Apparitionism: Is Fatima Harmful or Binding?

There has been a recent debate about Fatima: is it necessary for salvation? Is it binding? Is any private revelation or apparition binding? Some say they are completely useless and could even be harmful, while others make a super-religion out of them, especially of Fatima. We have discussed extreme Fatimism before.

Our Faith teaches that necessary or mandatory revelation ended with the death of the last apostle and is contained in the Scriptures and Tradition. Hence, private revelations or apparitions are not necessary for salvation. They cannot bind under the pain of mortal sin. Whenever our Holy Mother, the Church, makes a dogmatic judgment on faith and morals, she binds, and so does the Holy Father. (In these dogmatic documents, the declaration is infallible, but the adjoining considerations are not necessarily so. One doesn’t even have to believe in the miracles cited in canonization decrees because there is no obligation to believe in any miracles after the public revelation has ended.) An example of the terminology popes use is:

By the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful. Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should are to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.

Pius XII: Ineffabilis Deus

Whenever there’s a judgment on a private apparition, it is no new doctrine (since the Revelation has ended with the death of the last apostle). Whatever she says, it (the apparition, id est) “is worthy of credence”, “it is permitted to preach”, etc.

An example for this is:

It is permitted to the Carmelite Fathers to preach that the Christian people may believe that the Blessed Virgin will help by her continued assistance and her merits, particularly on Saturdays, the souls of the members of the Scapular Confraternity who have died in the grace of God, if in life they had worn the scapular, observed chastity according to their state of life, and recited the Office of the Blessed Virgin or observed the fasts of the Church, practicing abstinence on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Paul V, 1613

One can see that the latter approval is not of the same kind as the former. Such approval means that the apparitions or devotions in question are not harmful to the faith. Hence, it is possible to have a balanced devotion to some of these approved apparitions. Although they can’t bind, they might help, and we need all the help we can get. In conclusion, Fatima is neither harmful nor binding but can be helpful.

To those who are still saying that private apparitions are of no value, I would respond that two approved apparitions are commemorated in the Missal and the Breviary, namely Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Rosary and the Brown Scapular bear indulgences, and they both owe their inception to private apparitions. If one still doesn’t want to believe in the apparitions, he must accept the indulgences. Some other approved apparitions are La Salette and Rue the Bac. The Miraculous Medal (Rue de Bac) also bears indulgences.

Some apparitions are condemned. Some are not approved, but suspect, like Garabandal. Others are affirming heresy, like Bayside and Akita.