The Vatican is gearing up to unveil a document offering guidance on how to discern supernatural phenomena.
The Holy See Press Office has announced that the forthcoming document will be released on May 17, accompanied by a live-streamed press conference featuring Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Fernández has previously indicated that the dicastery is in the final stages of preparing a new text containing clear guidelines and norms for discerning apparitions and other supernatural occurrences, as reported by the National Catholic Register.
An “apparition” refers to an event in which a divine entity, such as a saint, the Virgin Mary, or Christ himself, reportedly reveals themselves to an individual on Earth. This concept is recurrent in the Bible, and most Christian denominations affirm the belief that such encounters with the supernatural can still occur today in various forms.
The Catholic Church advocates for “extreme prudence” when attributing phenomena to supernatural forces, cautioning against hastily assigning divine origins to explainable events, which could potentially undermine faith and distort belief.
Reports of alleged apparitions are typically documented and scrutinized by the diocesan bishop’s office before being forwarded to Rome for further examination.
The last time the Vatican doctrinal office issued guidance on apparitions was in 1978 under Pope Paul VI. The document, titled “Norms Regarding the Manner of Proceedings in the Discernment of Presumed Apparitions or Revelations,” was released in response to the growing influence of mass media.
One of the most extensively documented modern-day apparitions is the Miracle of Fátima in 1917. Following a series of alleged appearances by the Virgin Mary to several peasant children, promising a public miracle, tens of thousands of people in Fátima, Portugal, claimed to witness the sun exhibiting erratic movements across the sky and emitting radiant colors for several minutes.
The Catholic Church officially acknowledged the “supernatural” nature of the event in 1930, and a decade later, Pope Pius XII formally approved the Fátima apparitions.
In a separate development, the Vatican recently issued a document addressing the significance of “human dignity” in contemporary society.
The document denounced gender theory, gender transitions, and surrogate pregnancies as contravening fundamental moral principles.
