public private revelation formerly re question about virgin mary mark ashley s account of private revelation does not as some might think contradict my posting in which i said that the catholic church believes that public revelation on which catholic doctrine is based ended with the death of st john the last apostle in that posting i made sure i used the word public public revelation contains god s truth intended for everyone to believe the revelation contained in the bible is a significant subset of public revelation private revelation is revelation that god gives to an individual he may speak directly to the individual he may send an angel or he may send the virgin mary or some lesser saint the only person who is required to believe a private revelation is the person to whom it is revealed devotional practices may be based on reported private revelations but doctrines can not when an alleged private revelation attracts sufficient attention the church may investigate it if the investigation indicates a likelihood that the alleged private revelation is in fact from god it will be approved that means that it can be preached in the church however it is still true that no one is required to believe that it came from god a catholic is free to deny the authenticity of even the most well attested and strongly approved private revelations such as those at fatima and lourdes i suspect that few if any catholics do reject fatima and lourdes but if any do their rejection of them does not mean they are not orthodox catholics in good standing i do not have at hand a list of the criteria the church uses in evaluating an alleged private revelation it s not something i need every day but i know that one of the primary requirements is that nothing in the alleged private revelation can contradict anything known through public revelation marty helgesen bitnet mnhcc cunyvm internet mnhcc cunyvm cuny edu what if there were no such thing as a hypothetical situation
