Exploring the Miraculous

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Michael O'Neill. Exploring the Miraculous

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PRAISE FOR Exploring the Miraculous, by Michael O’Neill

Few if any who are writing about religion today do so with the feeling that Michael O’Neill brings to this vastest of topics. His work is grounded in fact but never disregards the spiritual, as is entirely appropriate. Reading O’Neill, one comes to understand belief and faith in the modern world. His writing informs and inspires; it is smart and steeped in understanding.

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According to Tradition, the “competent authority” refers to the local ordinary, who is expected to fulfill the duties and obligations that fall to him. Although the diocesan bishop possesses the right to initiate an investigation, that country’s national conference of bishops can subsequently intervene at his request or at the request of a qualified group of faithful not “motivated by suspect reasons.” If necessary, the Vatican can then also intervene if the situation involves the Church at large or if discernment requires it. The CDF judges the manner in which the local ordinary conducted his investigation and decides whether it is necessary to initiate a new examination. It is the right and responsibility of local bishops to investigate and make judgments about alleged apparitions, and ordinarily the Vatican does not become involved in the process. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has an obligation of “guidance and vigilance.”

In an essay for Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis (PAMI) on the topic of Normae Congregationis, Msgr. Charles Scicluna, promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, notes that once a decision of the CDF is given, it cannot be overturned by a lower authority, as it is of “undisputed hierarchical authority.”32

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