re public private revelation formerly re question about virgin mary marty helgesen writes 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 it may be a bit much to say that a catholic is free to deny what happened at fatima that s a bit strong it is sort of like saying that a catholic is free to deny that hong kong exists what a catholic is free to do is to deny the truth of fatima without being called a heretic you can be labeled other things for such an offense but not a heretic theologians make a basic distinction as far as the degree of assent one must give to events like fatima and lourdes things revealed by god through jesus christ or his apostles must be given the assent due to a revelation of god total and unswerving fatima and lourdes demand our assent as much as any other well attested event in human history perhaps a bit more given the approval of the church approval of an apparition by the church principally means that whatever happened was in harmony with the catholic faith i personally think of private revelations as our lord s way of telling us what to do at particular periods in history he gave us all the doctrines etc years ago but we can always use some help in knowing how exactly to apply what he gave us catholic devotion to the sacred heart was a result of a series of apparitions to st margaret mary alacoque for example the problem at the time was extreme moral rigorism that was turning our lord into someone without a heart the fatima apparitions were a warning of an impending crisis in the church we are living it and what to do to save the most souls possible in such a situation
