Only
Three Seers in
Motivational
speaker Immaculée Ilibagiza
is making a speaking tour of
Immaculée survived for a period of 91
days, in a small bathroom just a few feet wide,
with seven other women. Yet in spite of her horrible ordeal, she
preaches very powerfully the message of Christian forgiveness. I am
sure we would all agree, that in a world with so much hatred and violence, this
message is rarely heard, and certainly needs to be more frequently done.
Immaculée has written three books, Left to
Tell (which documents her ordeal); Led by Faith, and Our Lady of Kibeho, the
latter which speaks about apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in this town,
several years before the terrible events happened.
It is the latter where there are
legitimate concerns.
Several
young women (Alphonsine, Anathalie & Marie Claire) who were attending a Catholic
girls school in Kibeho, claimed apparitions of Mary between 1981 and
1989. Alphonsine is now a cloistered nun
in the
This
town witnessed one of the worst massacres in the Rwandan genocide on April 22,
1995, with the deaths of 4,000 people by the Rwandan military, which
interestingly was witnessed by Australian soldiers who were part of a UN
peacekeeping effort! The school the girls went too,
was the epicentre of the murders.
One
of the visions the girls received in 1982 was of "
a river of blood, people were killing each other, abandoned corpses with no one
to bury them, a tree all in flames, bodies without their heads". How true this proved to be! (I
remember reading this before the events happened).
But
eventually, a whole lot of people in the village claimed apparitions, and when
the Church started investigating this, as many as a dozen people were
interviewed having claimed these extraordinary events.
After
many years of investigation, Bishop Augustin Misago of the diocese of Gikongoro
approved the Kibeho apparitions on June 29, 2001 and the pastoral letter was
published in the
However,
he only approved the visions that were received by the three girls at the
Catholic girls school as mentioned above, and only
visions of Mary.
None
of the claimed visitations of Jesus Christ in the town, or any other people who
claimed visions received any approval.
Only Alphonsine, Anathalie & Marie Claire are approved by the Church, as
authentic.
However,
in her book and in her talks, Immaculée does not make
these distinctions, and talks about the alleged seers, as if they were all
true. Regularly at her talks, she has with her one of
the unapproved Kibeho seer's by the name of Valentina,
who now lives in
However,
I did telephone him and he has told me the following things:
"Immaculée Ilibagize conducts her own independent program.
What she says about the unapproved seers of Kibeho is not true. She
endorses false seers, not approved of by me, and she does not speak on behalf
of the Catholic Church, or with it's
approval. "
I
wanted to get something from the bishop in writing, that
I could circulate, but because of the problems mentioned above, this has
not been possible. However I am happy to pass on his
telephone number, which is publicly accessible. (250-252-535-079)
Bishop
Misago spent a year in prison himself, falsely
accused of complicity in the Rwandan massacres, but was found not guilty of all
charges by a court in 2000.
I
hope Immaculée will be
able to motivate people about the things in life that are really important, and
I support in the main what she is trying to do. However, in justice
it is important to let others know what the bishop has officially
declared.
God
bless
Andrew