Ep. 202 Vindicatory Catholic Miracles vs Catholicism

[MUSIC] >> Straight out of Philly, this is the Reluctant Theologian podcast. I'm your host, Dr. RT Mullins from the University of Lucerne. I've been getting a lot of messages this week asking what I think about so called Vindicatory Catholic Miracles. So what does Reverend Dr. Dr. RT Mullins think about a set of miracles that your average Catholic scholar pays very little attention to? What does Ryan have to say about a set of miracles that Catholic Theologians rarely even mention? Well, I'm going to give you some thoughts today to consider. If you'd like to support the show, you can donate money to my Patreon account and my coffee account. Any donation amount helps in so many ways. My student loan provider has recently been destroyed by the Trump administration, so everything's chaotic and no one's happy. If you have questions or topics you'd like to hear on the show, you can send me a message at RT Mullins.com. Ready or not, here I am talking about Catholic Miracles. Enjoy. Now, a few weeks ago, I did an impromptu video on inspiring philosophy. We were talking about miracles. And then he took me through some different miracle cases that he's been investigating. Each case was interesting in its own right. One miracle took place in the context of a Pentecostal church. Another was a eucharistic miracle that clearly took place within the context of a Catholic church. I highlight the denominations for a very specific reason. Each denomination has miracle claims associated with them. There's nothing remotely unique about miracles found in the Catholic church, despite what various internet Catholic apologists on YouTube keep pushing for the past few years. Miracles and other supernatural phenomena are found all across the globe, associated with every religion, and associated with no particular religion. I find this quite interesting, and it's something that the YouTube Catholic apologists do not seem to be taking very seriously. Now, I mean, sure, they can dress up their arguments under the guise of sophisticated Bayesian analysis, and they can use philosophical jargon like symmetry breakers. They can release absurdly long videos, but a ridiculously long video only demonstrates that one does not know how to edit or be concise. Here is my point. There is currently a lot of chit chat about so-called vindicatory miracles that uniquely converge on the Catholic church. Miracles that are so powerful that the only rational thing to do is submit to the authority of the Catholic church. At least that's what the Catholic YouTubers are telling us. Miracles like Fatima, Zitone, and random blood appearing in eucharistic wine, they are so compelling that you should submit your reason to the Catholic church. But that eucharistic wine case? I don't know, it's kind of weird when you think about it. You know how the Catholic church teaches that the wine is miraculously turned into the metaphysical blood of Christ. You know how the Catholic church teaches that you cannot empirically detect physical blood in the eucharistic wine. So the official Catholic position is that you cannot empirically detect physical blood in the wine. Well, but apparently every now and then this Catholic teaching just goes right out the window because some real blood turned up in a wine glass. I would think that physical blood showing up in the eucharist, like that would be a perversion of Catholic teaching, but what do I know? I'm vaguely Protestant. Now according to some of these YouTube Catholic apologists, miracle claims like these they vindicate Catholic teaching to such an extent that Protestantism is obviously wrong. Personally, I find these internet apologists claims to be obviously overblown. It doesn't matter how much analytic philosophical vocabulary you throw in there. It's just overblown. I mean, is grandma be often points out just because you can put something in a syllogism? That doesn't make it right. And it most certainly does not mean that you should take it seriously. I mean, this is very important for you to know when you are considering the so-called arguments from vindicatory miracles. Just because someone can dress it up in a syllogism means very little. And it does not mean that you have to take it seriously. One of the themes of today's episode is that various real Catholic scholars do not take so-called vindicatory miracles seriously. So all of you listening, you should have a healthy dose of skepticism. Because let's be very clear about something here. These so-called vindicatory miracle claims, well, they're not miracle stories that your average Catholic scholar actually cares that much about. I mean, the stories of Fatima and Zeton, they don't really play an important role in Catholic theology at large. In fact, when you look at Joseph Ratzinger's theological commentary on the Fatima situation, this is how Ratzinger starts out. He says, quote, "A careful reading of the text of the so-called third secret of Fatima published here in its entirety long after the fact and by decision of the Holy Father will probably prove disappointing." Or surprising, after all the speculation it has stirred, "No great mystery is revealed, nor is the future unveiled." So that's Ratzinger. Now that's a really interesting introductory statement that's just telling the audience lower your expectations, like just right out the start, just lower your expectations. Ratzinger goes on to say that revelation was completed in Jesus Christ. And the entire commentary from Ratzinger, he keeps going back to that point. He keeps downplaying these so-called private revelations like Fatima and he keeps trying to emphasize the importance of Jesus Christ. Ratzinger's commentary just kind of riffs and just kind of like waffles back and forth, but it's really a nothing burger of a story. It basically says, "Yeah, I mean, if you like Fatima, you know, like Fatima, I don't care, but Jesus is the reason for the season." In other words, it doesn't change anything, and it does not give us any new information that the Catholic Church did not already know. Ratzinger's moderate tone throughout his commentary on Fatima. It's very different from the rhetoric you hear Catholic YouTube apologists use. If a former Pope cannot get too excited about Fatima, why should you? Now, again, I want to emphasize how little these so-called "vindicatory miracles" matter for real Catholic theology. If you want to get some insights into Catholic theology, I highly recommend the work of Gerald O'Collins. So Gerald O'Collins was a Jesuit theologian who spent many years teaching systematic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was kind of a big deal in Catholic theology until his recent passing. I went through a phase of reading loads of his theology books, and none of these alleged like "vindicatory miracles," they just didn't come up. Why? Because Gerald O'Collins was focused on what is actually important to Catholic teaching. So I find it really odd that these "vindicatory miracles" are the sole focus of a very niche brand of American YouTube Catholicism. The focus on these so-called "vindicatory miracles" is not representative of Catholicism at large, and at times the claims from these YouTube Catholic apologists, well, according to some of my Catholic friends who are actual scholars, they find some of these apologetic claims embarrassing. Let me give you an example of this. So in 2025, one YouTube Catholic apologist was going on and on about the Z-Tune apparition, he stated that the evidence for the Z-Tune apparition was greater than the evidence for the resurrection of Christ. The word blasphemy certainly came out of the mouths of various Catholic academics when they heard this claim. This obviously did not dissuade the recently converted apologists from carrying on with his bold assertion. Now, I'm going to come back to this point in the second act of this episode when I talk about the actual Catholic teachings about these alleged miracle stories. Now, at the moment, I want to emphasize that one should have a healthy dose of skepticism about the entire idea of Fatima or Z-Tune or just the entire idea of these uniquely vindicating Catholicism over other Christian nominations and over other religions. So why should you have a healthy dose of skepticism about this entire enterprise? Well, it's because there are lots of really weird phenomena, and there's lots of weird supernatural stories that we encounter all the time, and none of them really seem to push us in any particular religious direction. I mean, it's really obvious to me, and it's really obvious to lots of other academics, that these YouTube Catholic apologists are not treating other supernatural claims with the same level of pretend rigor that they apply to vindicatory Catholic miracles. And I think you can generalize this point. Most of us are not really moved by the majority of supernatural or miraculous claims that we hear. We do not give up our entire religious belief system in favor of another whenever we encounter supernatural claims. Why? Well, because most supernatural claims are somewhat ambiguous, the evidence is really not that great, or they don't really push us in any particular direction. Let me give you some examples of this. So you can just kind of start to think about the situation in a little bit more detail. So if you go back to 2022, I released an interview with Alexander Morera Almeda on the mind body problem, near-death experiences, mediums, and reincarnation. So Dr. Morera Almeda, so he's a psychiatrist in Brazil, and he's on like, he's not got a million different medical boards and research boards for this and that. He's done a lot of research and he's compiled a lot of evidence related to near-death experiences and memories of past lives. He has a book out now published by Springer Academic called Science of Life After Death. When I was preparing for that interview, I was reading through some different journal articles he had published and I was actually kind of taken aback by the evidence he had for reincarnation. Now to be honest, I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with it. There were a bunch of studies done in different western countries and Dr. Maria Almeida, and he's trying to replicate those studies in South America to see if he could get similar results. Basically, what these studies suggest is that some children have memories of past lives. Memories that they should not have, and memories that scientists and researchers they can actually kind of track down and connect to deceased people. If you want to hear the details, just go back and listen to that interview. Now, like I said, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this information. I mean, really, I have no clue what I'm supposed to do with that. If I accept it, I suppose I should convert to something like Hinduism because this is evidence for reincarnation. And the evidence for this is, well, it was a lot better than the slop that YouTube Catholic apologists are pushing. But after hearing the evidence, I did not convert to a religion that affirms reincarnation. Why? Because I am hit with stories of lots of weird stuff all the time, and none of that stuff leads me to submit my reason to some other authority. You people listening, all of you guys listening, a lot of you, you send me like really wild and interesting stories, stories about healings, conversions, and so on. And this isn't really new for me. Long before I started doing this show, people would tell me they're supernatural encounters. For whatever reason, people, they trust me with their stories, and I appreciate that. The stories that you guys tell me, that are people of tell me, they're all over the place. They do not support any one particular religion. They do not support any one particular denomination. Though many of them, they do point toward God in a general sense. This is a story that's very public. So I am not betraying any confidential stories that people have sent me. So I have heard the Protestant philosopher JP Moreland talk about his encounter with three angels. I'm guessing that some of you listening, you've probably heard Dr. Moreland talk about this as well. Because he's told the story many times in public settings. You can find a video of him talking about this on closer to truth. That's how public Moreland is about it. Now notice something I said though, Moreland is a Protestant. He's not a Catholic. This Protestant claims to have encountered three angels. Am I supposed to convert to Moreland's particular denomination after hearing this story? Will the Internet Catholic Apologist submit their reason to the authority of non-denominational evangelicalism after they hear this story? I mean, that seems doubtful. Because such encounters, they fit with all manner of different denominational and religious belief systems. The many different supernatural stories that I've heard over the years, they do not neatly converge on any one religion, nor on any particular denomination. And when I reflect on my own personal encounters with these things, that I could only describe as supernatural, these also do not support any one particular religion or denomination. So for instance, I have personally had some prayers answered in remarkable ways. And this helped me trust in God. But nothing about the encounter made me think, oh man, I should really become a Methodist after this. And then some of you, you probably remember my Halloween episode where I was telling you about my weird encounter with a ghost. I mean, that entire experience, it was just straight out of a horror film. And I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with that. I mean, do I believe in ghosts now? I don't know. I don't think so, but I guess I'm supposed to, because the encounter certainly did out make me believe other ghost stories that I've heard. I mean, I remain incredibly skeptical of those stories, despite my own weird encounter. I mean, basically all I can say is that I had a weird thing happen and the experience does not neatly fit with any particular religion. And it certainly doesn't comfortably fit with my own theology. So I don't know what you want from me. Here's the thing. Every religion, every denomination has miracle claims or supernatural claims associated with them. It is common across human history and across the globe, and our access to useful evidence about such miracle claims and supernatural claims is more often than not quite limited. So limited, that we often find ourselves uncertain what inferences we should rationally draw. I'm extremely skeptical that the YouTube Catholic apologists have done their holy homework to investigate all of these other miraculous claims in order to come to the conclusion that the only credible miracle claims uniquely converge on the Catholic Church. I mean, that is a very strong claim from these Catholic YouTubers. These claims are so strong that I think it discredits the entire enterprise. I don't think some people are realizing just how wildly strong these claims are. I mean, it's really good clickbait, but these claims, they actually, they often go against official Catholic positions. Okay, so to start, it is just a wildly strong assertion that ignores the very real possibility that miracle claims could be used to grab political power, or they could be the product of demonic activity. So let's talk about both possibilities, just real quick here. So Thomas Aquinas going back to Little Tommy. So he caution about this by pointing out that some miracle claims could be the product of demons. So Aquinas says that demons could perform seemingly miraculous actions in order to draw people away from Christ. In Aquinas, he gives some examples of this, one of which is the Pharaoh's magicians in the Old Testament. Now in the current chitchat about vindictory Catholic miracles, various Protestants, they've brought up this point about the possibility of demonic activity. Some even pointing out that the phautoma apparitions, this ghostly figure is calling people to submit to Mary instead of submitting to Christ. Like that's one of the talking points various Protestants are bringing up at the moment. Ask yourself a really important question. Do you think that the YouTube Catholic apologists have taken the possibility of demonic activity seriously enough? Let me clarify this question, I am not asking if you think they have mentioned this possibility in their insanely long videos. I am not asking if they present this possibility in a Bayesian calculus in their slideshow. I am asking if you think they have actually seriously considered this possibility instead of just jumping to draw conclusions that your average Catholic scholars unable to go along with. In fact, it is a conclusion that official Catholic teaching is unable to go along with. I am going to come back to that in a bit because again, I think it undermines the entire idea of an argument from so-called vindictory Catholic miracles. Now, if you doubt the existence of demons, that's fine, I don't care. You can also consider the case of miracle claims being used to grab political power. This was a pervasive phenomenon in church history. This is a major theme throughout the entire history of the church. I mean, my goodness, here's a case in point. I had to lead a church history tutorial at St. Andrews during my PhD. The first reading for the class was a story about St. Columba fighting the Loch Ness monster. You heard me right. St. Columba fought the Loch Ness monster. Now, there are a lot of different miracle claims associated with St. Columba, but one of them is that he went up north to the Highlands and was fighting off Nessie. Now, do any of you -- do any of you listening actually believe this happened? I'm guessing you do not believe this. None of my students did either, nor do the historians who write about it. The case of St. Columba, it's a great example of political power. As historians will often tell you, when you are looking at the stories of saints, you are looking at stories of political power. The more miracle claims you have for your local saint, the more power your church or your town can get, the more pilgrims you can attract and the more money you can make. It's called religious marketing. And for those of you who don't know this, St. Andrews, the entire town, it's built as a pilgrimage site. So the entire town is built to have one street that leads you to the pilgrimage site, and then another street that leads you out of the town. So historically, Catholic miracle claims they've been a huge source of political power and financial gain. The Catholic church is actually really aware of this fact, and the Catholic church officially cautions people about this fact. Do you really think that the American Catholic YouTube apologists have taken this consideration seriously when they boldly proclaim vindicatory miracles that uniquely converge on Catholicism? Do you think they did that? A 12-hour long YouTube video is not evidence of taking this possibility seriously. And instead, it might just be evidence of religious marketing. I have my doubts, and I am not seeing anything from the YouTube apologist over the past few years to convince me otherwise. Instead, what I see are grabs at power, fame, and money over the past few years that conflict with actual Catholic teaching and practice. Alright, let's carry on here. So these so-called vindicatory miracles are claims that Catholic scholars themselves cast doubt on. In fact, it is a claim that seems to go against actual Catholic teaching. This brings me to a recent sub-stack article by Dr. Tracy Trasankos. So Dr. Trasankos has a PhD in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University and a master's in dogmatic theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary. She's currently a professor at Holy Apostles teaching courses in science and Catholic theology. So she's got the sub-stack called "God and Elements." You get it? Because it's chemistry, but it's also the elements of the faith. It's cute. I like it. So, on September 1st. Almost 2026, she published an essay called "A Caution for the Argument from Miracles." Caution. I want to go through parts of this essay. I think it will help you see the great divide that exists between actual Catholic teaching and scholarship on the one hand and the YouTube Catholic Apologist on the other hand. So here is how Dr. Trasankos starts out her essay. So she says, quote, "For context to new readers, I have been critical of the scientific investigations of the Buenos Aires and Lassiano Eucharistic Miracle Cases since 2020." And then she links to a series of articles she's written on this. She carries on saying, "I left the debates in January to work on a philosophy dissertation and focus on administrative work at a Catholic liberal arts college. My last post was on the 2024 norms for discerning alleged supernatural phenomena promulgated by the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith, and approved and put into effect by Pope Francis thesis." I'll just call them the norms from here on. They relate directly to the Miracle dialogue, but they are being ignored by the Miracle Apologists. Whew. Okay. So to be clear, Dr. Trasankos, she's referring to official Catholic statements on how Catholics should approach supernatural claims. And she's saying that the official Catholic teachings are being ignored by Miracle Apologists. So she goes on to say that she wants to make an ecclesiastical clarification on some of these issues. And all of this was prompted by her seeing the online discussion about so-called "vindicatory miracles." The discussion about vindicatory Catholic miracles just didn't sit well with her because she has actually put a lot of thought into these in the past because she's a devout Catholic scholar. So here's another thing she says, quote, "The conversation wave is now treating alleged supernatural phenomena is if they are public revelation binding on Catholics." Those who watch this conversion play out in public may now feel obligated by Catholic teaching to accept apparitions, eucharistic miracle narratives, stigmatic claims, mystic messages, and so on, as true. But the norms were implemented to safeguard the faithful from this very confusion. Okay. So just pause right there. I mean, this is really important. She is saying that the Catholic Church developed official teachings to avoid the exact confusion that YouTube apologist are currently creating. Hmm. Okay. Well, let's go deeper. So she says that--she says this official Catholic norms regarding alleged supernatural events. Here's what she says about them. She writes, "Prefect Victor Manuel Cardinal Fernandez explains a new aspect of the norms. As a rule, these potential conclusions do not include the possibility of declaring that the phenomena under discernment is of supernatural origin. That is, affirming with moral certainty that it originates from a decision willed by God in a direct way." Okay. So I really want you to catch what she's saying here. The official norms of the Catholic Church say that the Church cannot declare the alleged post-biblical phenomena to be of supernatural origin. That's what the norms say. That is a much more cautious approach from the Catholic Church than what we see in these Catholic YouTube apologists. I mean, this should be caused for you to doubt this over-the-top confidence that the Catholic apologists have, because they're really going against, like, actual Catholic views. Anyway, Stacey goes on, she says, "In the past, some bishops wanted to declare an event supernatural, but then the successor would reverse the decision, leaving the faithful confused. The strongest status the norms now grant is Nehill Obstat, Latin for "nothing stands in the way." Okay. Like, this is interesting. There's something here that Dr. Trasankos understands that a lot of YouTube apologists do not understand. Trasankos understands something that most Catholic scholars do, but that most Gen Z who are flirting with Catholicism do not understand. Here it is. So I've worked with a lot of Catholic scholars across Europe. They understand very clearly that the Catholic Church is not just a religious organization. It is also a political organization. Vatican City is the world's smallest nation state. It's a political animal, and Catholic leaders, within the church, well, they disagree on all sorts of stuff. I have personally been in the room when a group of Catholic scholars were discussing the formal complaint they were making against Pope Francis. They were writing an official complaint in Latin, because that's the official language of this nation state. They were writing an official complaint against Pope Francis. And this sort of thing happens all the time. New leaders take over, and they undo the policies of the previous leaders, then the next group takes over, and that sets a different course for the Catholic Church. That's just how things go in Catholicism, and that's just how things go in politics at large. Here is why this is so important. This is why I'm belaboring this point. Since my late 20s, I have heard people ask me why I am relying on my own reason instead of submitting to the authority of the Catholic Church. And you, I mean, some of you listening, you've definitely heard this phrase before from Catholic apologists. And some of you have heard YouTube Catholic apologists use this rhetoric against me instead of addressing my arguments against classical theism. They mock me for relying on my own reason, and just pretending as if I can just read the Bible for myself because, you know, I learned English and I not read the Bible. What they do is they mock me for relying on my own reason instead of just submitting to the authority of the church and submitting to the great tradition. And here is what is so utterly ridiculous about this rhetoric from the Catholic apologists. It does not remotely reflect actual Catholic practice. Catholic scholars and leaders, they disagree on all sorts of stuff, and they use their own private reason to try to persuade others to their side. They write formal complaints against the Pope instead of blindly following. They create political factions to remove various people from positions of power. They create political factions to put various people in positions of power. They do not live in a perpetual state of submitting their reason to Catholic authorities. They only submit to the Catholic authorities when they are forced to. So there's a big divide here between the YouTube Catholicism and the actual Catholicism on the ground. Anyway, let's get back to Dr. Tressonco's article. She is making a point about this category of Nehill Obstet, which again means nothing stands in the way. Here's what that means. The norms of the Catholic Church say that they cannot declare a particular post-biblical event to be of supernatural origin. However, the norms of the Catholic Church also say that nothing stands in the way of you personally believing that the post-biblical event is of supernatural origin. You are free to believe whatever you want as a Catholic on this point, like on this regard. So Dr. Tressonco says that this is the official Catholic position. Here's another quote from her. She goes on to say, "The Church grants permission to explore these proposed supernatural events, but with conditions to safeguard the faith and the faithful. If you personally judge cases like Fatima, Lord's Eucharistic Miracles, or St. Padre Pio's Stigmata to be miraculous and compelling, the Church acknowledges that the Holy Spirit may be acting in the midst of an experience for you and grants permission for you to explore these wonders as a personal devotion. Nothing stands in the way." What she does here is she cites a verbum, Dominic 14, and she's also citing the congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, as well as citing the message of Fatima from June 2000, which is the commentary from Ratsinger that I quoted earlier. So she then goes on to say, "Even when stronger rulings were made about the supernatural origin, they were never understood as adding to the deposit of faith." Okay, now again, I want you to see how cautious the official Catholic teaching is compared to the claims that the YouTube apologist have been making over the past few years. For me, there's something way more rational, way more cautious, way more moderate about actual Catholic teaching than what these Catholic YouTubers are selling us. Now, Stacey says there is another reason why these post-biblical miraculous claims were never obligatory for Catholics to believe. So here's another quote from her. She says, "The norms say not to value the supernatural phenomena more than the gospel or deposit of faith, and not to coerce or manipulate others who freely hold different opinions. They advise bishops and delegates investigating the claims to consider whether they will be used for personal gain, religious marketing, false certainty, manipulation, or a sectarian spirit that causes division." Hmm? That's it. That's a really interesting claim here, I really like this quote. I think that these safeguards from the Catholic Church, I think these are really wise. I mean, can you imagine a Catholic YouTube apologist saying that Zetun has stronger evidence than the resurrection of Jesus? I mean, can you imagine a Catholic YouTube apologist saying that in order to get a bunch of money or manipulate people away from Protestantism? I mean, that kind of false certainty is designed to create sectarian division among Christians. The official Catholic teaching is meant to safeguard against that kind of behavior. So if any of you listening, if you're flirting with Catholicism because of what some YouTubers are saying, I think it is very important that you instead consider actual Catholic teaching and not some niche brand of American YouTube Catholicism. I also really like this point about religious marketing. Dr. Tressonco understands something that a lot of people do not. There is such a thing as religious marketing. You see, when celebrities announce these big conversion stories, they actually converted quite a while ago. They just didn't immediately make the announcement. Instead, they got together with various YouTube channels, TV shows, radio shows, all this. They got together with all these other groups to create a huge, well planned out media campaign. Often these media campaigns are planned out months in advance with videos being recorded well in advance, ready to launch at the scheduled time. Apparently, Dr. Tressonco thinks that the Catholic Church's official teaching is meant to safeguard against that kind of religious marketing. And perhaps we should also be on a watch out for that sort of thing too. Anyway, Stacy goes on to say more about the significance of the Nehill Obstat norms. So here's another quote. A Nehill Obstat is pastoral because the freedom to explore can be meaningful. I think the Church's wisdom is a strong argument itself for being Catholic. The Church honors our intellectual freedom and provides clear boundaries. Dogmas and doctrines are carefully articulated for the sake of our salvation and the development of doctrine forms a continuum from the time of Christ. The Church's stability and endurance is itself a true motive of credibility. Now, hang on a second. I think I actually just lost a lot of respect for Dr. Tressonco's here. The YouTube Catholic Apologist, they keep telling me that I need to stop using my personal reason and instead just submit to the authority of the Catholic Church. But now, Dr. Tressonco's, she's telling me that the actual Catholic position is that I should use my God-given gift of reason and intellectual freedom. I don't know. Someone is selling me a load of nonsense and I just can't figure out who it is. All right, let's get back to Stacy's article. She does not like the term vindicatory Catholic miracle. She doesn't like it at all. Why would a real Catholic scholar not like that term? Well, here's what she has to say on it. Quote, the current apologetic definition of vindicatory miracle is that it is a sign that evidences intent to authenticate a specifically Catholic doctrine. The phrase suggests a kind of doctrinal authentication that the Church does not apply to post-apostolic phenomena. Woo! So when Stacy does in this article, she points out that Vatican I and the Catechism say that the miracles and the prophecies contained in the Bible, those are obligatory for Catholics to believe. These biblical events are the real motives of credibility. Anything after the death of the last apostle is not included in that category. And then she goes on to talk about the different categories of miracles within Catholic teaching. So for example, in order for someone to become, like, beatified, or you don't want to take a step up and be declared as a saint, they need to have confirmed miracles associated with them. Now, Dr. Trasankos, she points out that the miracles associated with saints are not part of the deposit of faith, which means they are not obligatory for people to believe, and they are not essential to the gospel. The Nehil Obstat Norms for the Catholic Church, that she's been talking about, they are meant to address other alleged supernatural phenomena. She says, "These include phenomena, such as stigmata, bi-location, prophecy, locations, and they include apparitions." A Nehil Obstat for a canonization does not authenticate associated lifetime phenomena of the saint. In 2000, the then-prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, gave a lengthy theological commentary about private revelation in the message of Fatima, and explained a ruling that there is nothing contrary to the faith is not a ruling that everyone must believe the event. Popular, eucharistic phenomena files belong in this category, as well as other private revelations, such as personal affirmations or consolations. Okay, so notice what she quotes from Ratzinger about Fatima. So the claim from Ratzinger is that the Fatima encounter is not contrary to Catholic teaching. However, Fatima is not something that every Catholic must believe. Notice how cautious, like this is really cautious, that claim is Fatima does not contradict Catholic teaching. Okay, well, that's incredibly different from what these YouTube apologists are saying. The Catholic YouTubers are saying that Fatima uniquely vindicates Catholicism. And so ask yourself this question, who do you want to trust on this matter? A former Pope or Catholic YouTubers? And then also, given how cautious Papa Ratzinger is being, I'm curious if these YouTubers are really submitting their reason to the authority of the Catholic Church when they run the argument from vindicatory miracles. Okay, let's get back to Dr. Tressonco's article. So like I was reading from her before, she says she's really skeptical of the validity of some of these miracle claims, but she wishes to make a cautionary point about the way that the apologists are using these so-called vindicatory miracles. She says, "But to imply that a ledged supernatural phenomena are, A, proven true, B, load bearing for conversion, and C, binding on all Catholics, is to at best overstate the case, and at worst to commit the misuses and abuses the norms worn against." Fantastical videos about demolishing every objection to Eucharistic miracles, or how Eucharistic miracles prove Catholicism true, are misaligned with the language of the church. Woo, man, man. She's just coming out swinging. So Catholic YouTubers are misaligned with the language of the church, but they demand that Protestants submit to the authority of the Holy Roman church. That's quite the pickle. So Stacey carries on. She says, "I have written extensively about some serious concerns I have regarding the handling of scientific data for Buenos Aires and Laciono. I find the data inconclusive, and I question why better data was not offered to support such extraordinary claims. I got involved because my bishop asked me to examine the investigations and prepare talks, and then I was invited to co-author a book on the Eucharist as a scientist. Both my bishop and the Catholic publisher allowed me the legitimate freedom of exploration related to these alleged supernatural phenomena. These two Eucharistic claims are not helps to me in drawing closer to Christ. This sensationalism surrounding them is troubling. They are used far too often for personal gain, religious marketing, false certainty, manipulation, or a sectarian spirit that causes division. Apologists and other authors who have invested their careers on Eucharistic miracles go so far as to say that questioning the scientific data is equivalent to apostasy." Woo, man. Okay, I mean, again, she's just coming out swinging, but she's not done yet. She carries on. She says, "In 2021, I called for improved protocols for investigating Eucharistic phenomena, and I will never know if that had any impact. But this is also not my life's work, which is another reason why I just had to let it go. Because of my training in analytical chemistry, I could not, in good conscience, repeat narratives that I discern were misleading exaggerations that promote men more than Christ. I said what I needed to say, and as you might surmise, it was not popular." Man, chill, Stacey, woo, goodness. Okay, this is the situation. A real Catholic scholar is saying that she was given the intellectual freedom to investigate these alleged supernatural claims. She was not impressed with the evidence at all. She thinks that certain Catholic apologists are using these weak supernatural claims to manipulate people, engage in religious marketing for personal gain, and that they are promoting a personality cult instead of Jesus Christ. Now, I'm really tempted to shout out a man right now, but I am not from a charismatic denomination, so I'm just gonna refrain. I'm just gonna refrain over here. Let me just leave you with a closing thought. So over the past two years, we have witnessed new converts to Catholicism immediately take up positions as self-proclaimed thought leaders in the Catholic church. This is something that biblical wisdom cautions against. The Apostle Paul waited three years before launching into the Christian ministry that he did, because he wanted to make sure he really understood the gospel first. I do not see that same biblical wisdom being promoted in the Catholic YouTube apologetics community. Instead, we have witnessed Catholic YouTubers push weak miracle claims as definitive proof for Catholicism, which is something that the Catholic teaching cautions against. So as you contemplate the so-called vindictory Catholic miracles that are being debated online, I want you to just take a breath, take a step back from all the slogans, take a step back from all of the pretend arguments, and consider actual Catholic teaching. Most of the Catholic scholars that I work with, they have a mere Christianity approach to things. And I find it very peculiar that the YouTube Catholic apologists, they are not taking this same stand at the moment. It makes me wonder where their real priorities are, and if any of this current discussion helps us grasp real biblical wisdom. And there you have it, another episode of the Reluctant Theologian podcast. Stay tuned for more episodes on philosophical theology. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)