Marian Shrines and Apparitions
The La Salette Controversy—Part II
There has always been controversy over the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at La Salette on September 19, 1846,
and in particular over the secret parts of the message of Our Lady. The entire story of this controversy, which has been much
overshadowed by the controversy over the Third Secret of Fatima, is both fascinating and complex.
Initial Investigation—First Attacks
It did not take long after the Apparition for the local Bishop to see the need of conducting a formal investigation.
The result, after five years of careful, prudent and painstaking inquiry, was a complete approval of the genuineness of the Apparition.
Neither did it take long for the anti-Catholic press to launch its first attacks. These first attacks were answered eloquently by a
British Catholic author, James Spencer Northcote, who went to the trouble of making a pilgrimage to La Salette himself,
gathering thereby an abundance of first-hand testimony and evidence. We give here a number of excerpts from his excellent booklet,
A Pilgrimage to La Salette, published in 1852—only six years after the date of the Apparition:
...It was a wondrous sight, the celebration of these holy rites on the mountain of La Salette;
it was a spectacle that requires the pencil of the artist to do it justice, and that will only be spoilt by any efforts of our
feeble pen to describe it… What is the origin of this spectacle? How comes it that the most sacred rites of our holy religion
are being celebrated under such unusual circumstances? What is the cause of this vast concourse of people gathered together from all parts,
some at the cost of extreme bodily pain and real difficulty, and all with more or less of fatigue and inconvenience? What does it all mean?
How did it all begin?
...The (London) Times newspaper, that great organ of public opinion in this country, alternately its master and its slave,
had solved these questions only a few days before we left England in its own peculiar style... It may be summed up in these words:
"a monstrous imposture" and "a notorious falsehood" on the part of the priests; "the grossest credulity and the most groveling superstition"
on the part of the people. This is at least a compendious mode of writing history, and extremely convenient wherever it is not desirable
that people should be left to form their own conclusions from an honest and detailed account of all the facts and circumstances of the case…
Protestant controversialists would have us believe that it is a matter which can be summed up in a half dozen words.
Some idle tale of a dream, or vision, or miraculous cure is first invented by a designing priest, or imagined by some weak-brained enthusiast;
then the ignorant and superstitious people instantly believe it; the bishops and clergy move heaven and earth to encourage their credulity;
and behold, the whole thing is done. Born in obscurity and nurtured by priestcraft, the tale is forced into a sickly maturity,
and begets a sanctuary and pilgrimage, only by means of the most jealous vigilance and fostering care of its clerical guardians,
who tenderly shelter it from the least breath of opposition until the time for inquiry is past… Such is the popular Protestant idea
on matters of this kind; and although we are not so sanguine as to suppose that the present history can have much effect on silencing
these malignant falsehoods, yet we trust it may be of use to some at least of the more candid of our adversaries…
to see what has been the actual conduct, in the most recent and celebrated instance of the bishop and clergy concerned:
whether, as a matter of fact, they have really manifested that excess of zeal, that unquestioning credulity, and that determination
to stifle inquiry, which popular prejudice is in the habit of attributing to them; or whether, on the contrary, their conduct has been
characterized by a gravity, deliberation, and prudence worthy of the subject on which they were engaged.
After stating the history of the Apparition, which we have given in our last Issue, Northcote writes of the
cautious way in which the shepherds' stories were received:
...Our readers may easily imagine the cross-examination to which they were subjected. Still nobody could succeed in
shaking their testimony; they steadily persisted in repeating the same thing over and over again to all inquirers, answered all
their questions with a readiness and simplicity truly surprising, and disposed of all their objections with the ease and ingenuity
of the most practiced advocates; in a word, though their evidence stood alone and unsupported, yet it was impossible to throw discredit
upon it by any contradictions or inconsistencies in their manner of giving it. The girl was now sent by her master to drive the cows
to the mountain as usual... After Vespers (...it was Sunday), eight or ten people went up, and these were the first pilgrims, led by
curiosity rather than by faith; and they made Melanie tell her story again, and point out the precise spots where everything was said
to have happened. On her return in the evening, the mayor of the village came and questioned her; he questioned the boy also in a
separate apartment; he then brought them face to face, and gravely told them that what they had been saying was clearly a lie,
and that God would punish them very severely if they persisted in repeating it. He exhorted them, therefore, to confess the imposture,
and promised to shield them from all punishment. His eloquence was entirely thrown away; the children said they must do as
"the Lady had told them and proclaim the fact. Next he offered them money... to bribe them into silence; it was in vain;
and lastly he threatened them with imprisonment and other punishments; but this too was equally inefficacious, and the worthy
magistrate returned to his home baffled and perplexed, and perhaps half disposed to be convinced...
...Daily experience shows us how the most plausible tale is often made to break down, or at least to seem to break down,
under the pressure of some skillful cross-examination; but in this instance there was nothing of the kind; the witnesses could not be brow-beaten;
the story kept its ground. And this was a great step... Persons, priding themselves upon their prudence perhaps, again and again made offers to
the children of large sums of money if only they would hold their tongues and say no more about it; but their answer was uniformly the same, viz.
that they had been specially charged by "the Lady" to cause it to be told to all the people, and that they must obey this command…
We must not omit to mention another circumstance also which tended greatly to give credibility to the children’s words,
viz. that an intermittent fountain at the spot where this "Lady" first appeared, and which on that day and for some time previously
had undoubtedly been dry, was found to be flowing copiously on the following morning, and had never since ceased; nor has it ceased
up to the present day, though previously to the apparition it flowed only at rare intervals, after a heavy fall of rain or the melting
of snow upon the mountains.
Mr. Northcote next describes in detail the painstaking prudence of the Bishop of Grenoble, whose diocese includes La Salette,
in forbidding, under penalty of excommunication, any of the clergy from publicizing any new miracle, without his authorization or that of the
Holy See.
But whilst the Bishop (De Bruillard) was thus enforcing a wise caution on his clergy, he was far from being an unconcerned
spectator of what was going on. He had already removed the parish priest of La Salette (who had rashly preached about the Apparition)
to another parish, and substituted a priest brought from a distance; he now required all the clergy of the neighborhood and of his own
episcopal city, and all others whom he knew to be travelling in that direction, to institute the most careful inquiries upon the spot,
and to communicate the results to him without delay. He studied with great diligence the mass of documents which were thus forwarded to him;
and in consequence of what he learned in this way, he appointed two commissions early in December to draw up a report for him, and to advise
him whether or not he should pronounce any decision on what was said to have happened… On the 15th of December these reports were presented,
and they were perfectly unanimous in the advice they gave; advice characterized by that extreme caution and prudence which are so uniformly
found in ecclesiastical decisions on matters of this kind, but the very reverse of which Protestants, in their ignorance, habitually attribute
to them. Both the Canons and the Professors advised his Lordship to abstain from giving any decision whatever: he could not, they said,
given an unfavorable decision, for the whole affair was very plausible, and such as they should certainly be disposed to believe at once
if it were only an ordinary and natural event that was being called in question; and moreover, it had produced none but purely beneficial effects;
it had excited the devotion of the people, and made them more exact in the performance of their religious duties;
it had entirely removed in the neighborhood where it had happened the faults complained of—the swearing, the desecration of Sunday, etc.
The Bishop could not, therefore, declare the story to be false, and prohibit all belief in it. On the other hand,
it rested on the authority of two children, who might possibly be either deceiving or deceived; and the personage who was supposed
to have appeared to them had not required them to communicate it to the ecclesiastical authorities; there was no obligation, therefore,
on the part of the Bishop to give any judgment at all; and considering that all eyes were upon him, and what a serious thing it was to
pronounce in such a matter, they counseled a complete silence, "to leave those who were satisfied with the sufficiency of the proofs
that could be alleged, free to believe it, yet not to censure those who, from a contrary motive, refused or withheld their belief…"
Matters remained in this state for a considerable time; that is to say, there was no official interference on the part of
the ecclesiastical authorities, either in the way of encouragement or otherwise, for a period of 6 or 7 months. But meanwhile the story
spread far and wide, and found many to credit it; priests, and even bishops, came from a distance, examined for themselves, returned home,
and sometimes published an account of their visit, uniformly pronouncing themselves in favor of the reality of the apparition.
Rumors of miraculous cures wrought at the fountain, or elsewhere, upon persons drinking of the water of the fountain and calling
upon the intercession of Our Lady of La Salette, grew and multiplied. Pilgrims from various parts of France and Italy,
and even from Spain and from Germany, began to arrive in large numbers. The affair was growing serious; it arrested the attention of the
government, at that time by no means inclined to look favorably upon anything that savored of religious devotion and enthusiasm...
Accordingly on the 22nd of May, 1847, the children were summoned by order of the higher authorities… They were examined both separately
and together; and after a solemn warning from magistrates to declare the whole truth and nothing but the truth, they each repeated,
almost word for word, the narrative which they had already given...
Two months later, July 19th, the Bishop of Grenoble again appointed a commission, with authority to institute the most
rigid examination, and to collect all possible information upon the subject, both as regarded the history of the event itself,
and also the authenticity of any miracles which professed to have been wrought in connection with it… The eighth and last session was
held on the 13th of December; in it divers objections and difficulties were started and solved, the remainder of the report was adopted,
and the Bishop declared the conferences to be now closed… saying that he reserved to himself the right of pronouncing his solemn judgment
upon the matter that had been under discussion, at such time as he should deem most suitable…
One feature in the case yet remained which might seem to afford a convenient shelter for doubt and suspicion.
"Nothing can be easier," it was objected, "than for the children to say that they have been entrusted with a very precious secret;
but as long as they steadily refuse to communicate to any man living what that secret is, we are at liberty to doubt whether they really
have any secret at all; we have no proof of it, and therefore we shall disbelieve it..." However, the pastoral solicitude of the
Bishop of Grenoble was not satisfied until he had removed even this stumbling-block from the way of the weakest members of his flock.
Accordingly, early in the month of July (1851), the aged prelate sent for the two children, and explained to them that all visions and
revelations and supernatural events of whatever kind that happen in the Church ought to be fully and completely submitted to the Holy Pontiff;
that as head of the Church and Vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth, it belonged to him to judge in these matters; he therefore required them,
under obedience to his authority, to commit to writing the secret which they said our Blessed Lady had confided to them,
and he on his part would charge himself with the responsibility of sending the letters by faithful messengers to Rome.
As soon as the children were satisfied by the Bishop’s arguments that it was their duty to obey him in this matter,
they sat down at different tables, and wrote their respective letters without the smallest hesitation, and exactly as if they had
been copying what they wrote from some original before them. They signed and sealed their letters, and the Bishop entrusted them
to the vicar-general of his diocese (Canon Gerin) and another priest (Abbé Rousselot) to carry to Rome.
On the 18th of the same month these precious missives were placed in the hands of the Holy Father (Pope Pius IX) by the persons we have named.
His Holiness immediately read them in the presence of the messengers, but, of course, without communicating to them any of their contents:
he said he must read them again at his leisure, and then added, "These are scourges for France, but Germany and Italy,
and many other countries, deserve the same;" and he went on to assure the Abbé Rousselot that his books (containing the report of the
Bishop’s commission and its supplement, already mentioned) had been examined by the Promoter of the Faith, and were approved of.
Thus fell to the ground the last reasonable excuse for doubt. The secret which these two poor ignorant children had professed to
be entrusted with, and which for five years they had so jealously and so successfully guarded against the pertinacious efforts of
thousands of curious inquirers, was no fiction, but a reality; a reality sufficient to engage and to satisfy the mind of the Holy Pontiff,
and therefore more than sufficient to assure all reasonable men that at least it was no idle invention of the children themselves.
At length, therefore, on the 19th of September, 1851, the 5th anniversary of the apparition,
after so many years of careful and patient investigation, the Bishop issued a formal authoritative decision, and in a pastoral letter…
solemnly declared the apparition to be a certain and unquestionable fact… which none of the clergy or faithful of the diocese are hereafter
at liberty publicly to contradict or call in question; that it may be preached and commented upon in the pulpit, but that no prayers or hymns,
or other books of devotion connected with it, may be printed without the episcopal approbation, given in writing; and that a church and house
of refuge for pilgrims shall be immediately begun on the site of the apparition, for which purpose alms are solicited from all the faithful.
…One very important question still remains to be considered, viz. whether the evidence to which His Lordship and the
committee of his appointment ultimately yielded is such as would command the assent of all reasonable men; or whether they allowed
themselves too easily to be persuaded by the plausible tale of the children and the credulity of those around them. In other words,
we have to inquire what grounds there are for believing in the reality of the alleged apparition…
And first as to the story itself; it would be impossible to enumerate all the trivial and captious objections which have
been taken to it from time to time, by persons more eager to exercise and display their ingenuity than to ascertain the truth.
One writer objects to the dress attributed to "the Lady" of the apparition; another, to the undignified character of some of the
images whereby Her sentiments were expressed, and to the use of any but the purest French… We will not try our readers’ patience…
by answering all these objections in detail; some of them are, on the very face of them, utterly futile and absurd; and others,
which may seem at first sight more solid, are found on examination to become, on that very account, real arguments in favor of the
truth of the narrative. For instance, the colors in which artists almost universally represent the dress of Our Blessed Lady are
white and blue; it is unlikely, then, that anyone setting about to invent a story of Her apparition, should do needless violence to
this conventional costume, and commit the atrocious blunder (which was destined, it seems, to destroy the credit of his tale)
of dressing Her in white and yellow… Or again, it is not to be tolerated that Our Blessed Lady should have dared to personate,
as it were, Almighty God Himself, and to repeat portions of the third commandment absolutely, in the first person singular,
as though She Herself had been the author of that commandment, in those words, "I have given you six days to labor in,
I have reserved the seventh for Myself;" and yet instances are not wanting in Holy Writ where other messengers of God,
angels or prophets, have used the same forms of speech, repeating the words of God without any express acknowledgment that they were His,
but rather in their own proper persons, as though proceeding simply and immediately from themselves; as, for instance, "the angel of the Lord"
who called to Abraham when he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac, did not hesitate to say, "Lay not thy hand upon the boy,
neither do thou anything to him; now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy only-begotten son for My sake"…
Or again, it is objected that the wrath of God is first distinctly denounced for one sin only, the desecration of the Sunday…
that presently this is corrected, as it were, and another sin is mentioned, the taking of God’s Name in vain; and then it is said,
"These two things are what make the hand of My Son so heavy;" and finally, before the close of the conversation, a third sin is named,
the non-observance of days of fasting and abstinence: and yet this too is by no means an uncommon characteristic of the language of
Holy Scripture (see Proverbs 30: 15, 18, 21, 19; Ecclus. 26: 5, 25). On the whole, then, it may be truly said,
concerning all these minor objections, that when we look closely into them, we find that they not only melt away and disappear as objections,
but that they also leave behind them some positive presumption in favor of the history with which they are connected… no one wishing to invent
an easy plausible tale, which should impose upon the public credulity, would have disfigured his narrative by such seeming improbabilities…
There remain two other objections of a more serious character, which it is necessary that we should consider with greater attention.
One is an alleged inconsistency between the narrative of the boy and of the girl; the other concerns the many prophecies which were contained in
"the Lady’s" discourse, and which, it is urged, have not been fulfilled. We speak first of the prophecies…
The first prophecy which we meet with in "the Lady’s" discourse concerns the blight upon the potatoes;
it is declared that this shall continue as it had begun, and that by Christmas (in that year) there should be no potatoes left.
About this portion of the prophecy there is no dispute; everyone allows that this at least was sufficiently fulfilled.
We do not mean to say that literally there was not a single potato left in that village or neighborhood by the time specified;
but there was a most extraordinary scarcity of them, and had they been used in the same quantities and with the same freedom
as in other years, there would certainly have been none at all. But the prophecy goes on to say, that there should be a failure
of the grapes and of the nuts, a famine also, and a pestilence peculiarly fatal to children; and all this, it is said, has not been fulfilled.
At least so it was said with an air of triumphant confidence two years ago (1850); already, however, it has become necessary to
adopt a less boastful tone in speaking on this subject, for during the last two years there has been a most serious failure of the vintage.
Anyone who visits the south of France may read in the booksellers’ windows of Lyons, Grenoble, or any other city in those parts,
the titles of various new books which undertake to treat of "the unknown disease of the vine;" unknown, that is, in its true nature
and for any available remedy, and indeed unknown altogether, even in its outward symptoms, but two short years ago; yet not unknown,
it appears, to "the Lady" of La Salette, who foresaw and foretold it four years before it showed itself by any sensible manifestation.
How shall we account for this? The facts are undeniable… we can ourselves vouch for the presence of the disease,
for as we passed through the vineyards, we gathered the grapes; they were no larger than peas, and hard as bullets,
and yet it was the middle of September; moreover they were covered with a fine white powder, which seems to be the usual token of the
pernicious blight. At the same time we inquired also about the nuts, but of these there was quite the average crop;
neither has there been any failure of the corn-harvest, nor any extraordinary mortality among the children.
The prophecy of these then is unfulfilled; but is it, therefore, quite certain that it will always continue so? …was not Jonas a prophet of God?
and was not "the preaching which he preached" in Ninive, "the word of the Lord?" yet what was the issue? "Jonas cried and said:
Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed;" the men of Ninive believed this word and repented; "and God saw their works,
that they were turned from their evil way, and God had mercy with regard to the evil which He had said that He would do to them, and
He did it not" (Jonas 3: 4-10). Observe, the prophecy of Jonas was in its form absolute and unconditional;
not a hope of mercy was held out to the inhabitants in the actual words that were addressed to them… But in the prophecy uttered by "the Lady"
of La Salette, not only was there no fixed period within which it was certainly to be fulfilled, but the whole discourse was essentially
conditional. It began with an expressed condition, and ended with the same; and it is obvious, therefore, that we are at liberty at least,
if not positively obliged, to understand a condition as running throughout the whole. "If My people will not submit themselves,"
it was said… and again, "The nuts will become bad, the grapes will rot; but if they be converted, the stones and the rocks will
change into heaps of corn, and the potatoes shall be self-sown in the earth." It is obvious, then, that a man can only be willfully perverse,
who refuses to give credit to the story of La Salette merely on the ground of its threats having been yet but very imperfectly fulfilled;
some portion of them has been already fulfilled, a portion which no merely human sagacity could possibly have foreseen…
And now let us turn to the alleged inconsistency between the narratives of the two children. The writer in the Times
has told us that they "differ from each other in many material particulars;" that the children "contradict each other’s statements,
and refuse to modify either the one or the other;" but then, according to that practice so familiar and so convenient to public journalists,
and (we will add) so fatal to the cause of truth and morality, he entirely omits to furnish us with any proof of this assertion...
We prefer, however, to deal more honestly with our readers, and will proceed at once to adduce all the evidence that we can find
bearing on this very important point. First, then, we have the attestations of the two farmers in whose service the children were
at the time of the apparition, and to whom the story was first told; these declare, not only that the children gave one and the same
account of what they had seen and heard when they came down from the mountain, but also that they had steadily persevered in the same,
in spite of the most numerous and severe cross-examinations, down to the period at which these attestations were made, that is to say
for more than a year. One of these farmers had committed the narrative to writing on the very day after he first heard it;
and the manuscript is still extant, so that nothing could be easier than to detect additions or variations, "subsequent improvements by
the priests," if any have really been made. Next comes the evidence of the mayor of the village, who confesses that in the course of an
hour’s diligent examination on the day after the apparition, he had failed to detect any contradiction whatsoever. Thirdly, we have the
testimony of M. l'Abbé Legier, the parish priest of a distant village in the same diocese, who examined the children day after day for a
whole fortnight, in the month of February 1847, and who wrote down the questions and answers with all the formality of a public notary;
and in the whole of this voluminous document not a single contradiction can be found. Another ecclesiastical pilgrim, three months afterwards,
kept an equally exact journal of a six days' examination of the children, conducted in the presence of numerous witnesses;
and it is perfectly consistent with itself, and perfectly uniform with that which had been made by his predecessor…
But what traces, then, are there of the contradictions so confidently asserted by the Times?
And what can be the authority for so reckless a misstatement? …For instance, the boy could not tell of what color were "the Lady’s" stockings,
the girl said they were of the same color as the apron; they were not of one mind, or they did not observe, which of the two were the brightest,
the color of the apron or of the chain; and so on through some half-dozen other trifles of no greater significance than these.
One, and one only discrepancy is there of a graver kind; three or four persons… testify that in telling the story to them,
the boy made an addition to "the Lady's" discourse, which was not to be found in the girl's account, nor indeed in the account
usually given by the boy himself; they say, that after speaking of the young men "going to Mass only to make a mockery of religion,"
he inserted these words, "the boys put stones and other things into their pockets to throw them at the girls;" that is to say,
he is accused of having added to the original narrative a development, a practical example, as it were, of the fault which had been just
complained of… by specifying a particular abuse which really was at that time very prevalent in the parish churches of Corps and the neighborhood.
Certainly this is a most noble foundation on which to build a charge of falsehood, contradiction, and inconsistency!?!
Truly the credulity of the incredulous is most astonishing!
Rather than believe in the reality of an apparition and a miracle, they will believe that two ignorant and uneducated children can,
in the course of one day—for they had not known one another longer—concoct together, or learn by heart from the lips of some third person,
a long and marvelous story of something which they are to profess to have seen, and of a message which they are to profess to have received
and to have been charged to communicate to the people; that they can repeat this story word for word without any variation for thousands of
times during a period of five or six years; that they can undergo any amount of questioning and any severity of cross-examination,
whether in the familiar conversations of a fireside circle, or the more deliberate scrutiny of half a dozen thoughtful and intelligent inquirers,
or even the keen and searching interrogatories of the most experienced advocate—and yet one of them be never detected in any inconsistency at all,
and the other only in such a one as has been described. Is this really credible? Is it even possible?...
And here we should have taken our leave of the objections that have been raised against the children’s story,
but that we observe the Times has again returned to the subject, and started a new difficulty…
It appears the Virgin Mary began Her discourse in French. How could the children, who only understood their own patois,
recognize any language but their own jargon for French or anything else?.. Why did the Virgin Mary mystify these wretched
children by talking to them in a language they did not understand? ...We do not presume to dogmatize upon the reasons which
may have induced our Blessed Lady to begin Her discourse in French and to continue it in patois, yet it is obvious to remark
that one result of this fact… was to furnish a very strong token of credibility to the children’s narrative. For when they
returned to their homes and repeated a long story, part of which was in good and correct French, those who heard them would naturally inquire,
"How can these children have learnt a language of which but yesterday they were ignorant?"…
We cannot refrain from adding also… a purpose which was effected… by the remarkable return to the use of the French
language in the concluding paragraph of the discourse. It is said that the whole conversation, after the first sentence,
was carried on in patois until "the Lady" said, last of all, and just before disappearing, "Cause all this to pass to my people:"
and it comes out in the course of the history, that because the children did not fully understand who mon peuple were,
they abstained from saying a word of what had happened until they saw their masters in the evening. Had it been otherwise,
had they comprehended at once that it was the design of "the Lady" who had conversed with them that they should publish the
conversation to the whole world, they might have told it immediately to all the little children who were keeping cows upon
the same mountain with themselves; and thus the story would have reached the village in the evening in a hundred distorted forms,
each little prattler making fresh omissions, or additions, or variations of his own, until, amid the general confusion, men might
have refused to give credit to any version whatever of a narrative of which they had heard so many…
But to return to the other difficulty which was suggested by the Times—how could the children understand and retain
what was said to them in a foreign language? ...We are discussing a particular feature in a story professedly miraculous,
and it is idle therefore to say, "this could not have been, because it is miraculous"... But the truth is, the "wonder" does not happen
to be so very "wonderful" after all. Doubtless, it would be a very wonderful thing, if we were to listen to an hour’s sermon preached
in his native tongue by a Dutch Puritan, and straightway to come home and repeat it verbatim to our friends; but their would be nothing
very surprising in our bringing away with tolerable correctness half a dozen sentences that had been addressed to us in broad Scotch.
Now, the difference between pure French and the patois spoken at La Salette is not the difference between two distinct languages,
but only between two dialects of the same language…
It is not surprising that such attacks should have arisen from the enemies of the Catholic Church.
But attacks of a more subtle nature began to arise from within the Church, and began to be more focused on the Secrets.
In future issues we shall see the reasons for these attacks, the forms they took, and the history of the revelation of the Secrets.
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