Carver Alan Ames - Modern Mystic

We have quite an amazing individual in our midst.

In 1993, Carver Alan Ames (known commonly as Alan Ames) had a conversion experience that would rival that of some of our greatest saints. The Vatican has not made a pronouncement on his authenticity. However, his bishop, Archbishop B.J.Hickey, has given him permission to speak and to pray for healing. The Archbishop also appointed a spiritual director to investigate and watch over what was happening and to guide him in his work for God. Today, Alan enjoys the continued support of Archbishop Hickey who encourages him in his work.

In 2007, Alan was interviewed in great depth by famed mariologist René Laurentin. Click here for that interview.

Laurentin describes Alan's startling conversion:

Alan Ames, 54 years old, violent during his youth. He gets married very young to Kathryn at the age of 20 and have 2 children. He quietens down his life. He migrates to Australia where he becomes a talented sales manager. There he becomes more and more addicted to alcohol and drugs. This restarts his violence.
At the age of 40 an angel warns him: "Change your life, pray".
During the first months of his conversion he is physically and morally attacked by the evil one. At the beginning he asks himself if he is going mad but St. Theresa of Avila confirms to him what is happening and says: You are going to hell unless you change! He changes his life, his wife converts to Catholicism.
He receives messages from ... the Trinity, Our Blessed Mother and the saints. He published 16 books. He is supported by his archbishop from Perth. He travels all around the world where his conferences gather big audiences. He has the charism of conversion and healing. He lives painfully the Passion of our Lord, more often without visible stigmata but blood is shed rarely.

During the interview, startling details of his many and regular encounters with up to 100 saints came to light.

Here are some excerpts from that interview, any emphases mine:

Laurentin. You live in great union with God, but there are moments or lights where you feel the presence, have you also moments of night where you feel nothing?
Ames. No.
Laurentin. You are always in the transparence?!
Ames. From the first time I received the Eucharist never have I not experienced the presence of God. Never, every day since 1993/94, every day, all day.
Laurentin. Because this happens frequently, the night can be very profound. Don’t you suffer from ordeals and temptations of evil. In these moments what do you feel, don’t you feel that God is far away when you are attacked by the evil one?
Ames. When these attacks occur, I see them as a blessing because when they happen I turn to God, I ask for his help and give myself totally to Him and trust completely in Him. The evil one is stupid because every time he attacks me it turns more to God. There have been several times when I thought I would die. Once I was in Rome, I was in convent near St. Peter's. I thought I would be safe there, I was asleep and I was woken up in the middle of the night being strangled. I thought I was going to die, my back was arching, I could feel the veins in my neck were about to burst, I thought I would take my last breath: I am going to die, so I said: - Jesus if this is Your will, I accept it and I give You my soul. From the moment I said that, the attack stopped. And it’s always the same. So it’s why I say that the attacks turn me more to God even though at the beginning sometimes I am terrified because some of them are horrible, always it turns me to God and it’s a great blessing.

I will write more about Alan Ames and his many profound messages in upcoming posts.

Catholic-Bashing Media is a Painful Cause for Joy

Chins up Catholics! Far from being disillusioned at all the recent negative media attention, we should be thanking and praising God at the top of our lungs!

Why?!

It's easy to forget, isn't it, that times of trial are indications of God's presence and love.

Hebrews 12:4-11

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

A recent article by Bill Underwood in The Examiner brought just these sentiments to my mind. The writer attempted to paint such a dastardly picture of the state of the Catholic Church that the only remaining question to be answered is why one would ever wish to remain in the Catholic Church.

The writer didn't even realise that he had pretty much answered his own question. The fact that the Church has been around for 2,000 years is the first indication of God's true presence. The second indication is the attempted infiltration and destruction of the Church by the evil one over those 2,000 years, attempts which have not stopped even today. The third indication is the fact that the Church is constantly being held publically accountable for its indiscretions. This public accountablity has inevitably led to correction and purification.

Dirty laundry aired - dirty laundry cleaned. This is God's work! We should celebrate!

And we already have history as our guide. Luther took the way prescribed by Bill Underwood. And what has the world learned about rebellion and running away as a way of life? It might work in other cases, but it doesn't work where Christ's church is concerned. For Christ's most fervent prayer is recorded in the Bible "That they may be one". But, instead of the unity Heaven desires, the "reformation" has taken shape over the last several centuries in 33,000+ denominations, none completely agreeing with one another - a juggernaut of chaos, confusion and disunity. And the more the disagreements, the greater this number becomes as each new self-styled leader cries "I protest!"

No, we will never abandon our beloved Church. God's will is being done here. Encouraged by this time of cleansing, graciously coinciding with this Easter season, stiffens our resolve to endure the pain and look forward to the next period of grace within the Church, according to God's great and Holy Will.

Leading Catholic Apologists Jump on the Anti-Medjugorje Bandwagon

It is rather trying time for the Catholic Church. At a time when Catholics need to be most united, crevasses keep appearing on the landscape, some widening to dangerous degrees. Medjugorje is one such case of a sore that just won't heal, mainly due to the co-ordinated and concerted efforts of those that seek to destroy it. It can be put no other way - destruction of Medjugorje is what they seek.

Recent news of the commencement of the work of the new Medjugorje commission and Benedict's positive statements about Medjugorje have done less than we hoped to silence the clamour coming from those who have made smearing the Medjugorje apparitions their mission. We are in the Easter season and I find the opposition to Medjugorje ironically reminiscent of the Good Friday baying of the Jews for Christ's blood while Pontius Pilate called for reason.

A secular carmelite from Detroit, Diane M. Korzeniewski, not herself an apologist of any note, started the ball rolling after the much publicised statements of Archbishop Allessandro D’Errico were released by the official Medjugorje website medjugorje.hr. This news surely brought peace to many who had been confused by all the conflicting reports, but Diane was up for a little creative challenge. To this point, Diane could be found anywhere Medjugorje was being discussed, leaving comments which seemed to deliberately foresake truth for something embarrasingly far less.

I have personally exposed many of her untruths and unique angles on such things as the letter from Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of the CDF which told confused, bullied pilgrims that indeed they could travel to Medjugorje and that they need not consider the "opinions" of the local bishop to be Vatican-held. Somehow, from this stance, she managed to scrape a defence of the local bishop, rather than acknowledge anything against him - not that having anything against the Bishop was the key point here, rather that his condemnations did not need to be heeded.

Another unique angle she adopted was to portray the passing of the Medjugorje dossier from the hands of the local bishop to the Yugoslav Bishops' Conference as a necessity forced by the global nature of the apparitions, using a cherry-picked quote to support this, all the while ignoring the voluminous evidence that contradicts her stance, including damning interview comments by member of the Yugoslav Bishops Conference - Frane Franic, who said, among other things:

"The bishops do not wish to humiliate Monsignor, Zanic," Franic stated, "And
when it was brought to his attention.. that his opposition was unfounded, he
began to cry and shout, and the bishops finally stopped arguing."

More information on this matter can be found here.

She doesn't like it when positive things are said about Medjugorje. So, she puts a little spin to suit her purposes.

So, what was her purpose in attempting to create the illusion that we had all misunderstood the comments of Archbishop Allessandro D’Errico? I think it was to deflect attention from herself as a principle source of much of the "opposing information" Benedict was speaking of, thus allowing her to continue on her anti-Medjugorje crusade.

To this end, the totality of her efforts were to tell the world that D’Errico's statement, which was translated by medjugorje.hr as follows:

He is aware of huge amount of positive and good influence of local priests,
religious, Franciscans, lay people, and therefore, it is very difficult for him
to perceive that there can be so many opposing information about the same
matter.

should actually be read as:

He knows about great deeds which are done in this territory by the priests,
religious, franciscans, lay people. [pause]

[new sentence] On the other side he asks himself how come
there are such opposed information about that phenomenon.

What's the point of this? To show that the second statement doesn't follow the first via the connector "therefore". Huh? Even if you divide the two sentences and omit the "therefore", it still says exactly the same thing. The second statement can still be readily understood as following inexorably from the first. The word "therefore" is not even needed, because the phrase "one the other hand" or "on the other side" does a pretty good job connecting the two statements.

Diane simply didn't like hearing that she's one of those Benedict was speaking of, causing all the surprising opposition. But, her solution was to vainly attempt to change what Benedict actually said, rather than change what she was doing.

Yes folks, there are actually Catholics in our midst as reprehensible as this.

Worse, she appears to have enlisted the support of major Catholic apologist, Patrick Madrid. We all know what type of an influence he has in the global Catholic community. But, we absolutely do not need him to get involved, particularly as, from what I've seen and read from him, he has a very limited knowledge of Medjugorje. He appears to have been handed very select pieces of information, mainly from the website of the Bishop of Mostar which as everybody knows cannot possibly be objective, unbiassed information. Yet, on the basis of this, and what looks like little much else, he has unwisely decided to associate himself with Diane and others like her.

Another well-known Catholic apologist, Robert Sungenis, has also been promoting the anti-Medjugorje cause and writings of E Michael Jones, who wrote a book called "Ghosts of Surmanci" in which he attributes the Medjugorje apparitions to a ghostly personification of the collective guilty conscience of a nation involve in muslim genocide. Conspiracy theory gone haywire in the United States.

Benedict has already expressed his surprise at the opposition of people like Diane M. Korzeniewski. I think patience and prayer is needed all the more as the evil one crouches at our door, invoking us to impatience and unwise judgement and plain old human stupidity. I never thought I'd put Patrick or Robert in that category. Nevertheless, may God's will be done in all things. May nothing happen in regard to Medjugorje that is not in accordance with His perfect and holy will. Amen!

Medjugorje - Pope Benedict Sympathetic

Finally, after all the he-said-she-said, we have something that appears to accurately reflect the current pope's thoughts and feelings on Medjugorje, leading up to this new investigation.

Medjugorje News has just run an article which states the following:

Archbishop Allessandro D’Errico, Apostolic Nuncio to Bosnia and Herzegovina, gave statement about Medjugorje on March 18th at the end of 48th Bishop’s Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the statement broadcasted by Radio Mir Medjugorje, he amongst other things said: “Whenever I would meet Holy Father, he was always very much interested in Medjugorje. He was involved in everything, starting with the time when he was Head of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is aware that this is the issue of special importance, and he, as supreme authority of the Church, needs to give his precise statement about that matter. Holy Father is very much familiar with Medjugorje phenomenon; he even mentioned that to me personally. He is aware of huge amount of positive and good influence of local priests, religious, Franciscans, lay people, and therefore, it is very difficult for him to perceive that there can be so many opposing information about the same matter. That is why he wanted to establish this Commission that is on really high level. He wanted to establish this Commission in order for him to have broad picture about this matter, but according to the people who have highest qualities and skills. That is why he invited Cardinals, Bishops and experts from different parts of the world to be part of this Commission.

Now, can we finally accept this, coming in an official statement from a high-ranking Vatican official, as truthful and valid? Let's see if this applies any kind of brake mechanism to the incessant forward shoving from Medjugorje detractors. Let's see if this silences the poison blogs of the likes of Richard Salbato, E Michael Jones, Robert Sungenis and the email pestilence from the likes of Mark Waterinckx.

The speech made the pertinent remark:

it is very difficult for him [Pope Benedict] to perceive that there can be so
many opposing information about the same matter

Well, if Pope Benedict had seen what I have from the gentlemen mentioned above, and many more of their cronies, he would not be so surprised. Each of these gentleman claims proudly to have a more or less direct link to Bishop Ratko Peric. This might explain a lot. We still don't know what Bishop Peric's problem with Medjugorje truly is, but I sincerely think it has very little to do with the visions themselves and is more likely something personal and culturally entrenched. I almost hope there is more to it than that because none of us wants to continue thinking poorly of an appointed bishop of Christ. I hope all his objections are thoroughly aired and dealt with. And if the new commission finds that any of his objections are founded, then all the better.

Medjugorje Haters

What a strange and irrational breed is the Medjugorje hater. What an unnecessary clamour and din they create. Everybody, even the hardest Medjugorje believer, even John-Paul II, knew that caution should be exercised in the matter of private revelation.

But for people like Mark Waterinckx, Richard Salbato, E Michael Jones and a number of others, it goes beyond this, for some utterly unknown reason.

A recent article from Mark Waterinckx reminded me of another interesting article of about the same time - one from Christopher Hitchens - which doth protest far too much and far too irrationally for people to take seriously. Comments that just haven't been thought through properly. Pure I've-got-nothing-else-to-do bluster. These people are in some type of fantasy world all of their own fighting a cause of their own and all for their own benefit and justification. It really has nothing to do with the Church because the Church already has quite a good working system for dealing with these issues.

We should really see what is behind all this bluster and whether any of it should be taken the slightest notice of, as if we didn't already know the answer to that.

Mark doesn't believe what Christ told us about how we should discern if something is from God - i.e. by its fruits. By fruits, we are certainly talking about the "important" fruits, for we all know that where there are good crops, weeds will also spring up. Mark wants to create confusion (who else likes doing that? Satan, I believe) by calling the weeds the so-called "fruit".

And Mark has little faith in Almighty God, Who reaps where He does not sow and can make anything good from anything evil, such that, even if Medjugorje were the most evil incarnation yet witnessed on earth, God is certainly watching out for the Church isn't He by the look of the unmistakable fruits the church sorely needs at this time.

Indeed, nothing can happen without God's ultimate consent. If Mark's destructive intent weren't so obvious, one might almost forgive him for simply "panicking" out of a lack of faith in God. But, God told us to "Be still and know that I am God", not run around like a chicken with its head cut off, brandishing a machine gun which rattles off the same tired and unjust accusations of profiteering and con-artistry. Here's an example:

..the disobedience of the seers and of the Franciscans of Medjugorje, the rebellion against the bishops and the Pope, the fanaticism, the manipulations, lies, contradictions, the profiteering, the luxurious homes of the “seers”, the sex scandals of the Franciscans, the suspended Franciscan rebels involved in Medjugorje and their illegal sacraments.

Even the hardest Medjugorje believer, even John-Paul II himself, wouldn't try to deny there have been controversies surrounding personalities, but unfortunately, again, the magnifying glass has been focused on the wrong thing. In a freer, more transparent situation, we would probably be spared this lop-sided misreporting because the world would more clearly see the full picture which unfortunately involves the Bishops of Mostar themselves, in damaging light, having a direct bearing on civility and co-operation between clerics of different orders in this region (see the History of the Herzegovinian Affair).

Mark hesitates not the slightest in making accusations such as this:

The commercial believers earn a great deal of money from their "goldmine", e.g. the Franciscans of Medjugorje, the “seers”, the organizers of the pilgrimages, the sellers of videos, DVDs, books etc.

But, if you asked him to back up these claims that all the franciscans and seers are getting rich from these apparitions, you wouldn't get one single document, one single bank transaction, one single news report or expozee after nearly 30 years. The silence is deafening for people like Mark. Reality is not backing him up. Yet, he keeps repeating the same accusations. These people open their mouths and hatred and false witness spews out.

Mark continues:

Among the not for profit believers are those who naively accept everything and who only read books, periodicals and websites which are pro Medjugorje and who thus can be considered to be misled by their ignorance.

Far from being "misled by their ignorance", the more calm, faithful, thinking individual simply does not want to be misled by conspiracy theory, nor to be led into sin. Mark has broken the 8th commandment on numerous occasions with his false witness borne against innocent people. He must be feeling a little lonely in this sin because he would like the rest of us to join him. No thanks, Mark.

We just need to count the number of times any conspiracy has been proven completely wrong, and look at the types of people involved in perpetuating these theories, to know categorically that the wisest course of action is just to get the facts and wait for the Vatican and, if so desired, take a private pilgrimage and let the Lord speak in the stillness of your own heart.

Here's Mark calling the kettle black:

With both groups there are many believers who display a marked degree of fanaticism and obsessiveness. Medjugorje has become their all encompassing dogma which overrides everything else. This fanaticism overrode all common sense, critical evaluation, intellectual honesty, prudence and friendship. This attitude can only be explained by the influence of the “diabolos”, the evil spirit, the malign entity which everywhere sows enmity and disunity.

People have reacted to Medjugorje much as God would hope they would if past apparitions are anything to go by, such as Lourdes, Guadaloupe and Fatima. Such was the "fanaticism" at Guadalupe that the entire country of Mexico converted to Catholicism. 70,000 people marvelled with pure emotion at the miracle of the sun at Fatima. God's power and might doesn't leave much room for anything else but pure emotion. The same thing happens wherever God permits an apparition to occur. The whole idea is to elicit a strong reaction from the people. Yet, Mark has somehow managed to contort this natural and God-willed situation into a negative.

No, the only fanaticism we are witnessing here is modern and media-driven. It came along with the cult of conspiracy theory, who-dunnits, PI and reality TV shows. People are making money right now making movies and writing books and blogs talking about conspiracy at Medjugorje. It's what sells these days. But, wiser heads just aren't buying. We've had enough. We're waiting for the Vatican and we will obey the Vatican.

Mark talks about "intellectual honesty, prudence and friendship" as if he somehow possesses these things, unlike Medjugorje believers. There is no intellectual (or moral) honesty in accusing someone of being a fraudster without an iota of proof. There is no prudence in this. There is no friendship in this. Mark is blissfully unaware that he is one of Satan's starring pawns in the sowing of this enmity and disunity he accuses people who love Medjugorje of.

I will address Mark's further comments in a separate post.

Papal Nuncio - Archbishop Stephan Zurbriggen - in Medjugorje

The following was blogged on "Our Blessed Mother's Children" on 30/10/2009:

The Vatican’s Apostolic Nuncio of Austria was in Medjugorje this week for four days with a large group of Austrian pilgrims estimated at more than 1,000.Last Sunday, Archbishop Stephan Zurbriggen told the congregation at the English-speaking Mass that his benediction carried with it a special papal indulgence (with the usual conditions attached) for all those able to attend the Masses at which he was the Celebrant while he was in Medjugorje.peace and blessings.

This is certainly a bright spot for followers of Medjugorje at a time when conspiracy theorists and anti-Medjugorje campaigners have been having a field day over such recent events as the laicisation of Fr. Tomislav Vlasic and a recent speech by Bishop Ratko Peric.

We sincerely hope that this is a strong indicator of the stance the Vatican will take when we finally receive the long-awaited official Vatican proclamation on Medjugorje, which is expected before the end of 2009, after some 3 years of a new investigation have been carried out since its announcement by Cardinal Vinko Puljic in 2007. [Note: The most we can reasonably hope for at this stage is that Medjugorje be granted International Shrine status until the visions have ceased and the promised sign materialises. But, that should keep most Medjugorje followers happy, given that the longer the apparitions go on, the better for the world. Certainly, nobody should be hoping for a fast conclusion to the visions as that would likely mean that Our Lady had not been able to hold back the just hand of God any longer and that the secrets are about to unfold.]

Because of the extremely clandestine nature of this investigation, at least one conspiracy theorist - Richard Salbato of Unity Publishing - who claimed to have intimate Vatican connections, was led to believe that the investigation was not going to happen.

To date, reports from the Vatican and over the grapevine have always been just vague enough to allow both sides of the fence to defend their respective positions. The often bitter split in the Catholic Church over Medjugorje has never healed. It's still too early to count our chickens, but it's difficult to see how this news could not change that situation. Coming just weeks before an expected conclusion, it is almost impossible to see this as anything other than a rather loud pre-emptive statement as to what we can expect in terms of the official Vatican declaration at the end of this year.

Cardinal Schönborn Speaks on Medjugorje

Vienna's Cardinal Schönborn hosted Marija Pavlovic at a large Medjugorje Prayer for Peace at St. Stephen's, where he made some comments in favour of Medjugorje. The comments might be surprising to people who were not familiar with his history of affection for Medjugorje. Among many other tacit endorsements, in 2003, he said the following:

"On Medjugorje I don't want to express myself from the standpoint of an ecclesiastical judgment. But I only can ascertain one thing again and again, that this is a place where there is obviously an intense mission-station of heaven where thousands upon thousands of human beings find prayer, confession, conversion, reconciliation, healing and deeper faith."
(The complete German text of the Cardinal's Dec. 1, 2002 catechesis, titled, "Mary - Mission in Her Heart," can be found on the web at http://www.kath.net/)

The following speech, from this particular event in Vienna, was translated from German into English here:

It is a great gift that the Mother of all her children will be so close! She showed it in so many places in the world. And, for many, many years, it shows in a particularly close way in Medjugorje.

We must thank the Lord that He through His mother, so many people in this now almost 30 years ago led to the love God has shown them His love and that so many people have found healing, repentance and renewal. In the confession, they were allowed to discover the love of the Lord in the Eucharist and the love of his mother by his mother. The reconciliation in families, the healing of drugs, addictions and troubles are their concerns. It is a very great sign for our time that Mary as concrete and very close and easy, worries about her children and cares and is with them.
When I see how many of them today in the cathedral and how long they have to pray - a lot longer than me, then I can only thank the Lord and His mother with all my heart, and they all ask if they were witnesses, witnesses of His mercy. Witnesses near Our Lady to the people.

Show them what you're getting them here and by the grace of Medjugorje and have time and again, they show it to others and they continue to give. That is my request, also in view of the great diocesan mission. What does the diocese - Mission? She wants to invite us to your friendship with Jesus. "Do whatever he tells you!", The words of Mary at Cana were "Do whatever he tells you!"

So I invite you now realize that we will get it, who really is truly present in our midst in the Eucharist, worship, praise Him and thank Him that we can bring our needs to Him. To Him who wants to heal each of us and make healing. Thanks also to those who have designed this evening, have so used it. Special thanks to the Dommesnern. We give them a big round of applause.