Vatican updates norms to evaluate visions of Mary, weeping statues as it adapts to internet age and hoaxers

Vatican City – The Vatican's doctrinal office has released new norms regarding alleged supernatural phenomena such as apparitions of Mary, weeping statues and other supposed mystical events.

For centuries, apparitions of Mary at sites such as Fatima, Portugal and Lourdes, France – eventually declared by church authorities as having divine origin – have become the basis for shrines visited by millions of pilgrims each year.

But in a new document replacing the church's 1978 rules, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) declared that the Vatican and the local bishop will no longer formally declare such phenomena to be of divine origin. DDF chief Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez said in a press conference on Friday introducing the new norms that the Vatican would no longer affirm "with moral certainty that (such phenomena) originates from a decision willed by God in a direct way." Instead, after careful analysis, they would limit themselves to authorizing devotion and pilgrimages, he said.