Are the Blessed Virgin Mary's miracles not real?

Answer 1

Beyond any shadow of a doubt, the miracles, say at Lourdes, and Fatima are very real. At Lourdes, for instance, there is a Medical Bureau of Inquiry which is very, very strict. Many cures, which may very well be miraculous are NOT registered as miracles if there is some possible explanation including autosuggestion. However, other miracles, for instance, a broken leg being healed instantaneously, including a inch of bone being supplied to make it the same length as the other leg is an entirely different matter. One must, of course, attribute all of these miracles to God *thorough the intercession* of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But there have been so many documented miracles attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary over the centuries, backed up by the sworn testimonies of nonbelievers as to render unbelief inexplicable.

For a list of approved miracles at Lourdes click here.

For a list of approved miracles at Fatima click here.

For a list of all approved Marian miracles click here.

Answer 2

No - these miracles are not real. Just as the statues of pagan gods in ancient Rome were sometimes said to bleed or to cry real tears, so today statues of Mary are sometimes said to bleed or to cry real tears. In neither case is it explained why the supposed miracles would help humanity, but in both cases, the supposed miracles help the faithful to believe.

Apparitions are the most common form of miracle attested within the Catholic Church, and there have been more than twenty thousand reported visions of the Virgin Mary. At this stage, the Holy See has officially confirmed the apparitions at Guadalupe, Saint-Etienne-le-Laus, Paris (Rue du Bac), La Salette, Lourdes, Fatima, Pontmain, Beauraing and Banneux, but a few other visions have local episcopal approval. Usually, the Virgin Mary appears unexpectedly to just one or two young children, poor peasants or members of religious orders. The typical pattern is for children to report strange sightings and the adults to tell them what they had seen. As word of the vision spreads, the identity of the apparition becomes established as fact. The children themselves also retrospectively ‘realise’ the true identity of the figure in their visions.

From 1862 onwards, the Church gave everyone permission to believe in the apparitions at Lourdes. Lourdes now receives over 80,000 pilgrims a year, of whom approximately 7000 people in more than a century have sought to have cures confirmed as miracles. Only 68 of these have been declared as scientifically inexplicable by both the Lourdes Medical Bureau and the Catholic Church and only four cures have been certified since 1978. John Dominic Crossan, after visiting the shrines at Lourdes and Fatima, and the pagan healing shrines of the god Asclepius at Epidaurus in Greece and at Pergamum in Turkey, was struck by the general similarity between the ailments involved. It seems that in both cases there were pilgrims who believed they were cured of various ailments, although not such dramatic cures as the restoration of missing limbs or of the old being made young again.

Prayers of intercession are frequently addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, often to help the sick and dying, but a scientifically controlled study undertaken by the Templeton Institute has shown that those for whom prayers were offered did not survive surgery any more than did those who did not receive prayers. Miracles do not happen.

Answer 3

No. They are VERY real.