Roman Catholic Maryology: Mary in Roman Catholicism, part 20 - Examples of Extreme Deception

At a glance:
Here we will see the dangers of taking on a world-view based on experience alone. In other words, people are seeing visions, experiencing miracles and are being given information by apparition, but these things do not stand up to Scripture when we test all things.

Mary in the Trinity:
The following quote is an example of the real problem with accepting un-Biblical dogmas. We will see to what extremes people without a firm foundation in the Bible can be deceived.

‘This thought comes from Me. I am Jesus…You thought you misunderstood when I said I am the cross. You thought you misunderstood when I said I am Light. I am Life, Love, Spirit. I am the cross. Look at the four points on the cross, I will explain. ^{See the Holy Trinity of God in the three points. See in the other point My Mother, part of the Holy Trinity of God}. That is all My precious one.’
The theology of Mary being part of the Blessed Trinity, of course, does not sound orthodox. A priest friend suggested that Nancy ask Our Lord if He would explain the last sentence of this teaching in a way we could understand. While Nancy was praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, she heard the voice of her Savior…
‘Begin to write,’ He said. ‘The Trinity of God is the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost. As branches are part of a tree, My Mother and all of mankind are part of the Trinity of God.’1

We are supposedly reading a new revelation from Jesus Himself given in 1991. By way of a subjective experience we receive information that is anti-Scriptural and anti-reasonable. Jesus is supposedly telling us that Mary is a part of the Holy Trinity but in that case God is no longer a Trinity but is now quadripartite. But that is not all, because all of mankind are part of the Trinity of God. This has more in common with the New Age or Pantheistic religions than with the truth as revealed in the Bible.
The Bible makes it clear that we are not part of God, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13). God created us all but we are not all His children, or else how and why would we be given the right to become something that we already are?

The quote came from a book published by a group called Our Loving Mother’s Children, we were pleased that we did not find it approved as Nihil Obstat or Imprimatur.
However, what the book does state is:

In obedience to Jesus’ request, we have began to publish His Words and those of Our Loving Mother at Conyers, Georgia. According to a decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved by Pope Paul VI on October 14, 1966, it is permitted to publish, without an imprimatur, texts relating to new revelations, apparitions, prophecies or miracles. However, in accordance with the regulations of the Second Vatican Council, the publisher states that we do not wish to precede the judgment of the Church in this matter, to which we humbly submit.

The Scapular:

“Pope Pius XII says, it [the scapular] is in the ‘first rank’ of popular devotions to the Blessed Mother.”2

^{Pope Pius XII wrote, “certainly this most gentle Mother will not delay to open, as soon as possible, through her intercession with God, the gates of heaven for her children who are expiating their faults in purgatory—a trust based on that promise known as the Sabbatine Privilege.”}3

Most Rev. E. K. Lynch explains the Sabbatine Privilege and how the scapular of the Carmelites came to be:

…in 1246, at a Chapter held in Aylesford, they [the Carmelites] elected Simon Stock as their General. As he saw the waves of opposition mounting higher and higher, Simon realized that Our Lady was his only hope…Saluting her as the Flower of Carmel and the Star of the Sea, he asked her for the ‘privilegium,’ that is, the protection a lord would give his vassal. In answer to his fervent prayer she appeared to him, and giving him the scapular of his order she said: ‘This shall be a sign to you and to all Carmelites: whoever dies wearing this shall not suffer eternal fire.’4

The Maryknoll Catholic Dictionary defines the effect that the scapular has on its wearer:

The scapular gives the bearer a share in the merits and good works of the particular group of which it is a badge. The wearer should be invested in the scapular by religious authority. It must be worn as described. If set aside for any period, the spiritual benefits cease during that time. Care must be taken in the use of scapulars to guard against superstition.5

The warning against superstition is almost a contradiction in terms considering that the description of the scapular is like that of any talisman or good luck charm.
It is interesting and alarming to note that in great error Simon Stock did not look to Jesus as his only hope but instead he turned to Mary and she allegedly appeared to him. First we should wonder how he knows for sure that it was Mary since no one knows what she looks like (same goes for all apparitions).
Next we see that he opened himself to deception or demonization by turning away from God and turning placing his hopes on a dead person (be they Mary or another saint).The Bible says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The opposite of this is, “Invite the devil and he will appear.” Also remember that “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2nd Corinthians 11:14).

In the Catholic Gift Ideas 2002 catalog The Fatima Crusader included adds for scapulars, “Hand-Made Scapulars, Your Protection in Times of Danger.”
The Passion of Christi Scapular has this quote by it “All those who wear this Scapular shall receive every Friday an increase of faith, hope and charity.”
The Brown Scapular has, ^{“Those who die wearing this Scapular shall not suffer eternal fire!”}
The St. Michael Brown Scapular has, “Relics of St. Peter and St. Constantine touched to images on the Scapular.”
Also, to cover all bases you can buy the Five-Fold Scapular which “Includes the Passion Scapular, The Brown Scapular, The Scapular of the Seven Dolors [sic. they must mean colors], The Immaculate Conception Scapular and the Trinity Scapular.”

Guadalupe:

In 1531 an apparition known as Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego in Mexico. This is some of what occurred, Juan Diego:

…saw a Lady, who was standing there and told him to come hither. Approaching her presence, he marveled greatly at her superhuman grandeur; her garments were shining like the sun…She then spoke to him [in the first apparition]…
‘^{I wish that a temple be erected here quickly, so I may therein exhibit and give all my love, compassion, help, and protection, because I am your merciful mother, to you, and to all the inhabitants on this land and all the rest who love me, invoke and confide in me; listen there to their lamentations, and remedy all their miseries, afflictions and sorrows}. And to accomplish what my clemency pretends…
that here on this plain a temple be built to me…Be assured that I will be most grateful and will reward you, because I will make you happy and worthy of recompense for the effort and fatigue in what you will obtain of what I have entrusted….
[fourth apparition] Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold?’6

These sorts of teachings are tailor made to deviate people from complete devotion to Christ. From Our Lady’s words and certain alleged miracles Guadalupe has become an immensely popular site, and the apparition has become the focus of much prayer and devotion.
However, consider the following admission from a group that is devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe:

All written narrations about the apparitions of the Lady of Guadalupe are inspired by the Nican Mopohua, or Huei Tlamahuitzoltica, written in Nahuatl, the Aztec language, by the Indian scholar Antonio Valeriano around the middle of the sixteenth century. Unfortunately the original of his work has not been found. A copy was first published in Nahuatl by Luis Lasso de la Vega in 1649.7

Thus, we have 118 years from the time of the alleged event to the first known account of those events.
Note carefully that “The apparitions occurred at Tepeyac, a small hill and a former sanctuary to the Aztec goddess Tonanzin. Mary asked Juan Diego to request that the local bishop build a church on that site.”8
The article “St. Juan Diego New World Apostle” from St. Anthony Messenger convinced me more than ever that the apparition at Guadalupe did take place and that it was pure demonic deception. The apparition occurred in the form of a female on the sight of a sanctuary to an Aztec goddess and requests that a sanctuary be built so that she, the apparition, may be revered. In fact, another Catholic publication points out:

One reason…that there was no immediate great publicity among the Spaniards of the apparitions was the concern of confusion of Mary, Juan Diego’s Senora del Cielo [lady of the sky] with idolatry. She did, after all appear on the hill called Tepeyac, where devotion to a goddess had existed. Not all of the Franciscans embraced the apparitions. One who actively opposed devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe was Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, who called it a ‘satanic invention,’ because of his fear that the indigenous would return to their old idols.9

They did not return to old ones, they just adopted a new one.
Regarding the Natives of the time the article states that “They will not have to abandon their cherished traditions and religious expressions but can combine them with new ones in such a way that both will become better!”10
Apparently, a demon who was worshipped as a goddess apparently got lonely since its place of worship had been abandoned and so it disguised itself as an angel of light, a luminous being disguised as a minister of righteousness in order to continue being worshipped. Same game just a different name.

^{Recently, a local organization declared that Our Lady of Guadalupe is “the goddess of the Americas” and four requests for an opinion from the local Archdiocese went unanswered} (see Our Lady of Guadalupe – Officially or Unofficially the Goddess of the Americas?).

The article states, “10 years after this event, nine million Indians had converted to the Christianity of La Morenita (the beloved dark virgin).”11
This is a very telling point, the Natives and all who are devoted to this apparition are practicing Christianity as dictated to them by an apparition not according to Jesus Christ. This is a new gospel, which is no gospel at all. The real Gospel warns us of such deceptions, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
But if even we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you that what you have received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:6-9 also see 2nd Corinthians 11:2-15).
The same article tells us of “thousands of people who began venerating the miraculous image.”12

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe allegedly miraculously appeared on Juan Diego’s clothing and this image shows Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe standing with the moon under her feet. This means that she is identifying herself with the woman in Revelation 12. In our articles Immaculately Conceived?, Sinless? and Coronation in Heaven? we point out that the woman in this text is suffering from the stain of original sin, which contradicts traditions about Mary. This leads to contradictions in official Roman Catholic teachings because either Mary was born immaculate (without original sin) or is the woman in Rev. 12, Catholic dogma cannot have it both ways.

Also, see Our Lady of Guadalupe - Officially or Unofficially the Goddess of the Americas?

Lourdes and the Immaculate Conception:
“Bernadette Soubirous, the visionary of Lourdes, France. Between the dates of February 11th and July 16th, 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette claimed to have seen, a total of eighteen times…these sightings were approved by the Church as apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They were judged ‘worthy of belief,’ in part, no doubt, because of the fruits they effected. Among these were a miraculous spring-turned-pool and the fact that some 200,000 faithful pilgrims had flocked to Massabielle (the sight of the apparitions by the River Gave) within the first month…Bernadette was instructed by her parish priest to ask the Lady who she was…‘At my third request her face took on a serious expression, and at the same time an expression of deep humility…
Joining her palms as if for prayer, she raised them to the height of her breast…She looked up to heaven…then slowly opening her hands and bending down towards me, she said to me in a voice in which one could sense a slight trembling, ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’’ (emphasis added)…It should be noted, too, that Mary did not respond to Bernadette that ‘I am immaculately conceived’ or that ‘I am the one who was immaculately conceived.’ Rather, ^{Mary said: ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’…In this regard, some orthodox theologians have gone so far as to draw an analogous comparison between this aspect of Mary’s ‘I am’ of the Immaculate Conception to the ‘I AM WHO AM’ of God in the Book of Exodus (3:14)}…
St. Bernadette’s visions were a confirmation of something the Church had already held for centuries…This dogmatic teaching presented nothing new for the Church. The perfect sinlessness of Mary had, since Apostolic times, been taught by the Fathers of the Church who appealed to such Scriptural texts as Genesis 3:15 (known as the proto-Evangelium or ‘First Gospel’) and Luke 1:28.”13

It never ceases to amaze proponents of the Lourdes apparition that while Bernadette allegedly had no knowledge of the term Immaculate Conception these are the very words she reported to the clergy. “How could she have known that?” they ask, it must have been a true apparition of Mary who informed her of it. If we assume for a moment that the apparition was the work of a demonic force disguised as a messenger of God then the answer is very clear. There are demons all over the world, they know what we are up to, they hear what we say and they can communicate with each other.
Thus, we can easily explain how someone could have information that they had no natural way of gaining. One demon tells another that the church has come up with the term Immaculate Conception and they can devise a plan to have one of them disguise themselves as a messenger of God and appear to and deceive a little child. They can tell her to tell the clergy that the apparition of Mary called herself Immaculate Conception and the clergy in turn, are amazed that this child knew of a title that she should not as of yet have heard.

It is very difficult to believe that any orthodox theologians drew a comparison between the apparition’s ‘I am’ and God’s ‘I AM WHO AM.’ God’s name is YHWH: I AM THAT I AM, usually referred to as I AM. This name implies self-existence, self-reliance, eternality, nothing implied by God’s name could possibly be applied to a created being however blessed they may be.
Also, note that the apparition’s message is said to have confirmed Mary’s perfect sinlessness. In other words, when a false doctrine cannot be substantiated from Scripture, you can always take the words of a apparition for it. Yet, Biblically the test of a true or false teaching is not an mystical, emotional, subjective experience but rather, whether or not it agrees with Scripture. Another poor way to authenticate a vision is to do a head count of how many people flock to the site, in this case “They were judged ‘worthy of belief,’ in part…200,000 faithful pilgrims had flocked to Massabielle.”
But besides this Pope Pius IX infallibly declared the Immaculate Conception on 12-8-1854 and the apparition did not occur until 1858. There was a four-year span for Bernadette to have heard the term Immaculate Conception.

1. 1. Our Loving Mother’s Children, To Bear Witness that I AM the Living Son of God, Vol. 1 (Rockford, IL.: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991), p. 38
2. 2. Most Rev. E. K. Lynch, O. Carm.; General of the Carmelite Order, The Scapular of Carmel (Washington: World Apostolate of Mary, AMI Press, nd) Nihil Obstat: Romae, 20 Januarii 1955, Kennetus Leahy, Censor Dep.. Imprimatur: E Vicariatu Civit, Vatic., 1 Martii 1955, Fr. Canisius van Lierde, Ep. Porphyr. Vic. Gen. Civ. Vat. p. 1
3. 3. Most Rev. E. K. Lynch, p. xi quoting Letter of His Holiness, Pius XII, For The Occasion of the Seventh Centenary of the Brown Scapular. Given at Rome on the Feast of the Apparition oat Lourdes, 2-11-50
4. 4. Most Rev. E. K. Lynch, p. 4
5. 5. Albert J. Nevins, M.M., ed., The Maryknoll Catholic Dictionary (New York: Dimension Books, 1965), Nihil Obstat Rt. Rev. Msgr. James T. Clarke, Censor Librorum 11-27-64. p. 513
6. 6. Our Lady Of Guadalupe—Patroness of the Americas
7. 7. Ibid.
8. 8. Fr. Virgilio P. Elzondo; priest of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, professor at the Mexican-American Cultural Center, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Texas, “St. Juan Diego New World Apostle,” St. Anthony Messenger, Vol. 110, Num. 2 (July 2002), p. 29
9. 9. Mark & Louise Zwick, “A Saint for Nobodies, Why San Juan Diego Means so Much to Us,” Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XXII, No. 5, Sep.-Oct. 2002, p. 9
10. 10. Fr. Virgilio P. Elzondo, p. 34
11. 11. Fr. Virgilio P. Elzondo, p. 30
12. 12. Fr. Virgilio P. Elzondo, p. 34
13. 13. Wade L. J. Menezes, C.P.M., The Immaculate Conception, Catholic.net ‘00