Impact of Apparitions
While Marian apparitions may at times seem like fanciful tales even to devout Catholics, factual analysis indicates that the effect of apparitions on the Roman Catholic Church has been significant. Marian apparitions have led to, or affected, the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Mariology and the lives of millions of Roman Catholics in several ways:
-
- The conversion of millions of people to Roman Catholicism.
- The construction of some of the largest Roman Catholic Marian churches ever.
- The formation of the largest Marian Movements and Societies ever.
- The spread of Marian devotions (such as the rosary) to millions of people.
- The declaration of specific Marian dogmas and doctrines.
- Hundreds of millions of Marian pilgrimages.
A few cases can illustrate these items.
Read more about this topic: Marian Apparitions
Famous quotes containing the words impact of, impact and/or apparitions:
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“I can sit up half the night
With some friend that has the wit
Not to allow his looks to tell
When I am unintelligible.
Fifteen apparitions have I seen;
The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)