On the new Vatican norms for the discernment of supernatural phenomena
Much of the talk last week was about the new Vatican norms for the discernment of supernatural phenomena—apparitions especially, but not exclusively—presented at a press conference in Rome on Friday.
The run-up to the presser was a hoot, with some secular outfits even spinning the business as the Vatican weighing in on the existence of intelligent alien life. I’ll buy a plane ticket with my own money for that presser if I have to, honest, but it wasn’t on the cards this time.
What we got was still worth a good, close look.
Responsibility, Accountability, Transparency
The new norms introduce new categories—six of them—for determining the status of alleged apparitions and other similar phenomena. There’s lots to say about the new categories, but most of that will come later. The new categories appear to give greater overall flexibility to those responsible for judging of such matters. What’s arguably more important is that the norms appear on paper at least to be a real step toward greater transparency in the whole discernment process.
The last time the Vatican published norms for the discernment of supernatural phenomena, the man who would become Pope St. Paul VI was reigning in Rome. So, it’s been a minute as the kids say, but really only just a minute in ecclesiastical reckoning. There’s lots of water under the bridge since then, though, and much has changed in the world, especially in the ways we communicate and travel. So, the problems are bigger and some of them are different in kind.
We’ve known since 2011 that Paul VI’s norms required local bishops to consult with the Vatican whenever they investigated phenomena that could be of supernatural origin. Under the old norms, local bishops had to talk with Rome but were free to make their own determinations. Also, and more importantly, the locals had to keep mum about their consultations. Local bishops, in other words, couldn’t say what Rome said to them about the thing(s) the locals were examining.
Local bishops, in other words, bore all of the public responsibility for judgments that were theirs only in part (if they were really the locals’ judgments at all).
The process and the judgments and those actually making or directing them are now brought into the light of day, and that is to the good.