{"id":113364,"date":"2019-09-05T00:53:25","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T07:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=113364"},"modified":"2019-09-05T08:11:53","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T15:11:53","slug":"listen-to-the-magisterium-not-quack-visionaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/09\/listen-to-the-magisterium-not-quack-visionaries.html","title":{"rendered":"Listen to the Magisterium, Not Quack Visionaries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Catholic culture is like tofu:\u00a0 It takes on the flavor of the culture around it.\u00a0 When Islam took over the Middle East, Christians suddenly starting having cows about veneration of images and the Iconoclast heresy was born.\u00a0 When Calvinist rigorism was all the rage in 16th century France, Jansenist rigorism\u00a0 became all the rage in the French Church.\u00a0 When French hubris and nationalism was at its peak, so was Gallicanism in the Church.\u00a0 And when American star-spangled patriotism is what a civilization is gaga for, Americanism is all the rage in the Church.<\/p>\n

Celebrity worship is another feature of our culture and Catholics tend to emulate that too, particular in an hour when the bishops have distinguished themselves with more than their usual ineptitude.<\/p>\n

Time was when the Folk Heroes tended to be on the left end of the spectrum, battling the Church on Pelvic Issues. Richard McBrien, Charles Curran, Rosemary Radford Reuther and sundry others could be depended on to show up on TV to tell us why we didn\u2019t need to listen to JPII or the Magisterium.<\/p>\n

These days, however, the Freak Show Right has strenuously adopted all the stupidest tricks of their Culture War enemies<\/a> while learning nothing from their mistakes while the Left seems to be returning to common sense and listening to the Magisterium again.\u00a0 Often this manifests, as the link shows, by anointing some new alternative Magisterium to tell the Right Winger what his itching ears want to hear about money, guns, war, torture, greed, the environment, capital punishment or whatever other teaching the Church offers that the enemy of the real Magisterium does not wish to hear.<\/p>\n

But not everybody likes laboring through tedious sophistry explaining that torture is just peachy or slaughtering innocent people on death row is swell.\u00a0 That comes dangerously close to thinking and may run the risk of awakening the conscience.\u00a0 So some people prefer to get their information directly via supernatural download because if the Blessed Virgin Mary herself appears and tell you you are free to ignore the Magisterium then, well!\u00a0 That\u2019s that, innit?\u00a0 Surely she trumps the Pope!<\/p>\n

So there are any number of crank visionaries out there telling people what they already think and believe and urging them to ignore the bishop and the pope in favor of what the visionary wants.<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, this bit of fraud dispelled by the bishop of Fort Worth<\/a>:<\/p>\n

NEW YORK \u2013 After video footage evidenced that a woman claiming to receive roses from the Blessed Virgin Mary was falsifying her claims, Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas has declared her supposed Marian apparitions to be a \u201cfabrication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Olson advised Texas Catholics to be wary of the claims that Mary had been appearing at various locations in the diocese under the title of the \u201cMystical Rose \u2013 Our Lady of Argyle\u201d and leaving messages related to the sanctity of human life.<\/p>\n

Despite claims on social media and several websites, Olson said that the apparitions had not been validated.<\/p>\n

On Monday, however, the diocese said the apparitions were a fabrication after video footage surfaced from the Loreto House, a pro-life center in the diocese, showing the alleged visionary dropping roses on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the officials, though the woman told participants at the time that the roses were \u2018a gift from Our Lady,\u2019 in reality, she surreptitiously dropped them,\u201d said a diocesan statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter viewing the video and consulting with diocesan advisors and others, I have concluded that the Mystical Rose \u2013 Our Lady of Argyle is a fabrication and not true,\u201d Olson wrote in a letter to the diocese.<\/p>\n