Dear Rick,

I want you to know that I have read just about everything in your online newsletter. It is now nearly 2:30 a.m. I have been reading all evening and into these morning hours.

As I said, what's on your site is shocking. But you have built a very strong case, from FACTS not feelings", that by far the majority of the apparitions everyone is talking about these days are either fraudulent or demonic. I am VERY impressed. Very FAVORABLY impressed.

I have wondered about Medjugorje for a very long time (I knew nothing of the financial scandals or sexual improprieties), and the reason I had been uncomfortable with Medjugorje were chiefly 2 reasons:
1) "Mary's" alleged promotion of POEM OF THE MAN GOD.
2) Mary saying something to the effect that all religions are equal.

Let me share part of my story with you. I was raised for the first 27 years of my life as a Jehovah's Witness. I wasn't baptized, but my dad (especially my dad) and my mom were studying with them. My dad really took a shine to The Watchtower, and though he never got baptized, he was convinced their views were right, so I was dragged to the Kingdom Hall kicking and screaming. I never liked the religion (well, some things I liked, they seemed very nice in their own way, didn't appear to be immoral or theft-minded, seemed really devoted to God) because it nit-picked against things I liked, like Christmas. Thus, I grew up in a deep seated attitude of resentment and rebellion. If God was as nit-picky as the JW religion, then in my heart, I did not LIKE God very much, and so I always felt condemned interiorly. Finally, by the time I was 21, my conscience and guilt feelings reached the breaking point. I had a religious experience of sorts, and converted completely to the JW sect. VERY soon thereafter, however, I collapsed into a form of Major Depression which, in hindsight, I regard as having been a form of demonic oppression. This was right after I converted, but before I was baptized as a JW.

I got baptized, finally, even though my depression made me believe I had committed at some point in my life the sin described at Matthew 12:31, 32. I got baptized because I had been told that you "feel better" after you get baptized. Well, I didn't. And that made me even worse. I stopped trying to live my JW religion and became very indulgent of the flesh. When I went to confess this, I was excommunicated from the sect. 1983. I still believed everything they taught, however, for several more years. I would get LIVID when I heard the sect criticized. I made a new best friend and he is Greek Orthodox, and I tried to share Watchtowerism with him. I'd get madder than burning hell when he would say that JWs were a heresy. I'd fire back at him that his church was part of Babylon the Great Harlot of Revelation 17 (which is what I believed at the time).

Well, after reading (out of curiosity) Raymond Franz' CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE which exposed the workings of the JW top-bananas in Brooklyn, I felt free to at least investigate other things. But I liked a conservative-looking church, so against my conscience, I got involved with the Mormons for a few months and joined them, again, against my conscience (at the time, I was so confused that I figured, something is better than nothing). However, my conscience was beating the daylights out of me because of the Mormon teaching that God the FATHER was the PHYSICAL father of Jesus in Mary's womb. That made me sick. I suppressed the revulsion for a little while, but finally I wrote a letter to the local Mormon bishop and to Salt Lake City, renouncing the organization.

After that, I read a LOT more anti-JW material by Protestants and discovered that the early church fathers whom they quoted, LONG PRIOR to Constantine, believed in the Deity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. I never knew that teaching was PRE-Nicea. I had always believed that it was a pagan apostate teaching forced onto the church at Nicea or after. This blew me away. Suffice it to say, I accepted the Trinity as true, and started attending a Presbyterian church near my home. The worship services were lovely and dignified. But the parent-denominations' Pro-"CHOICE" stand (my congregation was not), had my conscience bothering me again. Anyway, the fathers for some reason fascinated me (that reason of course was GRACE). SO, I got out my volumes of Justin and Irenaeus, etc., which we had bought (my sister was reading them too), and started reading these guys. Justin and Irenaeus held what we now call "Chiliasm", but on every other BASIC teaching, these men definitely did not sound "evangelical Protestant" to me.
I thought, Good Lord, these guys sound like CATHOLICS. I started wanting to know more about Catholicism.

I started reading LUMEN GENTIUM, from Vatican 2, and tears were in my eyes. I was saying, this sounds perfectly TRUE. Frankly, after reading LUMEN GENTIUM and the fathers, I started WANTING to become Catholic. Started taking RCIA. mid 1991. STOPPED late 1991 when our priest was called away by his order (I should not have stopped, but that's another matter). Saw the video CHILDREN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN. It was a documentary of World Youth Day 1989 COUPLED WITH clips of pilgrimages to Medjugorje. I thought this all seemed so WONDERFUL. Vicka the seer seemed like such a joyous and sweet individual. Within a few short months, I found that the seers said that Mary said all religions are the same. THAT hit me like a BOLT out of the blue.

Then, through a Catholic friend at work who was in love with Medjugorje, I learned that "MARY" was promoting the POEM OF THE MAN GOD. Now, I had already heard that the Vatican strongly disapproved of that book, saying it was heretical. MARY, however, was ENDORSING it. And, I was hearing from the Medjugorje crowd, John Paul was SUPPOSEDLY going around saying things like, “IF I were not POPE, I would already BE in Medjugorje! I WOULD !”

I thought, what in the HELL (excuse me) is going on here ?! ( Remember, Rick, I was new to all this Catholicism, and still vulnerable to my old cult religion's 27 years of thought-patterns Re-asserting themselves.)

I had always been taught that the Catholic church was demonic. The Mother of All Harlots and Abominations of the Earth (revelation 17). I had only recently begun to love the Catholic faith. And along comes THIS (coupled with other issues like apostate clerics, communists in priests clothing that I had read about, etc.) Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, whom even the POPE (supposedly) approved of, saying things like READ THE POEM OF THE MAN GOD! and ALL RELIGIONS are EQUAL in GOD'S EYES. My old "Babylon the Great" paranoias began to reassert themselves with a vengeance. I backed away from the Catholic church and turned against it again. Yet not completely, but I definitely didn't believe it was God's one true church. Our Lady of Medjugorje's alleged messages had a LOT to do with the confusion that led to my decision. Anyway. I finally made up my mind, and I won't go into all the reasons it would take me years to list them, made up my mind late last year that, come hell or high water, I was going to become Catholic, no matter what. I DIDN'T believe in Protestantism's teachings anymore. So I said to God,

"Lord, YOU started the Catholic Church. I can't help it if it's in a mess, it's mess is bigger than me. I believe in YOU, I don't believe in private interpretation of the bible, so I want to become Catholic after all."

The fact is, only the basic teachings of Catholicism go back to apostolic times. That, to me, proves it's the true church, regardless of it's sometimes sordid problems. I was received Easter Vigil 1999.

But until tonight, my confusions about all this were still there, I had just swept them all under the mental rug and been received into the church. I had over the years bought Michael Brown's books. And Ted Flynn's books. And the book about Christina Gallagher. While Gallagher, from the book about her at least, seemed like a sweet enough individual (your site has indicated otherwise and thank you), I was really floored by her visions. Even WORSE was I confused by the hodgepodge of stuff in Brown's and Flynn's books. If I had taken all those weird prophecies seriously (as they certainly seem to), I believe I would have a nervous breakdown and become completely schizophrenic.

I had been begging St. Philomena to help me get the Grace to take away a lot of my confusion. Things that were GNAWING deeply at my mind. I have been to a couple of Marian Conferences over the years. I enjoy most of the programs, but the literature is heavily pro-Medjugorje. And, in some of the flyers, it is asserted by the local (Medjugorjian) CENTER FOR PEACE that you better not take a chance on outraging God by even SUSPECTING that Medjugorje may not be real or may be of the devil. The pamphlet writer then solemnly warns the reader that to suggest that Mary's apparitions are a work of the devil is to commit the "Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit" found in Matthew 12:31 and 32. This is pure intimidation. I KNOW what blasphemy against the spirit is, it is not a particular ACT of sin, however heinous and diabolical, but the persistent condition of the HEART which motivates the sin. THAT is the teaching of the church as to what that sin is. Yet the author of the pamphlet invokes the danger of the Unpardonable Sin as a warning to people who don't believe in Medjugorje. THAT bothered me, too.

Rick, your articles have helped me to start putting together the bigger picture here. A lot of my confusion need not have happened. I think the multitude of various recent "apparition" movements are EXTREMELY confusing to the Faith of Catholics, that is, if they CARE about God's doctrines. I was upset when I first started reading this website. You sounded arrogant to me. Well, several hours later, and lots of articles later, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for having helped open my eyes.

God bless you for it,


A concerned believer