Virgin Mary

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Swear You Saw Stigmata? Vatican Has New Guidelines

Church officials update norms to confirm Virgin Mary visions, other supernatural claims

(Newser) - The Catholic Church has a long and controversial history of the faithful claiming to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, of statues that purportedly wept blood tears, and of stigmata that erupted on hands mimicking the wounds of Christ. On Friday, the Vatican will announce new norms to help...

Virgin Mary Work Is Only Surviving Leonardo Sculpture
'New' Da Vinci Work Is Unveiled

'New' Da Vinci Work Is Unveiled

It's called 'The Virgin with the Laughing Child'

(Newser) - A smile, a laugh, a few folds, and presto—you have the only existing sculpture by Leonardo da Vinci. That's pretty much the takeaway after The Virgin with the Laughing Child was presented this week at an exhibition in Florence, NPR reports. An Italian academic and a Leonardo scholar...

Virgin Mary Statue Vanished 2 Years Ago. Now, This

It's found in an apartment house storage area

(Newser) - A missing statue of the Virgin Mary stolen from a Vermont nativity scene more than two years ago has been found unharmed and returned to its owner, the AP reports. The statue was stolen from Lyndonville in January 2016 and it was recently discovered in an apartment house storage area...

Pope Not Convinced by Virgin Mary Apparitions

He says alleged Bosnia visions 'don't have a lot of value'

(Newser) - Bad news for the pilgrimage business in Bosnia: Pope Francis has made it clear that he has serious doubts about the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, which bring up to a million visitors to the village every year. Six children in the town said in 1981 that...

Pope Makes 2 Fatima Children Saints
Pope Makes
2 Fatima Children
Saints

Pope Makes 2 Fatima Children Saints

A century ago, they said they saw the Virgin Mary

(Newser) - Pope Francis added two Portuguese shepherd children to the roster of Catholic saints Saturday, honoring young siblings whose reported visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago turned the Portuguese farm town of Fatima into one of the world's most important Catholic shrines. Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto...

Nun Says Sex Is Such a Gift That Even Mary Probably Had It

Sister Lucia Caram's remarks aren't going over well

(Newser) - Mary was in love with Joseph and they probably had sex—full stop. That's the general gist of what a popular Dominican nun known for her huge Twitter following and recipes she whips up in her Catalan convent said on Spanish TV Sunday, and it's causing a whole...

Pope Sounds Skeptical on Virgin Apparitions

He criticizes Christian 'novelty seekers'

(Newser) - Dealing with things like the liquefaction of dried saint's blood is all in a day's work for Pope Francis, but he doesn't sound convinced by some alleged apparitions in a Bosnian village. More than 30 million pilgrims have visited Medjugorje since children first reported seeing the Virgin...

Virgin Mary Statue Wins Policing Prize, Then Outrage

She doesn't exactly meet the requirements, secularists say

(Newser) - Spain's top policing award this year went not to a heroic police officer but to ... a statue of the Virgin Mary. The country's interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, awarded the gold medal of police merit to an icon of the virgin in Málaga because, as...

Virgin Mary Statue Said to 'Weep' Oil

Hundreds flocking to small town in Israel to see it

(Newser) - Hundreds of people have flocked to a small town in northern Israel to view a statue of the Virgin Mary that residents say "weeps" oil. Members of a Christian family from Tarshiha, near the Lebanon border, say they have witnessed a miracle in their living room. Osama Khoury said...

Church Ad Shows Mary Taking Pregnancy Test

Billboard there to spark conversation, church says

(Newser) - A church in Auckland, New Zealand, has irked traditionalists with a billboard showing a shocked Virgin Mary looking at a pregnancy test. St. Matthew-in-the-City Church says the portrait was intended to “spark thought and conversation in the community." Christmas is "about a real pregnancy, a real mother...

Joseph von Nazareth Hits Twitterverse
Now on Twitter: Joseph von Nazareth

Now on Twitter: Joseph von Nazareth

He tweets in German, is upset about Mary's pregnancy

(Newser) - There might not be room at the inn, but you can always squeeze 140 characters onto Twitter. Joseph of Nazareth, aka Joseph von Nazareth because he tweets in German, has taken to the Twitterverse to broadcast his tiny family's tribulations this Christmas, reports Der Spiegel . "Do you have...

Virgin Mary Appeared at Wisc. Chapel: Catholic Bishop

Mary is said to have appeared to a Belgian immigrant 3 times

(Newser) - About a dozen sites worldwide can boast that they have been validated by the Catholic Church as being sites where the Virgin Mary has appeared—and for the first time, that list includes a US location. A tiny chapel 17 miles northeast of Green Bay, Wisc., called Our Lady of...

Omaha Man Swipes Virgin Mary Painting for Abortion

Rapist sells $100K artwork in Mexico

(Newser) - An Omaha man stole a painting of the Virgin Mary to pay for the abortion of his teenage rape victim, the Omaha World-Herald reports. Aurelio Vallecillo-Sanchez, 39, described by his attorney as "remorseful and ashamed," pleaded no contest yesterday to charges of theft and sexual assault and faces...

Crowds Flip for Mexican Restaurant's 'Griddle Virgin'

Some say image looks like Our Lady of Guadalupe

(Newser) - The faithful are flocking to a Mexican restaurant in California to see what some call a miracle: a griddle apparently imprinted with the Virgin Mary’s image, the Los Angeles Times reports. A cook first spotted it; “she started to cry” and stopped cleaning the griddle, said the restaurant’...

Hillary: 'Who Painted It?' Monsignor: 'God!'

Hillary at 'miraculous' Mexican image of Mary

(Newser) - Hillary Clinton invoked a higher power on a recent diplomatic trip to Mexico City, the Catholic News Agency reports. Making a surprise detour to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the US secretary of state asked who painted a famous image that Catholics say was made by the Virgin...

Time to Give Joseph His Due
 Time to Give Joseph His Due  
opinion

Time to Give Joseph His Due

Priest sees stolid husband to Jesus's mother as a role model

(Newser) - Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and even the Three Kings come to mind at Christmastime, but rarely do Christians think of humble Joseph. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, writes in Slate that forgetting the man who raised Jesus—the reason for the season—is unfair. "It's time to take a...

6 Ark. Nuns Excommunicated
6 Ark. Nuns Excommunicated

6 Ark. Nuns Excommunicated

Members of 'Army of Mary' cast out

(Newser) - Six Arkansas nuns have been booted from the Catholic Church for refusing to renounce the Army of Mary, a sect the Vatican deems heretical for its founder’s claim to be the reincarnation of the virgin. “We know we are doing the right thing,” said an 82-year-old nun....

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