Eduardo retweetledi
While the Novus Ordo is promoting the false "Divine Mercy" revelations/devotion today, it may be useful to share the actual text of the Holy Office decree against it in 1958.
Many people are aware of the 1959 public "Notification" of the Holy Office, which was published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis and in the Vatican newspaper. This was signed by Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, whom many would recognize from the movie, "The Scarlet and the Black," or the book, "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican." This is the Msgr. O'Flaherty who saved so many Jews and others during WWII in Rome at the risk of his life. He did not issue this notification, of course, but signed it as notary.
Many are not aware that this 1959 notification was the sequel to an earlier document in 1958 which was not published publicly in the A.A.S. but was sent privately to the bishops in Poland.
There is a principle in regard to decrees for or against devotions that approvals must be public, while condemnations need not be public in order to be binding, but are often privately issued. The reason for this is because new devotions, and especially purported revelations, are automatically forbidden from being published *until* they have approbation. There is no need for the condemnation to be public in order for them to be forbidden, since they are forbidden "de jure."
If an individual bishop has given approbation to publish, but the Holy Office decides to the contrary, it is only necessary for the Holy Office to send notice to the bishop to revoke approbation and remove the devotion or published volumes of revelations. This was the case, for example, in regard to the supposed Holy Face revelations of Sr. Mary of St. Peter which were condemned by decree of the Holy Office in 1897 as not having the character of true revelations and as containing novelties harmful to the piety of the faithful. The bishop of Tours in France was sent this decree privately.
Likewise with this 1958 decree against the Divine Mercy devotion and purported revelations. It was sent privately to the bishop concerned, but was published ultimately in the "Acta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum" (Acts of the Order of Friars Minor) in 1959. From there it was copied and published in volume II of "Leges Ecclesiae" in 1969, which is an unofficial collection of decrees from various sources and highly useful for finding things. This image is a photo I took 12 years ago from "Leges Ecclesiae" to add to my abundant files on condemned or false devotions.
The text of the Latin in this decree says that the "alleged revelations" do not have a supernatural character, that a feast of the Divine Mercy is not to be instituted, and that the promulgation of images or writings promoting the devotion in the form advocated by Sr. Faustina is forbidden.
Notice that there is an ellipsis (...) after point number 3 of the decree. That seems to indicate that part of it was omitted when it was published publicly in the Franciscan Acta or perhaps when copied from there to Leges Ecclesiae. Other sources indicate that this last part of the decree was an order to give a stern admonition to Fr. Michael Sopoćko, her confessor, to cease defending and promoting these spurious revelations and devotion. Likely, this was left out of the published version to spare embarrassment to Fr. Sopoćko.
Unfortunately, as often happens in these matters, devotees of the false revelations continued to spread them despite the condemnation from Rome and the bishop's actions to stop it. This same behavior has been repeated many times throughout history when disobedient Catholics think they know better than the Church. Excuses are always made that Rome "didn't have the correct texts" when condemning something, or didn't have all the facts. As Pope St. Pius X said once to priests, excuses come easy to those who do not want to obey.
Normally, this disobedience to the Church never gets anywhere, and occasionally it leads to even harsher measures like excommunication. However, in this case, the timing of the condemnation lined up with the beginning of a long series of false popes. So the supporters were able to obtain a complete reversal under false pope JP2 from Poland in 1978. Of course, we do not recognize this reversal and the devotion and "revelations" remain forbidden.
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