Veronica Lueken

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Veronica Lueken (July 12, 1923 - August 3, 1995) was a Roman Catholic housewife who lived in Bayside, New York. From 1970 until her death, she reported to experience apparitions of the Virgin Mary and numerous Catholic saints. She gave messages from them at both Saint Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church in Bayside, and at the Vatican Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Park (site of the 1964 New York World's Fair).

Bishop Francis Mugavero, then Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, stated in 1986 that "a thorough investigation revealed that the alleged visions of Bayside completely lacked authenticity" and that "the messages and other related propaganda contain statements which, among other things, are contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church." [1]

Contents

[edit] History of the Bayside Marian Apparition

In 1968, Lueken (pronounced LEW-KEN) reported experiencing her first manifestation when she smelled a perfume of roses in her car while praying for the dying Robert Kennedy in June 1968. She claimed that Saint Theresa of Lisieux appeared to her and dictated sacred poem-messages.

Mrs. Lueken reported her first Marian vision in her home on April 7, 1970. The Virgin Mary was reportedly informing her that she would appear on the grounds of the old St. Robert Bellarmine Church in Bayside on June 18, 1970, and subsequently, on all great feast days of the Catholic Church. From that day, Mrs. Lueken reported a series of Marian apparitions on the property of St Robert Bellarmine's Roman Catholic Church at Bayside. According to her report, Mary asked her to establish a Marian shrine at the site on April 7, 1970, and to hold Rosary Vigils of reparation and also Sunday holy hours of reparation for the Pope and priests. Mrs. Lueken began to type up and circulate her prophecies, many of which had apocalyptic content.

Overwhelmed by the influx of an estimated five hundred to two thousand Marian devotees, the parish ministers fenced off the church precincts in Decenmber 1974. In 1975, Monsignor James King, Chancellor of the Brooklyn Diocese, announced that the diocese did not believe in Veronica's apparitions.

Meanwhile, Lueken elaborated on her reported visions. Apart from the Virgin Mary and the aforementioned Saint Therese of Lisieux, she also said she received visitations from Saint Joseph, Saint Paul, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bernadette Soubrious and Saint Robert Bellarmine, amongst others. The Archangel Michael and the Archangel Gabriel were also said to have appeared to her.

One characteristic in support of Mrs. Lueken's testimony was that of ecstasy, a high state of prayer and contemplation experienced by many saints in the Church. Most of the public apparitions occurred during the Rosary Vigils. During these Vigils Mrs. Lueken would fall into ecstasy where she would then see the Virgin Mary and other heavenly personages. Her exterior modesty and expression would take on characteristics reflecting ecstasy (which was witnessed countless times by devotees in her presence). Her eyes would never blink during the time of ecstasy. She would describe the vision given her and repeat what she heard. Almost all of the ecstasies were recorded live on audio tape in the presence of hundreds of pilgrims. From March 1989 until Veronica's death in 1995, Mr. Michael Mangan (see below) was privileged to hold the microphone and audio record all of Veronica's ecstasies in her presence during the Rosary Vigils at the sacred grounds. To hear these actual audio recordings or read these transcriptions, go to: http://www.smwa.org/Message/Text/Index__The_Message_from_Heaven.htm

To see photos of Mrs. Lueken in ecstasy, click: http://www.smwa.org/Veronica_of_the_Cross/VTC_photos/Index_Years_Photos_of_VTC.htm

Undeterred by official church rejection, Lueken and her followers then assembled on a traffic island near the site of the alleged visitation (1974/75), until they negotiated a permanent site of worship at Flushing Meadows, former site of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. The Rosary Vigils and Holy Hours continue here till this day. To see pictures of these prayer services, click: http://www.smwa.org/Vigil_Information/Photo_Index_Shrine/Index_Photos_from_Vigils_Holy_Hours.htm

She and her fellow believers established Our Lady of the Roses Shrine, which survived her death in 1995. At the apex of this organization were Veronica Lueken (President) and her husband, Arthur (Vice President), Mrs. Ann Ferguson (Secretary), and Miss Maurine Ferguson and Mr. Michael Mangan (board members). Accompanying them, a Lay Order of Saint Michael existed to organize prayer vigils and assist the increasingly infirm and aging Lueken in administrative responsibilities associated with corresponding with like-minded Catholics in the United States and elsewhere. Since Lueken described her experiences, other unrecognized Marian apparitions have occurred in Lubbock, Texas (1988-1989) and Conyers, Georgia (1989), and have incorporated similar apocalyptic motifs in their messages.

At some point, Mrs. Lueken predicted, the authenticity of her visions would be recognized, and there would be a basilica church built on the site of her first visions at Bayside, as well as the appearance of a healing spring, and the area would become the venue of a national Marian shrine in the United States.

[edit] Status of the Bayside Apparitions

According to various Catholic sources, the Bayside visitations do not fulfill criteria that would qualify the alleged events as legitimate Marian apparitions and so are unrecognized. Skeptics and detractors maintain that such visitations are supposed to remain private visitations without publicity.[citation needed] and no Marian apparition from Our Lady of the Snows to Our Lady of Walsingham to Our Lady of Fatima occurred without publicity. Some argue that Lueken's visions would qualify as a psychological phenomenon known as pareidolia, in which anthropomorphic forms are witnessed in alleged surface formations on various objects.[citation needed] There is no medical evidence for this opinion.

In addition to these concerns, the Diocesan Bishop of Brooklyn at the time of the alleged apparitions, Bishop Francis Mugavero, made the following declaration on November 4, 1986:[1]

I, the undersigned Diocesan Bishop of Brooklyn, in my role as the legitimate shepherd of this particular Church, wish to confirm the constant position of the Diocese of Brooklyn that a thorough investigation revealed that the alleged "visions of Bayside" completely lacked authenticity.
...Therefore, in consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I hereby declare that:
1. No credibility can be given to the so-called "apparitions" reported by Veronica Lueken and her followers.
2. The "messages" and other related propaganda contain statements which, among other things, are contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, undermine the legitimate authority of bishops and councils and instill doubts in the minds of the faithful, for example, by claiming that, for years, an "imposter (sic) Pope" governed the Catholic Church in place of Paul VI.

At the Eternal Word Television Network, Father Mark Gantley, JCL, has clarified that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document related to "Proceeding in Judging Alleged Apparitions and Revelations" in 1974. Initially, a Diocesan Bishop is enabled to investigate the phenomenon in question. After he has completed his scrutiny, he may or may not ask for assistance from national Catholic Bishops Conferences, or refer the matter to the Vatican. For further information, consult the entry on Marian apparitions.

Some Catholic critics have even suggested that the apparitions might have been the work of the devil (it should be borne in mind that such accusations are routinely made against Marian visionaries by critics). For details, see Michael Cuneo THE SMOKE OF SATAN, listed in bibliography

St Michael's World Apostolate (see below) has brought forth arguments which seriously question the credibility of Bishop Mugavero's negative judgment of the Bayside apparitions. These arguments come from the claim that the Vatican's guidelines for judging apparitions were not followed by the Brooklyn Diocese, no example of doctrinal error has ever been produced by the diocese, and Veronica Lueken was never questioned by any member of an investigative committee from the diocese. See: http://www.smwa.org/documents/Bayside_The_Facts_Revealed/Bayside_Facts_Revealed.html

[edit] Apocalyptic literature and Catholicism

Catholic apocalypticism has its own history and tradition quite apart from Protestant fundamentalism. This historical tradition begins with the New Testament and is especially found in the Apocalypse (also known as the Book of Revelation). Others in this tradition include Early Church Fathers, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, Pope Leo XIII, as well as Pope Pius X who is reported to have seen the destruction of the Vatican and the deposition and assassination of one of his successors.

Similar to their fundamentalist Protestant counterparts, contemporary conservative Catholic apocalyptic believers base their worldview on the Holy Bible. Unlike Protestant apocalypticists, prophecies of Saints of the Catholic Church play an important part in this worldview. Detractors view these conservative Catholics as operating from an axiomatic definition of the world today as sinful and corrupted and due for chastisement. However, the worldview is dependent upon a Biblical model of seeing human sins and outrages against God being dealt with by judgment, chastisement, purification, and redemption. Many conservative Catholics will assert their hermeneutic of the apocalyptic even when confronted with members of the Catholic hierarchy who embrace universalism and believe that hell is empty, as Jacques Maritain theorized in one of his last personal letters.

Unlike fundamentalist Protestants, they often embrace a pre-millenial view of the contents of the Book of Apocalypse or Revelation. Anti-communism is a strong current in visionaries like Veronica Leuken - a tradition that owes its origin to Papal teaching as well as the Apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three children in Fatima, Portugal before the Russian Revolution. In light of the bishop/priest child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the general judgment of Catholics with this worldview is underlined when they argue that the state of the Church is in fundamental crisis in every aspect of its existence. Veronica Lueken and her followers regarded her apparitions and messages as a mercy from God in contradistinction to a Church they believed had lost its way.

Many messages refer to perceived institutional disorder in the Roman Catholic Church. These include the fall of the clergy into various errors, ideologies and sins that are viewed as contrary to their vocation which is to save souls. The current Bugnini - Paul VI New Order of the Mass is denounced as erasing the virtues of faith, hope and love expressed in the traditional Latin Mass of the Council of Trent, which virtues were directed toward the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

Bishop Mugavero, the local bishop at the time, rejected these messages of Mrs. Leuken. Bayside followers state that the sex-abuse scandal in the Church reflects the authenticity of these messages.

Within Mrs. Lueken's messages, this exposure of institutional church corruption is balanced by a call for prayer, reparation, and sacrifice for the clergy.[citation needed] This is the primary purpose of the Rosary Vigils and Holy Hours from 1970 to the present date, held by St Michael's World Apostolate at the sacred grounds.

To date there has been no independent in-depth study of Lueken's messages or methodologies since her death. These Last Days Ministries as well as St. Michael's World Apostolate continue to preserve her legacy.

[edit] Organizations Spreading the Message

Several Traditionalist Catholic clerics upheld what Lueken had to say. Lueken was told over twenty times in the messages that all prophecy is conditional and does not have to happen[2]

[edit] These Last Days Ministries

Among the first websites to appear in support and to promote Mrs. Lueken's messages was These Last Days Ministies [3], which had a weekly radio show promoting the messages. The TLDM website contains most of the messages given to Veronica Lueken in audio as well as text. It is updated daily with articles that tie world events to prophecies given to her. These Last Days Ministries in located in Lowell, Michigan and run by Gary Wohlscheid.

[edit] St. Michael's World Apostolate

St Michael's World Apostolate (SMWA) is the official organization in charge of the Bayside Mission. It is staffed full-time by the lay Order of St. Michael, a Roman Catholic community of celibate lay men who have dedicated their lives to the promotion of the Messages from Heaven to Veronica Lueken. The lay Order presently consists of seven men: Michael Mangan, James Donohue, William Dykes, Peter Frank, John Benevides, Darryl Bolisay and Luis Camacho. On their website [4] is listed most of the messages of the Virgin Mary to Veronica Lueken, the live-audio recorded messages from Heaven to Veronica Lueken, photos of the Mrs. Lueken in ecstasy, and audio-streaming of the Rosary Vigils and Holy hours presently held at the Vatican Pavilion site in Flushing Meadows Park, New York. Their website is updated daily. They have an active online radio program, St. Michael's Radio. See: http://www.smwa.org/St_Michaels_Radio/St_Michaels_Radio_Programs.htm

SMWA is an active apostolate with a mailing list of over 50,000.

SMWA continues to hold a Sunday Holy Hour for the Pope and clergy on the exact location where Veronica Lueken received the apparitions and messages.[citation needed] They also continue to hold the evening Rosary Vigils throughout the year. For upcoming Rosary Vigil dates, see: http://www.smwa.org/Vigil_Information/Index_Pilgrimage_Info.htm

The headquarters for SMWA is located in College Point, New York, about two miles from the Vatican Pavilion site and about 10 miles from St. Robert Bellarmine Church in Bayside, New York. It's at this workshop facility that the messages given to Veronica Lueken are printed and their free subscription mailings are produced. They have an in-house printing facility run by the lay Order of St. Michael.

President of SMWA and head of the lay Order of St. Michael is Mr. Michael Mangan. Michael joined Veronica's mission in 1978 and from 1989 to 1995 was in daily telephone contact with Mrs. Lueken (who lived in Port Jefferson, New York). Veronica relied heavily upon Michael to keep the operational duties of the Shrine going and she would confide to him many personal experiences, especially when Our Lady appeared and spoke to her. Michael kept many of these notes in a journal for the Church to review at the proper time.

Today there are a few groups and websites who promote the Bayside apparitions but essential to understanding who is in charge of this Mission, one has to take into consideration that shortly before her death, Mrs. Lueken appointed Michael Mangan to lead the Mission after her. Between 1994 and 1995, She had him promise three times that he would continue her Mission after her death. Furthermore, when Veronica was on her deathbed, she was directed by the Blessed Virgin Mary to then hand over the leadership to Michael Mangan. See: http://www.smwa.org/Golden_Warrior/GW_1/Golden_Warrior_1_Jesus_and_Mary_chose_Michael.htm

Michael remains firmly committed to this cause and continues to lead the Mission today. To date, the Bayside Mission remains under the leadership of Michael Mangan and the lay Order of St. Michael at St. Michael's World Apostolate.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Declaration Concerning the "Bayside Movement"." Letter of Bishop John Mugavero of Brooklyn. Retrieved August 10, 2007.

[edit] Primary sources

  • Veronica Lueken: The Virgin Mary's Bayside Prophecies: Volume 1: 1970-1973: Bayside, New York: 2002: ISBN 1-891981-01-3
  • Our Lady of the Roses Shrine: Roses From Heaven: Orange, Texas: Children of Mary: 1990.
  • David Clyde Skovmand: Prophecies Received by Mrs Veronica Lueken: Oakland: Our Lady's Worker of Northern California: 1997.

[edit] Contemporary media reports

  • Roberta Grant: "War of the Roses" Rolling Stone (21.02.80):43-46.
  • Phillip Nobile: "Our Lady of Bayside" New York11 (11.12.78): 47-60.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Daniel Wojcik: The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism and Apocalypse in America: New York: New York University Press: 1997: ISBN 0-8147-9283-9
  • Michael Carroll: The Cult of the Virgin Mary: Psychological Origins: Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1986: ISBN 0-691-09420-9
  • Bishop Francis Mugavero: "Declaration Concerning the 'Bayside Movement'" (p.209-211) in James LeBar (ed)Cults, Sects and the New Age: Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division: 1989: ISBN 0-87973-431-0
  • Sandra Zimdars-Swartz: Encountering Mary: From LaSalette to Medjugorge: Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1991: ISBN 0-691-07371-6

Michael W. Cuneo "The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism" (Oxford/ John hopkins, 1999) has a chapter on Bayside which includes interviews with supporters and opponents.

[edit] External links