‘Let’s be careful about apparitions in Catholic Church’

Apparitions are said to have appeared in different places like: Bosnia, Korea, Japan, America, France, Bangladesh. In Nigeria too, it has happened at Nsugbe College of Education in Anambra State and a place called Aokpe in Ugbokolo, Benue State. The curious things are these images shed blood, talk to their visionaries and issue commands. The […]

Apparitions are said to have appeared in different places like: Bosnia, Korea, Japan, America, France, Bangladesh. In Nigeria too, it has happened at Nsugbe College of Education in Anambra State and a place called Aokpe in Ugbokolo, Benue State. The curious things are these images shed blood, talk to their visionaries and issue commands.

The unanswered questions

Bro Anene Nwachukwu has been not only a Catholic for over 17 years, he has been a member of the Charismatic Renewal Movement, a strong prayer group in the Catholic Church. He worships at the Pope John Paul centre in Maitama, Abuja. He is one of the numerous faithful who ask questions about apparitions.

Nwachukwu who walked into our newsroom narrated his experience with apparition: “I noticed that the Holy Spirit which I received under the Charismatic is against the chaplet. He rebuked me that the chaplet is not from him. He ordered me to pack out the chaplet from my house—that it was occult!

“That was surprising to me because I’m a Roman Catholic in the midst of Roman Catholics and the spirit I received through life in the spirit seminar which I did under Charismatic people is now asking me to pack the chaplet out of my house!

“That Sunday, when I obeyed him and packed out the chaplet, I went to church and I heard that the spirit of the Virgin Mary had appeared in Benue State. Some of our Charismatic members chartered a vehicle to go to where the spirit appeared. As our Charismatic members were going, the Holy Spirit revealed to me that the spirit appearing to people as Virgin Mary is not the true spirit of the Blessed Mary but a seducing spirit from anti-Christ coming in disguise as Blessed Virgin Mary to us Catholics. This spirit is the spirit behind the chaplet, the Lady of the Rosary.

“The spirit led me to a kiosk where books and materials of this spirit are sold. I went there and bought this spirit’s documented activities: her pictures, chaplets, documentation of her apparitions in the world including the one in Fatima on October 13, 1917.

“The Bible revealed that the anti-Christ will be making miracles of fire to be coming down from heaven in the sight of men and begin to ask people to build his image and will cause the image to become alive and to speak and cause that as many that will receive the mark of the beast be cured.

“Revelations 13:13-16, is where the future manifestations of the anti-Christ were revealed. The Bible foretold, ‘And I saw a beast coming out of the earth and it has a horn like a ram and it spits like a dragon.’ That this spirit ‘doeth great wonders so that the naked fire comes down from heaven on earth in the sight of men and by the means of this miracle be deceiving them that dwell on earth, saying to them that dwell on earth to make an image, that he has power to give life to the image.’

“I bought the books on the apparition in Fatima and in Benue State to research and find if it is of truth this spirit comes from heaven in the sight of men here in the earth, if it asks people to build its image, if this spirit is giving life to the image, if it causes the image to speak.

“In several parts of the world, the images are becoming alive. The images in the Catholic Church are not the true image of the Blessed Virgin Mary but images carved after the similitude of the apparitions of this spirit in different places. The spirit will ask people to build its image and it will cause the image to come alive. At Nsugbe College of Education, a statue was found bleeding and the blood was extracted and tested in a lab—the blood was Group A.

“So the spirit has concluded everything which the Bible has foretold that the anti-Christ will use to deceive the people. In 2nd Timothy, the Bible forewarned that in the later times, many shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirit. This is just a seducing spirit.

“Peter, James and John who laboured to establish the ancient Roman Catholic Church never knew this spirit—this spirit appears to the modern-day Christian.”

According to him, he took this Pope John Paul centre in Maitama but authorities would not give answers to his questions.

Are these apparitions recognised by the Vatican?

Emmanuel Agondo, parish priest, St Peter & Paul Catholic Church Aliade in Benue State said the Vatican does not accept apparitions but when they prove to be useful to believers, they become recognised by the Vatican. He said once believers get healing from any apparition, the Pope gives approval to it. The one in Fatima has been approved.

Mike Sebastian, a parishioner in SS Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Nyanya, Abuja said he believes the apparitions are truly of the revered Mary. He attributed the appearance of Mary’s apparition to two main reasons: one, because God wants to constantly remind humanity that He is supreme and should be worshipped. This, he said, is necessary because mankind has the tendency to backslide.

The second reason he gave, is God’s deliberate efforts to remove the impression that all about God is masculine. He noted that Mary’s appearance is meant to show humanity especially feminists that God is not only manly but feminine as well.