I've just started reading about the Bayside prophecies which are supposedly messages from Jesus and Mary given to Veronica Lueken from 1965 to 1968. What am I to make of this? They seem pretty scary, but also believable. What is the official position of the Church?  What do you have to say?

Yours, 

A Synner

Let me begin by quoting myself. “It is important to understand the difference between public and private revelation."

St. Peter says that "No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private interpretation." (2Peter 1:20)

The revealed doctrines of Catholicism contained in Scripture and Sacred Tradition, as explained by the Church’s teaching authority, are for everyone and can be depended on.  Private revelations, such as visions or prophetic words can be inspiring and edifying, but they are never to be taken as biblical, authoritative teaching. 

St. Paul says that, "We know in part, we prophesy in part."  (1Corinthians 13:9)  That means that every current, non-biblical prophesy is at least partially the prophet talking and not the Holy Spirit.

I am really big on Fatima. It was an amazing event that changed world history. However, Lucia, the visionary, stood up as the sun seemed to fall and everyone there was witnessing an astounding miracle. She shouted, “It’s the end of the world!” She was wrong. Shall we throw out Fatima? Of course not. But, even so, as earth-shaking an event as the miracle at Fatima was partly from the Holy Spirit, and partly from the visionaries.  St. Paul says that every prophetic word must be discerned and controlled (1Corinthians: 29-33).

So, the Bayside prophecies come under the rubric of private revelation. 

Now the trick in any private prophecy or revelation is to figure out what, if anything, comes from God and what comes from the imagination, opinion or even prejudice of the prophet.  When one is in the business of prophesying, one wants to get to the point of holiness in which it’s more from heaven than from the oneself. Even the holiest of non-biblical prophets are going to be say, 99% God and perhaps 1% self.

In my experience it is usually the other way around.  You may counter with, “Well, it rings true,” or “Something they said actually happened!” Let me point out that even the clock that is stopped is correct twice a day! 

The Didache, written possibly as early as 70 AD, or as late as 100 AD, is a handy guide for discerning prophets. Chapter 11 says that a true prophet “...holds the Lord’s ways.” In other words, the true prophet is like Jesus.

It seems to me that Veronica Lueken and her friends don’t reflect Jesus who was “meek and humble of heart.” The local bishop condemned the revelations, and the church has never approved them.

From my brief perusal of the matter, it seems that there is nothing supernatural about them.  Our Lord says in the Gospel of John 14:29, "I have told you now, before it happens so that when it does happen you will trust." 

Perhaps the sense of Christian prophecy is not to predict the future, but to predict the present. The prophecies of Scripture and authentic private prophecies always seem to be veiled in obscure language until they are fulfilled, then when the thing predicted happens, the believer is able to say, “Oh, this is what the Lord meant. Everybody calm down! The Lord is still in charge.” 

Veronica Lueken’s revelations seem to get a little personal. She seems to have identified a bishop of Florence as someone of great and sinister importance as well as one of the Rockefellers, to which the general reaction was, “Who? What?” I can’t think of one clearly supernatural thing that would attest to more than hysteria at Bayside.

As you know, the Rev. Know-it-all is great fan of authentic pentecostal renewal, of which there is precious little going on at the moment. Once I was at a great Charismatic gathering where a fellow approached me with an odd question. He asked me if I believed in the second coming, to which question, being a convinced Roman Catholic, I said, “Yes. We mention it quite a lot at Mass.” 

He then asked me if I believe in the second coming of John the Baptist. I told him that I was a little fuzzier on that point. He then told me that he was, in fact, the second coming of John the Baptist and that God would reveal him as such by suddenly transforming him into a short, fat bald man. (I am not making this up.) I told him that I thought he was out of his mind, but that I had been wrong before, and that when he was four feet tall, fat and bald, he should come to see me again and I would be the first to congratulate him. I have not heard from him in these thirty years, but I am a patient man.

So, dear Synner, do not be alarmed. I have been listening to apocalyptic prophecies my whole life and I am still here. When these things come to pass, as Jesus said, "let us hold our heads up and rejoice (Luke 21:28), for our deliverance is at hand." Until then let us keep our noses to the grindstone and continue to honor God by lives of humble service. 

Sometimes there is less conspiracy and doom than we expect. Sometimes life is simpler than we imagine or than private prophets tell us.

"You have been told, O Man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8) a prophecy of scripture and not simply a private revelation.

Yours sincerely ,

Rev. Know-It-All