Tamed Mobilization. Marian Messages, Pilgrim Masses and Papal Moderateness in Fatima since Paul VI

Marian apparitions attract modern masses since the 19th century. The radical message of the apparition asking for penitence and the return of public and politics to God resonated well within major parts of Catholicism. While popes kept promoting Marian pilgrimages in order to secure their public and political standing throughout the 20th and 21st century, they tried to control the masses and to attenuate the messages. Particularly since the Second Vatican Council, the popes tamed mobilization. Instead of stirring up the masses, popes kept modest at Marian apparitions sites. A quantitative analysis of the papal documents issued during papal journeys to Fatima, the most political apparition of the 20th century, shows that a modest religious discourse about God and world had been presented instead of promoting the critical messages of the apparition. Following the methodological ideal of parsimony, the analysis concentrates on the most uttered words during the journeys and compares the four pontificates since Paul VI. Instead of stressing the radical message of Fatima, which is introduced in the discussion of the findings, the pontificates share a modest Catholic discourse.

Cross Mountain and Apparition Hill

This article examines and interprets the phenomenon of Medjugorje as a new religious phenomenon. The name of this Bosnian-Herzegovinian village not only refers to a long series of Marian apparitions, but it is also used as a metaphor for the religious and political developments that occur in relation to those visions. The argument is that in the context of interaction with nationalist agendas and church politics, Medjugorje must be seen as a contested apparitional site that has reinvented itself into a highly successful grassroots religious movement. Medjugorje devotees and the faithful, inspired by tradition, are creating an idiosyncratic devotional expression of Catholicism, in which the individual endures the hardships of pilgrimage for a personalized experience of charismatic gifts and the miraculous. The article contends that this distinguishes this devotional movement from mainstream Catholic pilgrimage culture.

The making of a visionary culture: connected histories among Marian apparitions in Portuguese-Brazilian world (1917-1936)

This paper will analyze the shaping of supposed Marian apparitions in Pesqueira, a Brazilian city located in Pernambuco, as part of a series of events related to the devotions to Our Lady representations in modern and contemporary periods. Based on the propositions of Cultural History, regional newspapers, ecclesiastical documents, and personal letters were used in order to understand the relation of these events to political, economic, and social issues of the first half of the 20th century. The analysis will suggest that the events in Pesqueira were connected to other religious representations, such as the apparitions in Lourdes (France) and Fatima (Portugal), reinforcing the image of the 20th century as the “golden century” of apparitions to members and followers of the Catholic Church. Therefore, this work highlights the central performance of ecclesiastics, scholars, and devotees in the shaping of new devotions and cults in a specific space in Latin America.

The Marian Apparition of Seuca/Szőkefalva in the Context of Religious and Ethnical Interferences

Seuca became a known place for pilgrimage due to a blind Gypsy woman's public visions about the Virgin Mary in the first years of the new millennium. The author presents both the history of the ethnical and confessional co-existence in the village and the economic and social problems which affected the whole community. Then, the attitudes towards the apparition of the different denominations are highlighted by also presenting the way the seer attempts to question the different denominational opinions. The legitimating strategies of a Gypsy woman significantly influenced the aspects of the vision of the Virgin Mary from Seuca. In the history of Seuca, we find the practice of ethnic groups making well-defined boundaries between them, functioning as important parts of the communities. The artificial change of the ethnic structure during the Communist dictatorship changed the patterns of relations between the ethnic groups and made ethnic coexistence more problematic. The local parish that tried to expropriate the Marian apparitions has successfully integrated their messages into the ideology of ethnic reconciliation. The traditional onto- logical systems of religion in the communities still work and the frequent crossing of the ethnic and denominational boundaries have also promoted the strategies of the Church. In addition, the apparitions in Seuca earned the village a distinguished reputation in the region where enormous changes have taken place and where people have been forced to develop more complex strategies, or ways of life, without any pre-existing concrete models.

Traces of the Mary in Post-Communist Europe

The Virgin Mary as such cannot be examined scientifically. We can, however, examine her ‘apparitions’ in the world, as well as the innumerable variants of Marian devotion and cult. This volume focuses on her manifestations in the post-Communist region with some geographical spillovers. It is either because post-Communist transformation concerned not only the former socialist countries, but also had an impact on the entire European region and was part of the overall post-modern and post-Communist reconfiguration of the European area. Another factor is that Marian worship is not controlled by political borders of present-day nation states. It has a wider transnational potential and impact. Nevertheless, we focused our viewfinder primarily on the post-Communist region, as we believe that thanks to its geographical and symbolic location and economic position in Europe, as well as its historical roots and traditions and common Communist history and heritage, it not only shows different traits of modernity compared to ‘Western Europe’, but we also face specific features and forms of worshipping of the Virgin Mary. We therefore decided to present in this volume the traces of the Virgin Mary by means of more in-depth analyses from selected countries of the post-socialist region. By means of this publication, we can observe how the Virgin Mary is manifested in the faces of seers and pilgrims and how audio-visual means are becoming a direct part of Marian apparitions in Germany in the modern era (H. Knoblauch and S. Petschke); how she speaks through the mouth of a blind Roma woman and pacifies the ethnic and religious tensions between various groups in Romania (L. Peti); how she attributes meaning to meaningless places on the map by reallocating her presence through the geo- graphical and time distribution of Marian dedications in Slovakia (J. Majo); how, after the fall of Communism, she revitalises the old places of her cult with new power, bringing together traditional and non-traditional forms of worship in the secular Czech Lands (M. Holubová); how her messages are spread on the websites of new non-traditional Marian movements and how their apocalyptical warnings are being updated and localised into the specific national environment in Czechia (V. Tutr); how she addresses the readers of Marian literature differently on the shelves of book- stores in Slovakia and Austria (R. Kečka); but also how the Virgin Mary absorbs ultra-modern millennial and spiritualistic concepts of Mother Earth and Mother of the Universe, becoming the speak- er of the great unified Hungarian nation (J. Kis-Halas); how she is becoming the re-discovered herald of Serbian national identity (A. Pavićević); how she absorbs the local forms of faith and folk Christianity in modern era and is thus the manifestation of grass- root Christianity and local religious culture in Bulgaria (V. Baeva and A. Georgieva); and how the path from a private to an officially recognised apparition depends not only on the Virgin Mary and the seer, but also on the overall constellation of the audience and the ability to offer a religious ready-made event (T. Zachar Podolinská and L. Peti). This publication observes the current diversity of the forms of Marian devotion in post-Communist countries through different national and geographically defined contours and, in particular, the ability of the Virgin Mary to satisfy the hunger for modern spirituality and authentic religiousness, give voice to unofficial and popular religions, revitalise and redefine old places of cult and add new ones, appease war conflicts, speak out on behalf of nations and marginalised ethnic groups, and guard national and conservative values. The post-modern and post-Communist Mary thus restores ruptured traditions with love and enchants the violently atheised European region with new miracles and apparitions, regardless of whether top Church and state representatives like it or not.

Vision and Video. Marian Apparition, Spirituality and Popular Religion

The chapter demonstrates that spirituality and popular religiosity are built into the Marian apparitions, thus turning them into a contemporary ‘modern’ phenomenon. The study refers to a series of apparitions which happened during 1999 in Marpingen, a German village close to the Western border with France. This village was the setting for a series of Marian apparitions back in the 19th century. These earlier apparitions have recently been subjected to a very thorough study by British historian David Blackbourn (1993). Whereas Blackbourn based his analysis on written documents mostly stored in archives, the authors had not only access to written documents, newspapers and books, but also the exceptional chance to collect video-tape records from the event, and they could also rely on audio-taped statements by the seers. These data, supported by ethnographic field data, are subject to a fine-grained video-analysis provided in the chapter. In Marpingen, it was Marion who began to have visions on May 17 and 20 near the chapel (built by the above-mentioned association) where the earlier apparitions had happened. Thereafter, the three women together had various apparitions near the chapel, mostly in the company of an increasing number of pilgrims. The sixth apparitions on June 13, 1999, was already witnessed by about 4,000 visitors, and on the ninth day of the apparitions, on July 18, 12,000 visitors turned up. The final apparitions were said to be at- tended by 30,000. As a hundred years before, the incident not only attracted masses, there was also some turmoil accompanying the apparitions: television stations turned up and reported critical- ly on the event, the Church prohibited any proclamation by the seers, the seers were threatened and, finally, the village administration and the chapel association got into a conflict. The authors pointed out that when talking about the apparition, we must be aware of the fact that this notion refers not only to a subjective experience by the seers. In order to become an apparition, it needs to be communicated. The communication of the apparition does not only draw on the verbalisation by which the apparition is being reported, i.e. reconstructed. In addition, the apparition is also being performed by the body of the seers who form part of the setting which includes the visitors in relation to the seers and the spatial constellations of other objects. Thus, the authors interpret apparition as a communicative performance of religious action. However, the verbalisation of the cited vision is not, as in other cases, reconstructed after the vision. On the contrary, the seer (Marion) talks into a dictograph which is held by another visionary – Judith – while having the vision. In this way, the apparition is turned into a live report. It may be no accident that this kind of live report is not directly addressed to the live audience. Rather, it is recorded so to be accessible to a larger media audience via audio tapes, transcripts of the visions and a number of books based on these reports. According to Auslander (1999: 39ff.), it is the ‘techno- logical and aesthetic contamination of live performance’. The authors noted that the media are not only added to the event but are imparted in the event to such a degree that they transform it into something different. Thus, the use of the dictograph results in a format of the ‘live report’ on the inner visions. The microphone allows coordinating the actions of the seers with those of the crowd – a phenomenon that was virtually impossible at earlier apparitions. According to the authors, the Marian movement is not only a static remnant of earlier periods but also a form of modern expression against rationality and secularism. The Marian apparition in question, according to the authors, is an example for the modernity of this form of religion by exhibiting the essential features of popular religion. It is not that religion has changed its contents: it is still the realm of the transcendent as the subject matter of religion. However, this subject matter is not an element of cognitive or moral belief; it is something to be experienced subjectively, the reasserting subject being the major instance and locus of religiosity. This way, the analysis of Marian apparitions is a case for the thesis of the modernity of religion and a case that demonstrates what is modern about religion.

The Reception of Recent Marian Apparitions in the Czech Republic in the Field of Popular Religiosity – Two Examples

Marian apparitions have always emerged throughout the history of the Catholic Church. However, they have never been given a lot of attention and have never met with so much public acceptance as has been seen since the latter half of the 19th century. The development of mass communication and increasing population mobility have partly contributed to this phenomenon. These apparitions have a new function – providing public messages. The Virgin Mary is no longer speaking only to the visionary; she is pronouncing prophecies and messages to all believers, laying claims to the hierarchy. This chapter offers a comparative analysis of two examples of ‘popular religiosity’ in the Czech Republic as a spontaneous religious activity produced and operated by their charismatic leaders and opinion-makers: Vérité centre founded by František Mráček and Mariánské nakladatelství [MANA, Marian publishers] founded by František Press in Brno. Both cases are based on modern Marian apparitions and are contextualised in the current global situation and in the Czech Republic. According to the author, this goes hand in hand with the trend of modernisation and the era of mass communication. Marian devotion plays a central role in both studied cases and is crucial for understanding the portraying her as the Loving Moth- er and Hope of the Mankind, as well as the Guardian of the World com- ing as the (last) Living Warning before the expected global catastrophe. The apocalyptic, chiliastic and millennial tone presented by both interpreters of modern Marian apparitions is being explored as well. The main issue in both cases is the expectation of the end of the current world order. This element was certainly activated by the approaching end of the millennium. Even though this stimulation of thoughts on the end of the world is now out of play, the charismatic leaders flexibly postponed their prediction in this regard and, according to them, we should expect some global threat in the future, the outbreak of WW III, nuclear or ecological catastrophes, globalisation or total control by means of information technologies. Another nodal point is the reference to globalisation as an instrument of Satan's rule over the unified world. According to the author, both studied cases are examples of modern adaptation of Christianity to the post-modern religious landscape of post-socialist Czech Republic and represent a form of popular religiosity which is transformed and adapted to the context of modern society and ‘Western culture’.

The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Virgin Birth

This chapter surveys the place of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the Christian tradition. It examines her place in the New Testament, with particular focus on her role in the infancy narrative found in the Gospel of Luke. It also considers Mary’s place in the early Church, from the first Christian community through the Christological councils of the fourth and fifth centuries The chapter includes a brief history of Marian devotions such as the Rosary from the Reformation period to modern day, including debate over the Immaculate Conception and the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the history of Marian apparitions at Lourdes, Guadaloupe, Mexico, and Guadaloupe, Spain.