Perhaps someone saw the above quotation attributed to a private prophecy of Bl. Taigi from 1863 and thought it was a book title.

However, here we encounter another difficulty. The website The Great Catholic Monarch and Angelic Pontiff Prophecies—which supports the three days of darkness—acknowledges that they were not mentioned until 1863 or 1864—26 or 27 years after her death.

During life, Bl. Taigi reportedly saw an orb-like “mystic sun” that revealed things to her about the future, and she told these to her spiritual director, Raffaele Natali. The website states:

There is no question Bl Anna Maria Taigi saw in her mystic sun several visions of “clouds of darkness” and other horrific disasters descending upon the earth during the times of the punishments, this has been mentioned during her beatification process as seen above.  However, the mention of a specific time-frame of Three Days for the foretold “purge” of the earth was first allegedly revealed by her spiritual director, D. Raffaele Natali, who was not only her strongest supporter during her beatification process, but also gave ample testimony regarding her visions, for in obedience, she had told him everything.

According to an article in the El Ermitaño, (Nº 155, Oct. 26, 1871), D. Natali revealed the following during c. August of 1864, a year after her beatification process was opened by Bl. Pius IX in 1863:

“It is very true that the venerable Servant of God announced the scourge of the three days of darkness spread over all the earth. . . .

“In these circumstances, the windows should be closed, and leaning over them should be avoided, and it will be imperative to pray the holy Rosary and pray.”

The website also relates an account in which Natali may have mentioned the three days in the previous year (1863).

This raises grave questions about the quotation attributed to Bl. Taigi—as well as any other quotations attributed to her on the three days of darkness.

The idea was apparently related more than a quarter century after her death by a now-elderly spiritual director. We have to take his word for what she told him, and we are at the mercy of his memory and his honesty, as well as the accuracy of the reports concerning what he said.

Under these circumstances, and given the known problems with other quotations on this topic (such as the false Padre Pio quotation), we should not place confidence in any alleged verbatim quotations attributed to Bl. Taigi—especially lengthy ones—in the absence of verifiable documents written during her life.

Then there is the fact that—as far as I have been able to determine—these revelations were not subject to an ecclesiastical investigation into their validity. When a person’s cause for canonization is opened, a check is made to see whether they said anything that contradicted the Faith. However, a judgment is not made about the validity of any revelations they claimed to have received. That is a separate process, which I have no evidence of being performed in this case.

While I may perform more research in the future, thus far I have not been able to verify any reference to the three days of darkness in an approved apparition. Instead, I have found a highly problematic set of quotations and attributions that appear to be the product of the Apparition Rumor Net rather than competent scholarship.

As vivid and compelling as the prediction of the three days of darkness is, I would not recommend that Catholics be terrified of it or that they invest it with credence given the present state of the evidence.

 

 

What Were the Urim and Thummim? (Messages from God?) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

The Bible tells us that the Jewish high priest had two mysterious objects known as the Urim and Thummin to help him receive messages from God. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli explore what they were, how they worked, and what we know about them.

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Our Lady of Kibeho and the Rwandan Genocide – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

In 1983, seers at Kibeho, Rwanda, received visions of a barbaric conflict and in the 1990s, almost 1 million people died in the genocide. Then in 2001, the apparitions received official Church approval. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli look at what happened, which visions were genuine, and their significance for us today.

https://youtu.be/cJm8j-ufktE

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Aaron Vurgason Electric and Automation at AaronV.com. Making Connections for Life for your automation and smart home needs in north and central Florida.

Catechism Class, a dynamic weekly podcast journey through the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Greg and Jennifer Willits. It’s the best book club, coffee talk, and faith study group, all rolled into one. Find it in any podcast directory.

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Responding to Countdown To The Kingdom

Fr. Michel Rodrigue, alleged seer promoted by Countdown To The Kingdom

Recently, I was asked to evaluate CountdownToTheKingdom.com, and I concluded:

I consider Countdown to the Kingdom to be a website that presents a highly sensationalistic, speculative, and unlikely prophetic scenario that is put together from scattered pieces of information and interpretations that the authors favor.

Despite our disagreements, my contacts with people from Countdown have been cordial and professional, for which I gave them credit in the article.

I was heartened to see that, in his response, Mark Mallett of Countdown had words of praise for me and Catholic Answers, and he concluded, “We hope this response will continue the cordial dialogue between us and Jimmy Akin.”

I am happy to continue to dialogue in that spirit, though I remain concerned. As I wrote previously, “I do not see the authors exercising the type of critical thinking and discernment that would lend confidence to Countdown’s conclusions.”

Consider two statements from the reply:

The Timeline [on the website] is . . . self-evident that the “end of the world” is not imminent, as Mr. Akin seems to think we are saying.

Mr. Akin’s argument that a seer should only be considered believable if they are “approved” is not supported by either Scripture or Church teaching.

 

Creating a Straw Man

Neither of these is my view. Countdown promotes seers who claim that various prophetic events are imminent, but the end of the world is not one of those events. As Mr. Mallett says, their timeline makes this clear.

Similarly, I nowhere implied that a seer’s lack of Church approval means the seer is unreliable. Instead, I wrote:

Countdown has chosen not to use Church approval as the standard for deeming seers credible. How reliable is its own evaluation?

The website does not show evidence that the authors have conducted detailed investigations of the seers they recommend or, if they have, that they properly applied critical thinking to their cases and objectively weighed the evidence.

I thus indicated one can conduct independent investigations into a seer, though I find Countdown’s lacking.

By misreading what I wrote, Mr. Mallett has created a straw man and given his readers the impression he has refuted me, when he actually has refuted views that aren’t mine.

Unfortunately, a lack of careful reading and evaluation is common on Countdown—as are two additional tendencies displayed by enthusiasts of particular apparitions: the tendency to magnify the credibility and relevance of information they think supports their views and the tendency to minimize or ignore evidence that casts doubt on them.

These are exhibited in the responses to my evaluation of the extent to which Countdown’s timeline is supported by (1) Church Fathers, (2) the Magisterium, (3) Fatima, and (4) current, reliable seers.

 

Concerning the Fathers

Mr. Mallett disputes my claim that—in formulating its timeline—Countdown takes passages it likes from the Fathers’ divergent views on Revelation while ignoring others:

The Church Fathers most affirmatively did not “diverge widely” on their view of the proper interpretation of the Book of Revelation. Almost all of them believed firmly that it promised “the times of the kingdom” on earth, within history, during its final “millennium”—before Christ’s final coming in the flesh.

It is surprising he cites the Fathers’ understanding of the millennium, for the Fathers famously disagree on this.

In support of Countdown’s understanding, Mr. Mallett cites early sources such as the Letter of Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian on the millennium.

Yet he fails to mention that patristics scholars recognize each of these sources as supporting millenarianism—the view that there will be a physical resurrection of the righteous, after which they will reign with Christ on earth for a lengthy period before the final judgment (both the Church and Countdown reject millenarianism).

Countdown’s authors unambiguously pick and choose when they accept things they like that these sources say about the millennium and simultaneously reject things they don’t like on the same topic by the same authors! (See Barnabas 15:5, 7-8; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5:32:1 [on himself], 5:33:3-4 [on Papias]; Justin, Dialogue 80-81; Tertullian, Against Marcion 3:24-25.)

 

Concerning the Magisterium

There is no easy way to say this, but the authors of Countdown do not appear to have a clear understanding of what constitutes a magisterial act or a Church teaching. (For a thorough treatment, see my book Teaching with Authority.)

    • The Magisterium consists only of bishops teaching in union with the pope, and no statement made by a non-bishop is magisterial.
    • Except for the pope, bishops speaking alone are able to issue teachings only for members of their own dioceses.
    • Even when a bishop or pope speaks, he must do so in a way that authoritatively conveys a teaching for it to be an exercise of the Church’s magisterium. This is not the case when he merely expresses a hope, wish, fear, opinion, or speculation—or when he gives an interview or has a conversation.

Statements that do not fall in these categories don’t exercise the Church’s teaching authority. This includes statements by theologians, catechisms not authored by bishops, etc.

The only statements that engage the Church’s magisterium are made by men who are currently bishops (including the pope) to those they have authority over and when they declare a teaching authoritatively.

 

Not Church Teachings

Yet in his section dealing with the Magisterium, Mr. Mallett cites, among others, statements by:

    • Karol Wojtyła (not yet pope) in which he expresses an opinion in a talk outside his diocese
    • Charles Arminjon (not a bishop)
    • Paul VI in which he speculates in a private conversation
    • Leo XIII in which he speculates
    • Pius X in which he speculates
    • Benedict XV in which he speculates
    • Pius XI in which he speculates
    • Canon George D. Smith (not a bishop)
    • Louis de Montfort (not a bishop)
    • Pius XII in which he speculates
    • Joseph Ratzinger (not yet pope) in an interview in which he mentions a speculation of John Paul II

If Countdown thinks there are abundant Church teachings supporting its timeline, it would be because Countdown doesn’t have a clear grasp on what is and isn’t Church teaching.

Also, Countdown takes statements out of context to make them fit the timeline’s future scenario. When Benedict XV speculated in 1914 about wars arising in his day, he was talking about World War I, which had started a few months before. And when Pius XII speculated in 1944 about a hoped-for new era beginning, he was talking about the end of World War II, which concluded in Europe a few months later.

My original statement that “magisterial teachings on prophecy are minimal, and the popes have not provided teachings supporting the Countdown timeline” is true.

Countdown generates a contrary impression by citing statements made by people (a) who aren’t bishops; (b) who are bishops but aren’t pope and aren’t speaking to their subjects; or (c) who are popes but are expressing hopes, fears, or speculations rather than teachings—and by taking statements out of context and applying them to its timeline rather than the historical circumstance being addressed.

 

Concerning Fatima

I stated that “the interpretation of it offered by the Magisterium holds that it dealt with events in the twentieth century, not events in our future.”

In response, Mr. Mallet cited a statement by Benedict XVI: “We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.” By this, the pope merely meant that Fatima has lessons to teach us about how to live our lives. This is not the same as saying the fulfillment of its prophecies still lie in our future, and the Vatican interpretation—authored by Joseph Ratzinger—states:

Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed.

This would reject an attempt to back up future events on Countdown’s timeline using Fatima.

 

Concerning Current Seers

I stand by my assertion that Countdown has not exercised proper critical discernment and, had it done so, it wouldn’t promote some seers it does.

Countdown’s pages on why it supports particular seers offer one-sidedly positive evaluations and ignore important evidence readers need to arrive at informed opinions.

The “Why Father Stephano Gobbi?” page makes no mention of his predictions tied to specific dates that failed to materialize or the opinions officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expressed about him.

The “Why Servant of God Luisa Piccaretta?” page makes no mention of her bishop’s decree, which is still in force and states:

I must mention the growing and unchecked flood of transcriptions, translations and publications both through print and the internet. At any rate, “seeing the delicacy of the current phase of the proceedings, any and every publication of the writings is absolutely forbidden at this time. Anyone who acts against this is disobedient and greatly harms the cause of the Servant of God (emphasis in original).

Countdown appears to violate this decree by publishing excerpts from her writings (e.g., here).

These “Why?” pages are linked on Countdown’s homepage and are thus where it directs readers to go to learn about and form opinions on these seers. Yet the pages omit important information and cautions and provide a one-sidedly positive portrayal.

 

Concerning Approval of Seers

Mr. Mallett states:

Mr. Akin further asserts that we have chosen seers who are not approved by the Church. On the contrary, nearly every seer here has some form of ecclesiastical approval to one degree or another.

When I refer to seers being approved, I mean that the competent authority has investigated and approved their apparitions under the CDF’s norms.

Almost none of the seers Countdown promotes have this approval, as illustrated by the claim that they merely have “some form of ecclesiastical approval to one degree or another.”

Like many enthusiastic supporters of unapproved apparitions, Mr. Mallett inflates the “approval” they have. Having a priest, bishop, or cardinal say nice things about a seer is not approval. Neither is putting an imprimatur on a book. (That just means it doesn’t contain doctrines the Church has declared false.) Nor does being declared a saint mean that the person’s visions have been investigated and approved.

 

The Worst Case

The worst case of Countdown’s lack of critical thinking is its promotion of Fr. Michel Rodrigue.

I won’t here go into whether his bishops’ recent repudiations constitute formal condemnations, but this man is simply not credible. As I wrote, “he appears to be a fabulist who either greatly embellishes or manufactures significant elements of his life story.”

Fr. Rodrigue claims that on Christmas Eve 2009, he was saying Mass in Montreal when a woman suffered cardiac arrest and was verified as dead by doctors. Then Fr. Rodrigue miraculously raised her from the dead and sent her by ambulance to the local hospital to be checked out. The woman arrived back from the hospital before the end of Mass and came through a door that miraculously opened by itself. Upon seeing her return, the congregation applauded.

This is not credible. Anyone who goes into a hospital reporting that he even thinks he might be having a heart attack—much less someone who has just been revived from full cardiac arrest—will spend hours being tested and observed. There is no way the woman in Fr. Rodrigue’s story would get back to the church by the end of Mass.

Similarly, Fr. Rodrigue claims that, when eating in a Banff restaurant, he was infected by a Russian bio-weapon and that this was verified at a local hospital. But instead of the restaurant being closed and there being an immediate investigation by Canadian military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies, he was allowed to make a five-day road trip back to Montreal.

For the full context on Fr. Rodrigue’s non-believable tales, including audio recordings in his own voice and exact transcripts, see this episode of Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World.

If amazing events like these had happened, there would be extensive documentation, and there isn’t.

Absent documentation, one must conclude that either Fr. Rodrigue is not capable of separating fantasy from reality or that he is telling self-aggrandizing lies.

Either way, Countdown is not showing the kind of critical thinking and discernment with its sources that would lend credibility to its timeline.

Nostradamus! (His Secret Technique Revealed! Astrologer? Prophet? Psychic?) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

The 16th century French seer Nostradamus continues to fascinate the public. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli ask whether he could predict the future, how we should interpret his prophecies, and what was the secret technique he used to compose them.

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Nostradamus (Astrologer? Prophet? Psychic?) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

Nostradamus is one of the most famous seers of the last millennium and his prophecies are often applied to all sorts of past, current, and future events. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli delve into who Nostradamus was, what secret techniques he used, and whether he could really tell the future.

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RosaryArmy.com. Have more peace. Visit RosaryArmy.com and get a free all-twine knotted rosary, downloadable audio Rosaries, and more. Make Them. Pray Them. Give Them Away at RosaryArmy.com.

Whole Mission Marquette Method Natural Family Planning Services. Unveil the mystery of you and your spouse’s combined fertility using an evidence-based, highly effective, and moral way of avoiding or achieving pregnancy. Discover more from a licensed healthcare professional at mmnfp.org.

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“Changing the Sabbath” and the Antichrist

Recently I was contacted by someone who seems quite openminded and who asked me some questions about why we worship on Sunday rather than the Sabbath.

In particular, this person was wondering why that should be the case if the only person in the Bible who seeks to change the Sabbath is the Antichrist.

I responded as follows . . .

When you refer to the Antichrist changing the Sabbath, I assume that you’re referring to Daniel 7:25, where a coming king will “think to change times and seasons.”

Concerning this prophecy specifically, I’d make several points:

1) It does not specifically mention the Sabbath, but this is almost certainly included in the meaning of changing times and seasons, for reasons we will see below.

2) Prophecy can refer to more than one thing (i.e., have more than one fulfillment). Thus in Revelation the Beast from the Sea’s seven heads are both seven mountains and seven kings (Rev. 17:9-10).

We see the same thing in other prophecies, which can have more than one fulfillment. For example, Isaiah’s prophecy of Emmanuel had a near-term fulfillment in the birth of a child in the time of King Ahaz–something that is obvious because the sign was given to him as a sign that the alliance of kings against him would not succeed in toppling him from his throne (see Isaiah 7:1-16).

For Ahaz, the child Emmanuel would be a sign that God was with his people against this alliance of kings. But the prophecy also has a later fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who was God with us in an even more literal sense.

3) Because prophecies can have more than one fulfillment in history, it is important to identify the original historical fulfillment before exploring possible later fulfillments.

4) In the case of Daniel 7, scholars of multiple persuasions (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, other) hold that the most likely original fulfillment of this vision is to be found in the kingdoms leading up to the triumph of Alexander the Great in the 300s B.C. (who is also clearly in focus in chapter 8 of the book) and the kingdoms that came about in the wake of his empire. This does not mean that it does not also have one or more later fulfillments, but this is what the original fulfillment involves.

5) In particular, Daniel 7:25–and other passages in Daniel–appear to be referring originally to the post-Alexander king Antiochus IV (i.e., Antiochus Epiphanes). He was king of the Seleucid Empire, which was one of the kingdoms that grew out of Alexander the Great’s conquests, and he persecuted the Jewish people in the 160s B.C.

Specifically, Antiochus tried to compel them to give up the Jewish faith and adopt the Hellenistic (Greek) religion. This meant compelling them to give up celebrating Jewish feasts, including the Sabbath, and this is what Daniel 7:25 apparently is referring to when it says this king will “think to change times and seasons.”

The “think” is important, because Antiochus did not succeed. The Jewish people resisted him, won their freedom, and retained their ancestral faith and its practices–as chronicled in the books 1 and 2 Maccabees.

6) It is possible that a future dictator may also try to compel the Jewish people to give up their faith–including its holy days–and this future dictator may be the same as the final Antichrist, but we must be careful about such speculation as the prophecy is not repeated in the New Testament and not every prophecy has a later fulfillment.

At least, I couldn’t prove that they all will have a fulfillment at the end of the world, so I have to leave this proposal as a possible speculation but only a speculation.

So, you may well be right that the final Antichrist will attempt to force the Jewish people to drop the Sabbath, but I can’t say this for certain, myself.

However, this is an independent issue of what liturgical calendar Christians, and especially Gentile Christians, should follow.

The Sabbath–along with the monthly New Moons and the annual feasts (e.g., Passover, Tabernacles)–was part of the liturgical calendar that God gave to the Jewish people before the time of Christ.

It was never binding and was never meant to be binding on Gentiles, as Jewish scholars have always held. (In fact, Gentiles were even positively prohibited by Jewish law from being able to do things like keep Passover, as circumcision was required for eating the Passover lamb.)

The uniqueness of the Sabbath to the Jewish people is due to the fact there is nothing in natural law/human nature that demands that one day in seven (as opposed to one day in five or one day in ten) be set aside for rest and worship or that it must be the seventh day in particular (rather than the first or the third). Since God did not build this into human nature/natural law, such a law could only come from a divine mandate, and God only mandated this for the Jewish people, not for all peoples.

When the early Church began making significant numbers of Gentile converts, one of the questions that arose was whether they needed to be circumcised and become Jews in order to be saved (cf. Acts 10-11, 15, Gal. 1-2). The answer was that they did not.

The Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) ruled on this question, and even though it involved a few points to help Jewish and Gentile Christians live together (Acts 15:29), you’ll note that keeping the Sabbath was not one of these. The Jerusalem Council thus recognized that Gentile Christians did not need to be circumcised and adopt Jewish practices. Though a few points were asked of Gentiles for the sake of harmony with Jewish Christians, observing the Jewish ceremonial calendar was not among them.

St. Paul sheds even more light on the subject, indicating in his letters that–even though he is a Jew–he is not bound by the Jewish Law (1 Cor. 9:19-23), because Christ has fulfilled the Jewish Law and so put an end to it. He indicates this in various passages, such as Romans 14:1-6, where he writes:

As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions. One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judgment on him who eats; for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand. One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Here Paul takes up two examples of practices that could affect different groups of Christians: keeping kosher laws (not eating unclean foods) and observing the Jewish calendar (honoring certain days). He characterizes some–who believe that they cannot eat certain things and must observe certain days–as “weak in faith,” and others–who recognize they are not bound by these laws–as strong in faith, by implication (for they recognize Christ has eliminated the need for such things by his fulfillment of the Jewish Law).

Rather than trying to get people to abandon their positions, Paul urges peace among Christians by letting everyone do what their conscience says they need to do to honor God.

Paul could not argue in this way if the “weak in faith” position was correct and it was mandated that Christians keep kosher and observe Jewish holy days. It is only because we are not bound by these things that he can allow those who are “weak in faith”–i.e., who have scrupulous fears that Jesus might not have freed us from these things–to continue to practice them rather than violate their consciences.

If everybody was bound to avoid certain foods and keep certain days as a matter of divine law, Paul would have said so–as he does with other things that are matters of divine law. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, he warns that people who practice a variety of sins will not inherit the kingdom. He doesn’t say, “You get to do these sins if your conscience tells you it’s okay.” He says “This is a sin; don’t do it!”

Therefore, in Romans 14 the allowance of both positions–eating and not eating certain foods, observing and not observing certain days–is because neither is a violation of divine law. We have the liberty of eating all foods and treating every day alike because God has not mandated that we do otherwise.

Paul is even more explicit in Colossians 2:14-17, where he writes that God has “canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

He thus indicates that the various regulations of the Mosaic Law concerning food and liturgical days (the annual feasts, monthly New Moons, and weekly Sabbaths being the three kinds of days on the Jewish liturgical calendar) were shadows that pointed forward to Christ, but now that Christ has come and fulfilled the Jewish Law, “nailing it to the Cross,” even Jewish Christians–such as himself–are no longer bound by these, for God has “cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands.”

Consequently, he says “let no one pass judgment on you . . . with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath.”

The Sabbath thus is not binding, even on Jewish Christians, because of what Christ did on the cross.

In the first century and for a time thereafter, many Jewish Christians did continue to observe the Sabbath, as Paul indicated was possible for them in Romans 14. However, this was not the day that Christians held their religious gatherings on.

Instead, they observed the first day of the week, because it was the day on which the Lord Jesus rose. Thus, we see Paul recommending that collections be taken up in the church of Corinth on this day:

Now concerning the contribution for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come (1 Cor. 16:1-2).

This day soon came to be known as “the Lord’s Day,” because it was the day on which the Lord Jesus rose. Thus, we see St. John writing:

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet (Rev. 1:10).

And from the first century forward we see the early Christians continuing to celebrate the first day of the week–the Lord’s Day–rather than the Sabbath, as illustrated by the quotations from early Church documents listed here:

https://www.catholic.com/tract/sabbath-or-sunday

In time, the Church used the power of the keys that Christ had given to Peter to “bind and loose” (Matt. 16:18) to institute a new Christian liturgical calendar, built around the weekly observance of the Lord’s Day.

It is this exercise of the keys that is the reasons Christians today are bound to observe the Lord’s Day–not because one day intrinsically requires observance compared to other days.

However, the Church did not “change” the Sabbath. The Sabbath is when it always was: the seventh day of the week. It’s just that Christians are not required to observe it, as it was something that pertained to the Jewish people prior to the time of Christ. Instead of celebrating the Sabbath, Christians celebrate the first day of the week in honor of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

For more on the Church’s official teaching, see here:

https://www.ncregister.com/blog/did-the-catholic-church-change-the-sabbath

I hope this helps, and God bless you!

Our Lady of Akita – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

From 1973 to 1982, a Japanese religious sister reported receiving messages from an angel and the Virgin Mary as well as a series of miraculous events. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine the mystery of Our Lady of Akita, what happened, whether it was supernatural, and its connection to Fatima.

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Mysterious Headlines

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Visions, Prophecies, Private Revelations – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

God has made Himself known throughout history, but after the Bible something changed in the way He does that. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli explore the different kinds of revelations, how we can tell which are credible and which aren’t, and what it means when the Church approves an apparition.

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Imprimaturs and Private Revelations

In recent years, imprimaturs have been granted to books connected with unapproved private revelations, and this has led to some confusion.

It has been argued that imprimaturs and nihil obstats are acts of the Magisterium, and therefore the faithful are obliged to give the religious submission of mind and will that they must to any other act of the Magisterium.

This argument has been made, for example, by some supporters of the non-Catholic mystic Vassula Ryden.

Is this true? Are imprimaturs and nihil obstats acts of the Magisterium? What implications do they have for the faithful and how they are to regard private revelations?

The Code of Canon Law does not use the terms imprimatur and nihil obstat, but they are often used by Catholic publishers.

A nihil obstat (Latin, “nothing obstructs”) is a written opinion issued by a censor that nothing obstructs the publication of a book in terms of faith or morals (can. 830 §3).

In issuing this opinion, the censor is bound “to consider only the doctrine of the Church concerning faith and morals as it is proposed by the ecclesiastical Magisterium” (830 §2). This means that the censor is not to base the opinion on whether he agrees with everything claimed in the work—only whether the book contains statements that contradict Church teaching.

Censors are not typically bishops, so there is no question of whether nihil obstats are acts of the Magisterium. The Church’s Magisterium can be exercised only by bishops teaching in communion with the pope, so unless a censor is a bishop, there is no possibility that an opinion issued by a censor could be an act of the Magisterium.

An imprimatur (Latin, “Let it be published”) is an authorization given by a local ordinary (typically a bishop) to publish a work. The U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine notes:

In the Latin Catholic Church, there are two primary forms of ecclesiastical authorization for written works. These are identified in church law as “permission” (licentia) and “approval” (approbatio). Since these terms are not used consistently within the various authoritative documents, a consensus has not yet emerged among canonical experts as to whether the terms are interchangeable or whether there is, in fact, a precise and practical distinction between the two (n. 2).

However, these terms are given precise meanings in the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches, which provides:

1. Ecclesiastical permission, expressed only with the word imprimatur, means that the work is free from errors regarding Catholic faith and morals.

2. Approval granted by competent authority shows that the text is accepted by the Church or that the work is in accordance with the authentic doctrine of the Church (can. 661).

Are imprimaturs acts of the Magisterium? It should be pointed out that imprimaturs are issued by “local ordinaries” (cf. can. 824 §1), and not all local ordinaries are bishops. For example, local ordinaries include vicars general and episcopal vicars (can. 134 §1).

The fact that non-bishops can issue imprimaturs is a significant sign that they are not acts of the Magisterium.

Further, to exercise his personal magisterium, a bishop must himself issue a teaching, but this is not what is happening when an imprimatur is granted. The bishop himself does not teach something; he authorizes someone else to do something—namely, to publish a work.

The situation is similar to when a bishop issues a mandate for a theologian to teach in a Catholic university (cf. can. 812). He’s giving permission for someone else to teach, but that does not make everything the theologian says part of the bishop’s personal magisterium.

Similarly, when a local ordinary—even a bishop—gives permission for a book to be published, it does not make everything the book says part of the bishop’s personal magisterium.

As the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains:

Ecclesiastical permission or approval . . . guarantees that the writing in question contains nothing contrary to the Church’s authentic magisterium on faith or morals (II:7:2; cf. II:8:3).

This is a negative guarantee. It means that the work does not contradict Church teaching. However, it is not a positive guarantee that all of the opinions found in the book are true. In fact, this is sometimes expressly pointed out in the notification printed for an imprimatur.

For example, G. Van Noort’s 1954 book Dogmatic Theology: Volume I carries this notification:

The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal and moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the opinions expressed.

What about private revelations and imprimaturs? In the 1917 Code of Canon Law, it was required that books of private revelations carry an imprimatur (cf. can. 1399 n. 5), however this is no longer required.

In fact, very few books today require imprimaturs or other forms of ecclesiastical permission. These include translations of Scripture (can. 825), liturgical books, liturgical translations, prayer books (can. 826), catechetical materials, religious textbooks used in Catholic schools, books sold or exhibited in churches (can. 827), and collections of official Church documents (can. 828).

Since comparatively few books require imprimaturs, this is why most books by Catholic publishers—including Catholic Answers—don’t carry them, and the same applies to books dealing with private revelations.

So, what does it mean if a book on an apparition gets an imprimatur? It does not mean that apparition is genuine. The Church has a separate process for investigating apparitions, and unless that process has been used, the apparition has not been approved as genuinely supernatural.

Even when the Church does approve an apparition, it does not mean that the faithful are required to accept it, only that they are authorized to accept it if it seems prudent. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained when he was head of the CDF:

Ecclesiastical approval of a private revelation has three elements: the message contains nothing contrary to faith or morals; it is lawful to make it public; and the faithful are authorized to accept it with prudence

It’s also worth noting that, when the Church does investigate an apparition, it’s not just any bishop who can do so. Although the Vatican or the conference of bishops could intervene, the only local bishop with the authority to conduct such an investigation is the one where the apparition has been reported.

This means that an imprimatur issued by a bishop in another part of the world would be unrelated to the apparition approval process.

What an imprimatur would mean is that a bishop somewhere in the world has judged (based on the opinion that the censor gave him) that the work does not contain anything that contradicts Church teaching.

It may not even express itself well. It may have ambiguous statements that don’t necessarily contradict Church teaching but that could be understood in an erroneous way. It also may contain theological opinions that are false but that the Church has not (yet) condemned. And it may contain statements about non-religious matters that are inaccurate.

Of course, an individual bishop might favor the book—and the apparition on which it is based—and he might recommend them to others.

This would mean that he, personally, favors them, but his granting an imprimatur would not constitute an act of the Magisterium binding the faithful to give “religious submission of intellect and will” (Lumen Gentium 25) to the apparition or what it says.

Even if he were (very extraordinarily!) to issue a teaching document endorsing the apparition, it would at most bind only the faithful of his own diocese (can. 753), for an individual bishop cannot bind the faithful of another diocese by his personal magisterium. Such a bishop also would likely get in trouble with the Vatican for overstepping the apparitions approval process.

So the implications for an imprimatur being given to a book of private revelations are the same as they are for any other book. It’s a judgment by an individual bishop that the work does not contradict Catholic doctrine. Nothing more.