Veronica Lueken
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Veronica Lueken (1923 - 1995) was a Roman Catholic housewife who lived in Bayside, New York. From 1970 until her death, she reported to experience apparitions of the Virgin Mary and numerous Catholic saints. She gave messages from them at both Saint Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church in Bayside, and at the Vatican Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Park (site of the 1964 New York World's Fair).
Bishop Francis Mugavero, then Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, stated in 1986 that "a thorough investigation revealed that the alleged visions of Bayside completely lacked authenticity" and that "the messages and other related propaganda contain statements which, among other things, are contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church." [1] Bishop Francis Mugavero has been accused of involvement in the priest abuse scandal and has also been accused of being a sexually active homosexual. [2]
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[edit] History of the Bayside Marian Apparition
In 1968, Lueken reported experiencing her first manifestation when she smelled a perfume of roses in her car while praying for the dying Robert Kennedy in June 1968. Saint Theresa of Lisieux was said to appear to her and dictate sacred poem-messages, preparing Mrs. Lueken for what would follow.
Mrs. Lueken reported her first Marian vision in her home on April 7, 1970. She was reportedly informing her that she would appear on the grounds of the old St. Robert Bellarmine Church in Bayside on June 18, 1970, and subsequently, on all great feast days of the Catholic Church. From that day, Mrs Lueken reported a series of Marian apparitions near St Robert Bellarmine's Catholic Church at Bayside. According to her report, Mary asked her to establish a Marian shrine at the site on April 7, 1970. Mrs. Lueken began to type up and circulate her prophecies, many of which had apocalyptic content.
Overwhelmed by the influx of an estimated five hundred to two thousand Marian devotees, the parish ministers fenced off the church precincts in 1973. At the same time, Bishop Francis Mugavero of Brooklyn announced that there was no doctrinal basis for the content of Lueken's messages. Bishop Mugavero is one of the Catholic bishops accused of episcopal misconduct in the sex-abuse scandal that shook the Catholic Church in the United States.[3]
Meanwhile, Lueken elaborated on her reported visions. Apart from the Virgin Mary and the aforementioned Saint Therese of Lisieux, she also said she received visitations from Saint Joseph, Saint Paul, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bernadette Soubrious and Saint Robert Bellarmine, amongst others. The Archangel Michael and the Archangel Gabriel were also said to have appeared to her.
Undeterred by official church rejection, Lueken and her followers then assembled on a traffic island near the site of the alleged visitation (1974/75), until they negotiated a permanent site of worship at Flushing Meadows, former site of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. She and her fellow believers established Our Lady of the Roses Shrine, which survived her death in 1995.
At the apex of this organization were Veronica Lueken and her husband Arthur. Accompanying them, a Lay Order of Saint Michael existed to organize prayer vigils and assist the increasingly infirm and aging Lueken in administrative responsibilities associated with corresponding with like-minded Catholics in the United States and elsewhere. Since Lueken described her experiences, other unrecognized Marian apparitions have occurred in Lubbock, Texas (1988-1989) and Conyers, Georgia (1989), and have incorporated similar apocalyptic motifs in their messages.
At some point, Mrs. Lueken predicted, the authenticity of her visions would be recognized, and there would be a basilica church built on the site of her first visions at Bayside, as well as the appearance of a healing spring, and the area would become the venue of a national Marian shrine in the United States.
[edit] Mainstream Church Status of the Bayside Apparition
According to progressive and liberal Catholic sources, the Bayside visitations do not fulfill criteria that would qualify the alleged events as legitimate Marian apparitions and so are unrecognized. Skeptics and detractors maintain that such visitations are supposed to remain private visitations without publicity. However, no Marian apparition from Our Lady of the Snows to Our Lady of Walsingham to Our Lady of Fatima occurred without publicity. Some detractors argue that Lueken's visions would qualify as a psychological phenomenon known as pareidolia, in which anthropomorphic forms are witnessed in alleged surface formations on various objects. There is no medical evidence for this opinion.
At the Eternal Word Television Network, Father Mark Gantley, JCL, has clarified that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document related to "Proceeding in Judging Alleged Apparitions and Revelations" in 1974. Initially, a Diocesan Bishop is enabled to investigate the phenomenon in question. After he has completed his scrutiny, he may or may not ask for assistance from national Catholic Bishops Conferences, or refer the matter to the Vatican. For further information, consult the entry on Marian apparitions.
[edit] Apocalyptic literature and Catholicism
Catholic apocalypticism has its own history and tradition quite apart from Protestant fundamentalism. This historical tradition begins with the New Testament and is especially found in the Apocalypse (also known as the Book of Revelation). Others in this tradition include Early Church Fathers as well as the unorthodox Michel Nostradamus. Also, included in this tradition of Catholic apocalypticism are Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, Pope Leo XIII, as well as Pope Pius X who is reported to have seen the destruction of the Vatican and the deposition and assassination of one of his successors.
Similar to their fundamentalist Protestant counterparts, contemporary conservative Catholic apocalyptic believers base their worldview on the Holy Bible. Unlike Protestant apocalypticists, prophecies of Saints of the Catholic Church play an important part in this worldview. Detractors view these conservative Catholics as operating from an axiomatic definition of the world today as sinful and corrupted and due for chastisement. However, the worldview is dependent upon a Biblical model of seeing human sins and outrages against God being dealt with by judgment, chastisement, purification, and redemption. Many conservative Catholics will assert their hermeneutic of the apocalyptic even when confronted with members of the Catholic hierarchy who embrace universalism and believe that hell is empty, as Jacques Maritain theorized in one of his last personal letters.
Unlike fundamentalist Protestants, they often embrace a premillenial view of the contents of the Book of Apocalypse or Revelation. Anti-communism is a strong current in visionaries like Veronica Leuken -- a tradition that owes its origin to Papal teaching as well as the Apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three children in Fatima, Portugal before the Russian Revolution. In light of the bishop/priest child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the general judgment of Catholics with this worldview is underlined when they argue that the state of the Church is in fundamental crisis in every aspect of its existence. Veronica Lueken and her followers regarded her apparitions and messages as a mercy from God in contradistinction to a Church they believed had lost its way.
At present, there has been no independent in-depth study of Lueken's messages or methodologies since her death. Nonetheless, St. Michael's World Apostolate still preserves the legacy and archived visions of its deceased visionary on site and on its own website, as noted in the section below.
[edit] St. Michael's World Apostolate
Several traditionalist Catholic clerics upheld what Lueken had to say. Lueken was told over twenty times in the messages that all prophecy is conditional and does not have to happen[4]
The St. Michael's World Apostolate website [5] is dedicated to veneration of their late seer, and appears to be linked to her former ministry structure. On that website are listed the messages of the Virgin Mary to Veronica Lueken. Many messages refer to perceived institutional disorder in the Roman Catholic Church. These include the fall of the clergy into various errors, ideologies and sins that are viewed as contrary to their vocation which is to save souls. The current Bugnini - Paul VI New Order of the Mass is denounced as erasing the virtues of faith, hope and love expressed in the traditional Latin Mass of the Council of Trent, which virtues were directed toward the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Bishop Francis Mugavero, the local bishop at the time, rejected these messages of Veronica Leuken. However, Bayside followers state that the sex-abuse scandal in the Church reflects the authenticity of these messages and the invalidity of Bishop Mugavero's judgment due to accusations made regarding his complicit actions in the sex-abuse scandal and to allegations that he was a sexually active homosexual.[6]
Within Mrs Lueken's messages, this exposure of institutional church corruption is balanced by a call for prayer, reparation, and sacrifice for the clergy. St. Michael's World Apostolate holds a Holy Hour for the clergy on the exact location where Veronica Lueken received the messages each Sunday.
Other messages focus on the fallen condition of the world in its political, social, religious and moral spheres. They list remedies to be taken to restore society back to a right condition and relationship with God, otherwise Chastisement will befall the countries of the world, including elemental disasters, wars and invasions.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] Primary sources
- Veronica Lueken: The Virgin Mary's Bayside Prophecies: Volume 1: 1970-1973: Bayside, New York: 2002: ISBN 1-891981-01-3
- Our Lady of the Roses Shrine: Roses From Heaven: Orange, Texas: Children of Mary: 1990.
- David Clyde Skovmand: Prophecies Received by Mrs Veronica Lueken: Oakland: Our Lady's Worker of Northern California: 1997.
[edit] Contemporary media reports
- Roberta Grant: "War of the Roses" Rolling Stone (21.02.80):43-46.
- Phillip Nobile: "Our Lady of Bayside" New York11 (11.12.78): 47-60.
[edit] Bibliography
- Daniel Wojcik: The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism and Apocalypse in America: New York: New York University Press: 1997: ISBN 0-8147-9283-9
- Michael Carroll: The Cult of the Virgin Mary: Psychological Origins: Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1986: ISBN 0-691-09420-9
- Bishop Francis Mugavero: "Declaration Concerning the 'Bayside Movement'" (p.209-211) in James LeBar (ed)Cults, Sects and the New Age: Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division: 1989: ISBN 0-87973-431-0
- Sandra Zimdars-Swartz: Encountering Mary: From LaSalette to Medjugorge: Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1991: ISBN 0-691-07371-6
