The Virgin Mary has never made a direct link between natural disasters and the introduction of divorce, according to followers of Angelik Caruana, the man who claims to receive apparitions every week at Borg in-Nadur, in Birżebbuġa.
Calling themselves Cenacle Theotokos, the group yesterday issued a statement in which they also pointed out that the Virgin Mary had been predicting natural disasters since 2006, when the apparitions began.
The statement follows in the wake of a Sunday Times feature about the apparitions, which dealt with the Virgin Mary’s alleged warnings against divorce and predictions that earthquakes would strike Malta.
The predictions of earthquakes were made about a month ago and a series of tremors shook Malta last Sunday – the same day the article was published. It was a coincidence that many readers pointed out.
“The end is nigh,” wrote Charles Brown, a commentator on timesofmalta.com. He added: “Stop the divorce issues, pray and listen only to the good word of the next Saint of Malta, Angelik.”
Referring to the “alleged messages of the Lady of Borg in-Nadur”, Cenacle Theotokos said “the Lady” insisted upon the rosary as a means of “freeing our country and the world of natural disasters.
“Divorce has been mentioned in the alleged messages of the Lady ever since the beginning of these happenings,” the group added. They stressed that the issue was raised well before last year’s presentation of a Private Member’s Bill.
“There are no alleged messages that directly connect natural disasters with the proposal to introduce divorce... There has not been any alleged message that mentions what might be the result of the referendum on the introduction of divorce in our country.”
The group added that the Lady’s message seemed to be “that she loves us with a true mother’s love and that her heart and the heart of her Son Jesus are hurt due to the sin of mankind. The Lady asks for conversion from the whole of mankind and from Christians. The Lady asks for this conversion by telling us to turn to Jesus by means of Confession, the Eucharist, the rosary, fasting, sacrifices and penance.”
The full message can be read on the group’s website: www.borgin-nadur.org.
Meanwhile, sources within the Church told The Times that the vast majority of priests were hugely sceptical about Mr Caruana’s claims.
“When I first read the story, I was happy, because I thought he was being exposed. But the timing turned out to be really bad because of the tremors on the same day,” one priest, who asked not to be named, said.
He added that the villagers in his parish – even those who had been sceptical before – were now much more convinced by the claims of Mr Caruana and his followers.
“Some even pointed out that there were seven tremors – one for every word Jesus Christ uttered on the Cross. And the last tremor was at 3 p.m.: the time Jesus is said to have died,” the priest said. He added that this was going to make things even more difficult for those priests, like himself, who thought Mr Caruana’s claims were bogus. The Church, he added, should stop them from being promulgated.
Another priest, who is less sceptical about the Borg in-Nadur apparitions but who also asked to remain unnamed, said he was impressed by the coincidences.
“I don’t know what to think. It is all very mysterious. Were these tremors the earthquakes she (the Lady) warned us about? Was it just a coincidence? Was it just a warning about things to come?”
Meanwhile, the Church, which has refrained from giving any credence to Mr Caruana’s claims, did not reply to questions sent by The Times about whether last Sunday’s tremors might have any bearing on its position.
One of the main reasons why Maltese Church leaders have looked upon Mr Caruana’s claims with scepticism is because his case seems to be an unbelievable “collage” of all the signs traditionally related to supernatural phenomena. In December 2005, he reported that a statue of Our Lady was weeping blood and oozing oil, although DNA tests proved the blood was his own and the oil was of the kitchen kind.