The supernatural phenomena guidelines of the Catholic Church
A handbook for brand management at the Vatican
This past May, the Vatican updated its norms on supernatural phenomena. My brother told me he believed this was happening because the Catholic Church wanted to be prepared for the new upcoming wave of unexplained events that they foresaw given the crazy geo-political situation of the world. I have a tendency to be gullible when people I care about tell me stuff, so I decided that I would do more research on what this release from the Vatican really meant.
I was raised Catholic and one of my biggest fears has been the movie The Exorcist. Therefore, just by the title of the news articles I read when I started doing research for this story, I imagined the dossier was going to talk about demonic possessions and scary child apparitions. I was wrong. I read the whole document and, while they do not mention specific examples of what type of phenomena they identify as supernatural, they indirectly mention that they gave a stance on some apparition event in the 1950s. If you are curious like me, I think they are referring to the Lady of all Nations apparitions in Amsterdam. Hence, I am assuming that the events they are trying to address are more celebratory to the religious experience, and not about fighting demonic forces.
I will discuss some of the excerpts from the document below. If you want to read the full version, go here.
First of all, the Vatican has a legacy of documenting instructions on how to treat and process unique events related to miracles, apparitions or other unique occurrences. Pope Benedict XIV wrote On the Beatification of the Servants of God and the Canonization of the Blessed in 1734-ish. This book was the first manual that explained the procedure of how to canonize saints, listing the criteria to consider an event as miracle based on medical and scientific parameters.
In more recent times, the Vatican realized that it needs to review its process of when and how the Church endorses an unexplainable event. Not unlike any other complex, multi-country corporation, bureaucracy has limited the number of supernatural occurrences they can study, so much that the Vatican has officially recognized how slow their process can be:
After the 1978 Norms were put into practice, however, it became evident that decisions took an excessively long time, sometimes spanning several decades. In this way, the necessary ecclesiastical discernment often came too late.
In fact, since 1950, no more than six cases have been officially resolved, even though such phenomena have often increased without clear guidance and with the involvement of people from many Dioceses.
The Vatican escalation process does not use any type of ticketing system like Jira. Instead, anyone in the church who wants to bring an abnormal event for review has to pitch it to a Diocesan Bishop and the National Episcopal Conference. These are Church roles that I am zero familiar with, so do not ask me what their scope of responsibilities is.
An additional motive for updating these guidelines is the spread of global news. Events like these going VIRAL can have a brand impact if they are associated with the Church.
With the advent of modern means of communication, these phenomena can attract the attention of many believers or cause confusion among them. Since news of these events can spread very quickly, the pastors of the Church are responsible for handling these phenomena with care by recognizing their fruits, purifying them of negative elements, or warning the faithful about potential dangers arising from them (cf. 1 Jn. 4:1).
The Vatican explains that it must be very careful in giving its conclusion on a paranormal event since people take advantage of that ratification in order to make profits or become famous. Capitalism is not an ideal system for otherworldly events.
The main change between this new version of the document and its former one is the introduction of a new declaration status or conclusion of the Church based on their analysis of an event. This fresh new term is much less conclusive on whether or not the ecclesiastic authority is claiming something is supernatural. Essentially, Church is trying to empower its local representatives to give less conclusive declarations about an abnormal event to avoid having to wait - most likely years - for their central team to asses and conclude on the incident.
Nihil obstat – Without expressing any certainty about the supernatural authenticity of the phenomenon itself, many signs of the action of the Holy Spirit are acknowledged “in the midst”[18] of a given spiritual experience, and no aspects that are particularly critical or risky have been detected, at least so far. For this reason, the Diocesan Bishop is encouraged to appreciate the pastoral value of this spiritual proposal, and even to promote its spread, including possibly through pilgrimages…
Curiously, a notary has to be present in the discussion of the examination of a potential supernatural event. This got me thinking: where do you think the memos from these reunions are stored? What is the tech stack of the Vatican? Do they have a Dropbox account? I will write about this in the future.
§ 4 – The Diocesan Bishop or his Delegate shall also appoint a Notary to attend the meetings and record the minutes of the witness examinations and of any other official act of the Commission. The Notary is responsible for ensuring that the minutes are duly signed and that all the acts of the investigatory phase are collected, well-ordered, and stored in the archives of the Diocesan Curia. The Notary will also provide for the convocation of the Commission and prepare its documents.
Not surprisingly, everything is kept confidential. If you are involved in one of these investigations, you cannot talk about it with your priest.
§ 3 – Confessors of the persons claiming to be involved in events of supernatural origin may not testify about any of the matters they have learned in sacramental confession.[21]
To sum everything up, this Vatican document is a very well-structured resource with easy steps that people in the Church can follow if they are facing any supernatural event that requires a position from the institution. My main question now is: who helps the Vatican in assessing its strategy for unexplainable and spiritual events? Is there a consulting firm that advises on matters of the soul?
Cast your vote below:
Thanks for reading!