Visions and messages - necessary belief?

The Catholic Church views Marian apparitions and messages as “private revelation” and even when it officially recognizes them, does not consider them part of the deposit of faith or as adding to what has already been revealed in Christ.

Still, the Church teaches in the Catechism of the Catholic Church #67 that they can help Catholics to live more fully by Christ’s revelation at certain periods in history. The Catechism even speaks of discerning and welcoming in such revelations “whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church.”

Father Johann Roten, of the International Marian Research Institute at the University of Dayton, said although private revelations are ancillary to one’s faith, he believes it is important that theologians treat them more positively.
“Quite a few priests and theologically interested people draw the line and for them the line is absolute: ‘That is private revelation and that is not what I’m looking at.’ It’s a mistake because if you look at the world, the Church, the people, they will react to an apparition much more frequently than to theological interpretation of the [scriptures].” Because of that and because certain aspects of revelation can be recognized in apparitions, he said, “we should take them seriously and explain them, and not simply refuse them.”

Author Mark Mallett, who writes on apparitions and other forms of private revelation, added: “There is a faulty notion among many Catholics that, because everything has been revealed that is necessary for our salvation, we don’t need to listen to private revelation. However, this is a half-truth at best. Pope Benedict XIV taught: ‘One may, without injury to the Catholic faith, give no heed to these revelations and differ from them, provided he does so modestly, not without reason, and without contempt.’ In other words, there has to be a good reason to outright ignore prophecy. Can anything God say be unimportant?”

Mallett said St. Paul in one of his letters to the Thessalonians also says, “Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good.”

“While we are most certainly not required to read the thousands of pages of prophetic revelations that have been transmitted to the Church over the centuries, when we are presented with something relevant, we ought not despise it; we should listen, test its orthodoxy, consider its message.”