Since 1974, the Church has considered that the Marian apparitions known as the “Amsterdam apparitions” are not of supernatural origin, states the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in a brief press release published on July 11, 2024. Its prefect, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, invites religious leaders and the faithful to draw the “appropriate conclusions.”
The history of the apparitions
The communication concerns the case of 56 alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a Dutch laywoman, Ida Peerdeman, between 1945 and 1959. According to the purported visionary, Our Lady presented herself to her under the name of the “Lady of All Nations,” and made revelations to her about the future of mankind — including the outbreak of conflicts and the decadence of the Church and popes.
The bishop of Amsterdam at the time, Johannes Huibers, initially approved of the devotion and the title of “Lady of All Nations,” before changing his judgment in 1956. Consulted three times by this bishop and his successors, the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith supported their condemnation and ban on devotion in 1957, 1972 and 1974 — but without any public statement.
In 1996, Bishop Hendrik Bomers of Haarlem (now the diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam) decided to allow public veneration of the “Lady of All Peoples,” while insisting that he was not commenting on the supernatural nature of the apparitions. He reported that his decision had been authorized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger).
Vatican declarations
More recently, however, the “Holy Office” has broken its silence in letters sent to the Philippine Bishops’ Conference in 2005 and then to the Maronite Cardinal-Patriarch Béchara Boutros Raï in 2020. In these missives, it asserted that “the apparitions in Amsterdam are false. The ‘Lady of All Nations’ must not be venerated, and the faithful must cease all propaganda.”
In both cases, the Doctrine of the Faith also insisted that the authoritative judgment was that of 1974, as the dicastery now headed by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández again does in its press release. The latter nevertheless points out that, until recently, his dicastery “as a rule, did not make public decisions about alleged supernatural phenomena.”
3rd ruling on apparitions in less than a month
This is in fact the third clarification of a supernatural phenomenon by the DDF in just a few weeks, following the case of the Trevignano apparitions and that of the Mystical Rose, an application of the new norms enacted on May 17.
This time, the prefect says he wished to publish the information so that “the holy People of God and its Pastors can draw the appropriate conclusions.”
The cardinal explains that, in 1974, the members of the Congregation unanimously approved the doctrinal judgment of “constat de non supernaturalitate” — it is proven not to be of supernatural character — regarding the apparitions, and the decision to stop investigating them. These two decisions, he points out, were approved by Pope Paul VI himself on April 5, 1974.
Unlike several recent publications, the dicastery does not go into the details of its investigation into this case. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the visionary Ida Peerdeman presented the Virgin Mary as “Coredemptrix,” a title which implies that, like Jesus, she participates in the redemption of mankind. This very position was condemned in a DDF ruling published on July 8 concerning the Mystical Rose apparitions in Italy, in which Cardinal Fernández recalled that “Jesus Christ is our only Redeemer.”
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