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The Eucharistic miracles through Julia are becoming known in Italy
(2001)
A report by Judy Navarrete, Los Angeles,
California
I am pleased
to report on an experience I had while on vacation in Italy this May with a few
pilgrims.
Part of our
itinerary was to visit San Giovanni Rotondo and St. Michael’s Cave. A church has been built above St. Michael’s Cave, and, within the
church, there is a small exhibit room.
At this time there was an exhibit of all the approved Eucharistic
miracles which have occurred in the Church over the centuries. My joy and surprise was to see the Eucharistic miracle which occurred to Julia
when she was visiting the Vatican. There
was a short explanation in Italian next to the pictures, and the tour guide
explained what was stated. The miracle
initially had not been made public by the Vatican but now it approved that the
miracle be shown. The pictures showed
that the Pope had witnessed the Eucharistic miracle and had given Julia his
blessing.
An exhibit in
the church at San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy,
describing the Eucharistic miracle
through Julia Kim
in the Vatican on October 31, 1995
(Click this for English translation)
This was not
all. On the TV in all of Italy a series
on different miracles was going to be shown every Saturday. The first of the series was the Eucharistic
miracles of Naju. A one-hour TV show was
aired on Saturday, May 19, throughout Italy.
According to our tour guide this would not be aired if the Vatican had
not given the approval since the Pope would be part of the documentary with the
miracle at the Vatican of October 31, 1995.
Unfortunately our group was not in Italy on May
19, and was not able to see the documentary.
According to a friend of ours who came from Germany, a priest from the
Vatican was interviewed in the TV show.
This is what they heard him say: “We in the Church are very discreet, cautious and thorough on such
matters. In the case of Naju, the
Holy Father himself has become a witness, and Julia, who has been receiving the messages and pains,
has been leading a simple and
humble life.”
I believe in Our Lord and Our Lady’s presence in
Naju as well as the different miracles which have occurred to Julia. Time and time again I come across persons who
tell me, “Naju has not been approved.”
This does not diminish my belief but I realize how little faith
people have in God’s beautiful love for them, which is indeed sad. Here again in all of Italy people would
witness the Eucharistic miracles of Naju via TV. I know many were touched and hope and pray
that more will come to believe in the true presence of Our Lord in the
Eucharist.
Our Lady has asked us to be witnesses and to stand
firm beside her as she will triumph.
This TV presentation in Italy to me is a confirmation that her triumph is
taking place. She just needs our support
and prayers.
Our Lord and Our Lady have asked us many times to
urgently spread the messages and for us to open our hearts widely and believe in
His Real Presence. I truly hope those
who have heard about Naju and have become lukewarm will return to being true
apostles of Our Lord and continue to spread their messages of
love.
We all need to be obedient, but to whom? The Holy Father is God’s representative to
all Catholics here on earth and “we,” bishops, priests, and lay people need to
be obedient to him first and foremost.
The Vatican has approved the exhibit and was aware of the documentary on
TV. I am not the only witness to this,
either. We all need a great deal of
prayers because the devil is really trying to divide us as a church.
For the next few days we prepare ourselves for the
Feast of the Holy Spirit, the Pentecost. Let’s pray that He come into all those cold, hard hearts that refuse to
believe in Our Lady and Our Lord’s Presence in Naju.
Judy Navarrete
Los Angeles, California
May 31, 2001
Other
photographs brought by Judy Navarrete
Our Lady of Grace Church in San Giovanni
Rotondo
Sign at the
entrance to the room where Eucharistic Miracles
in Church History are
exhibited
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Update on Naju — May 31,
2001
Earlier this month, some
pilgrims from the United States and Germany visited Rome. To their great surprise and joy, they saw a
TV program in Rome covering Naju. The
date was May 19, Saturday. The program
included an interview with a priest from the Vatican. This is what the pilgrims heard him
say:
“We in the Church are very discreet, cautious and
thorough on such matters. In the case of
Naju, the Holy Father himself has become a witness, and Julia, who has been
receiving the messages and pains, has been leading a simple and humble
life.”
The fact that such a program
was broadcast in Rome, the center of the Catholic Church, is highly
significant. The Italian tour guide said
that a program like this could not be made public in Rome without prior approval
by the Vatican. Also, it seems unlikely
that the priest was speaking only for himself.
The lady from Germany who faxed us this information was filled with joy,
saying that the approval of Naju is now a matter of time. Now we can see that the Holy See is making
known its positive stance on the Eucharistic miracle on October 31, 1995,
witnessed by the Holy Father. If the
Church in Korea still chooses to be negative about it, it will be contradicting
the Holy Father himself. Also, it does
not seem to be by chance that this TV program on Naju was aired in Rome soon
after the Korean bishops’ Ad Limina visit to the Holy See in March,
during which there were discussions about Naju.
The pilgrims from Los Angeles continued their
journey to San Giovanni Rotondo, where Blessed Padre Pio lived. They report that, in the chapel above St.
Michael the Archangel’s Cave, there was an area exhibiting many of the
Eucharistic miracles in Church history.
In this exhibition, they saw a photograph of the Holy Father witnessing a
Eucharistic miracle through Julia on October 31, 1995. This would also have been impossible without
a nod from the Holy See. After all, the
Holy Father is the Bishop of Rome, where the miracle occurred, as well as the
head of the universal church, and it is most natural and proper that he makes
his thoughts known on what happened in Rome.
In another case, Bishop Dominic Su of Sibu, Malaysia, wrote a letter to
the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio in Korea soon after witnessing a Eucharistic miracle
through Julia in the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Sibu on September 17, 1996, and,
in the letter, said that he considered it a miracle.
That the Holy Father is
favorable on Naju has been known for quite some time. Archbishop Giovanni Bulaitis, the Apostolic
Pro-Nuncio in Korea until 1997, visited the Chapel in Naju on November 24, 1994,
and witnessed miraculous descents of the Eucharist. Soon he made a detailed report to the Holy
Father and the Cardinals in the Holy See.
We have no doubt that the Holy See has hoped that the Church in Korea
would investigate the events in Naju in an unbiased, thorough way and without
unnecessary delays, because the messages and signs in Naju can be powerful
catalysts for revitalizing the authentic Catholic Faith and for evangelizing the
whole world, especially Asia, which has the largest population among all the
continents and yet has been the least evangelized.
However, the Church in Korea has been exposed to
powerful modernist influences for the past several decades. Especially the Kwangju Archdiocese, which
covers the Naju Parish, has been hostile to the messages and signs in Naju which
call for a revitalization of the traditional Faith and, based on it, a renewal
of everything. In particular, the
priests who belong to an organization called Priests for Social Justice
have been actively involved in the political and social issues in Korea,
neglecting the traditional Catholic truths and devotions, and have been playing
the leading role in opposing Naju. They
were also key members of the Naju investigating committee in the Kwangju
Archdiocese and succeeded in influencing Archbishop Victorinus Youn to issue a
negative declaration on Naju on January 1, 1998. Even afterwards, their efforts to persecute
Naju and, if possible, to put an end to it have continued. These liberal priests have been well aware
that the Holy See is favorable on Naju and is deeply concerned about the
modernist theologians in Korea, but have cared little about it and have
continued to push ahead with their agenda.
In late 2000, Archbishop Victorinus Youn retired
and was succeeded by Most Rev. Andrew Choi.
Archbishop Choi has been taking a moderate approach to the question of
Naju. To several priests in Korea, he
said that he was not opposed to Naju.
When the liberal priests repeatedly demanded him to close down the Chapel
in Naju, he refused to give in. After
his recent return from Rome, he invited all the priests in his diocese who had
been priests for 25 or more years to a dinner and asked them to restrain their
criticism of Naju and not to interfere with lay people’s visiting Naju.
The liberal priests in the Kwangju Archdiocese
sensed a crisis rapidly approaching them.
If Naju were investigated again and approved, their achievements in the
past several decades in modernizing and secularizing the Church in Korea would
crumble. So they approached Archbishop
Choi again with much forcefulness and, to almost everyone’s surprise, succeeded
in persuading him to sign a new document which they had prepared. This document was read during Mass on May 27,
Sunday, in every parish of the Kwangju Archdiocese.
In this document, those measures prohibiting all
the activities in support of Naju, which had already been mentioned in
Archbishop Youn’s declaration, were reiterated.
However, there was no explanation of why such measures were necessary;
the document only called for an unconditional obedience. There seems to be much inconsistency in the
liberal priests’ frequent criticisms of the teaching and pastoral authority of
the Holy Father and of the bishops and yet rely so heavily on their bishop’s
authority in preventing the faithful from following their faith and
conscience. Moreover, this document did
not offer any response to those questions which have been raised about the
doctrinal soundness of Archbishop Youn’s declaration and the fairness and
adequacy of the investigation of Naju conducted before the
declaration.
For example, in Archbishop Youn’s declaration, the
Eucharistic phenomena through Julia Kim were declared to be in conflict with the
Church teaching, which, according to the declaration, says that the species
of bread and wine must remain unchanged even after the consecration by a
priest. This, however, is a
distortion of the true Church doctrine which only says that, while the
substances of bread and wine change into Our Lord’s Flesh and Blood by the
consecration by a priest, the species of bread and wine remain unchanged (cf.
DS #1652). In other words, this
doctrine explains the effects of the Eucharistic consecration and not what can
or cannot happen to the Eucharist after the consecration. If the Eucharistic species change into those
of Flesh and Blood by a special intervention by God, there is nothing that is in
conflict with any of the Church teachings.
The fact that a Church doctrine was distorted by the Korean theologians
in order to reject the Eucharistic miracles in Naju is most disturbing. If the assertion in the Kwangju declaration
were correct, all of the Eucharistic miracles in Church history would have to be
rejected. The Church also teaches that,
if anyone distorts any of the Church doctrines and persists in it, he becomes
guilty of a heresy (cf. Canon Law, #751). It becomes a dangerous problem in the Church
when a doctrinal error is sustained by the teaching authority of a bishop, which
is in fact the authority of Christ Himself.
This doctrinal problem in the Kwangju declaration has remained
uncorrected and unexplained for more than three years. The Kwangju Archdiocese, and the whole Church
in Korea which has been supportive of Kwangju, has been failing in one of the
most basic functions of the Church, which is to preserve and teach the truths
from God.
On the other hand, this negligence of a doctrinal
issue seems to be no surprise, because, to the liberal theologians, even the
Church doctrines can and must change according to the changing conditions in the
world. This could be one reason for the
repeated alterations of the wording of prayers in Korea. A Korean man, who seemed to be
liberally-oriented, recently declared on the Internet, “Everything in the
Church changes: the liturgy changes, prayers change, and so do the
doctrines.” From the standpoint of
the liberal priests, there may not be any doctrinal problem in the Kwangju
declaration, because, to them, there is no such thing as “the absolute,
unchanging Church teachings” according to which everything else can be
measured. If their thoughts were right,
Christians would truly be vain people who place their hopes on shaky ground,
without absolute, eternal truths, without a firm faith, and without absolute moral standards. Then, everything will be degraded to a purely
human and secular dimension. If the
truths they believe were really from God, these truths could not be anything but
absolute and eternal.
The progressive forces in Korea not only
equivocate the divine origin of the Church teachings, but also emphasize
independence of the local churches. In
fact, the Pastor of Naju, who was reading the new document from the Archbishop
to his parishioners on May 27, said, “The Kwangju Archdiocese has a
succession from the Twelve Apostles and functions as a separate church within
the Korean Church which functions as an independent church.” This can be interpreted as meaning that the
Kwangju Archdiocese does not need to be in union with the universal church or to
be obedient to the Holy Father. Also,
last year, a Vietnamese priest from the United States was in Naju and went to
the Naju Parish Church to celebrate Mass.
He was interrupted by the associate pastor of the Naju Parish Church, who
said, “Why did you come to Naju? Do
not come here any more.” The
Vietnamese priest replied, “But the Holy Father is favorable on
Naju.” The Naju priest said, “The
Holy Father is the Bishop of Rome. We
have our own Bishop here.” This
cannot be an incident that happened only in Naju. The tendency to assert local independence is
widespread among the liberal-minded people in the Church in Korea. When they are told that what they say and
write does not conform to the authentic Church teachings and is not in harmony
with the Holy Father’s guidance, they simply don’t care. This is a crisis facing the Church in Korea
today.
Alongside the tendency to loosen their union with
Rome, a dilution and alteration of the traditional Catholic Faith has also
occurred in the name of “inculturation.”
Many now say that other religions in Korea also teach love, mercy, and
other virtues and, so, are as good as Christianity. In saying that, they are forgetting the
fundamental Christian Faith: God created humans and infused the supernatural
(divine) life into their souls for their eternal participation in God’s Life and
Kingdom; but humans have lost that life and brought about many evils into their
world by committing sin which represented a breach of faith with God; God sent
His Only Son to become one among us and save us by His Death; and we need to
constantly strive for our sanctification, as members of the Mystical Body of
Christ, the People of God, by avoiding sins, practicing love, and offering up
reparations with the help of the graces merited by Christ for us. The essence of Christianity is a personal,
covenantal relationship, a relationship of total love and trust, between God and
us as the Father and His sons and the King and His subjects. It is not merely a natural human effort
toward personal improvement and purification without reference to the personal,
supernatural God Who is infinitely good and has sent His Son for our
salvation. There also is a growing
tendency among the Korean Catholics to regard the Protestant churches as being
equal to the Catholic Church. To them,
unity between Catholics and Protestants seems to be a supreme goal, or a grand
pretext, that can justify even doctrinal alterations. In fact, the theologian who wrote Archbishop
Yoon’s declaration published an article afterwards (March 1998), in which he
said that the Eucharistic phenomena through Julia Kim were rejected for the sake
of unity with Protestants. It is
doubtful that there is matching enthusiasm on the Protestant side in Korea for
unity with Catholics. Will they or
anyone have much respect for those who are willing to abandon their principles
and beliefs?
Unfortunately, many such compromises and betrayals
have already been made during the past several decades in Korea (and
elsewhere). For example, a large
majority of the Catholics do not seem to have a true faith in the Holy
Eucharist; the Marian devotion is often pushed aside for fear of ridicule by the
Protestants or other Catholics; beautiful statues have been removed or replaced
by more abstract, modernistic ones; loyalty and obedience to the Pope are often
viewed as old-fashioned; and those things that the Holy Father has denounced in
a definitive way such as female priesthood and abolition of celibacy for priests
are openly discussed and advocated. The
progressive theologians in Korea even deny that the Church was established by
Christ and is the Mystical Body of Christ (They say that the Church is a
community of people who follow the Holy Spirit). They equivocate the full divinity of Christ
while highlighting His humanity, even calling Him a mortal being who needed
enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. They
not only reject the miracles in Naju but also ignore those recorded in the
Scripture as educational fictions. Under
their influence, the Church in Korea even began to allow the ritual of ancestor
worship which is an old tradition in Korea but is not in harmony with the
Catholic Faith and is an insult to many of the Korean martyrs who were killed
because of their refusal to practice it.
The Holy See has repeatedly emphasized that communicants must be free to
choose the method of receiving Communion, either on tongue or in hand, but the
Church in Korea has been disobedient to the Holy See’s guidance by making
communion in hand virtually mandatory.
Under the pretext that genuflection does not conform to the culture in
Korea, the traditional Catholic practice of genuflecting before the Blessed
Sacrament has been done away with. Even
the priests in Mass only bow after Eucharistic consecration. The true fact, however, is that kneeling is
not only not nonconforming with the Korean culture, a complete kneeling with
both knees plus a total prostration on the floor is a common practice even today
to express a deep respect to the king, elderly relatives, teachers, and so
on. The Eucharist is Christ Himself, Who
is God the Son become incarnate, the Creator, and the King of Heaven and earth.
Even the traditional Korean way of prostrating would be insufficient to give
enough homage and adoration to Our Lord.
Bowing only, which people in the Orient do even between equals, and not
bending one’s legs before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament may be due to a lack
of the true faith in the Incarnate God really present in the Eucharist. Also, many of the precious lives of the
Saints have long since disappeared from the Catholic bookstores. To the modernists, the Saints are not
particularly inspiring examples.
The underlying cause of all these problems in
Korea seems to be twofold: disloyalty to
the traditional, authentic Catholic Faith, our Heritage of the Faith, and
disloyalty to the Holy Father, the rock upon which Christ built His Church. When one refuses to follow the signposts
given by the Lord and stay on the rock chosen by the Lord, disorder will
necessarily follow.
Now, we are being given a golden opportunity to
resolve the problems in the Church, not only in Korea but elsewhere, and to make
a rapid progress in evangelizing the world, especially Asia. This opportunity is the Blessed Mother’s
loving presence being manifested especially in Naju. The Blessed Mother is the only one among
humans who has followed God’s Will so perfectly and so filled with love and
humility. She can drive out all the
evils from our minds and hearts and fill them with her love for God and
obedience to His Will. After all, God’s
Will alone is good and needs to be done; we can only participate in His Goodness
by doing His Will. By accepting the love
and help of the Blessed Mother, who is the shortcut to the Lord, and passing
this on to our neighbors, we will be faithful sons and daughters of hers and
will be repaying a tiniest portion of God’s boundless love for us. And the world will avoid a crisis. This spiritual war will continue until the
Blessed Mother’s complete victory over the devil. The silent majority in the Church who have
been longing to see restoration of the true Catholic Faith and devotions must
now stand up and help the Blessed Mother with their prayers and
sacrifices.
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Letter from
Bishop Roman Danylak to Mrs. Cäcilia Pohl in Germany
November 16,
2001
Dear Madame
Pohl,
I thank you for your
kind letter of concern with the way events are unfolding around the messages and
miraculous signs from Our Lord and Our Lady through Julia Kim. I have been away
from Rome these past seven months. I had returned to Canada for medical reasons,
and it is only last Sunday that I returned to the Eternal City.
Your concerns are shared
by many in the Catholic Church, first those in their native Korea, and around
the entire globe from the Far East and through the Americas. We know the reasons
for this, the progressive liberal attitude of the younger Korean clergy that are
dictating church policy to their bishops. This is a crisis that is pervading the
entire Catholic Church, and not only the issues of Julia Kim and other
visionaries, but addresses the issues of our Catholic Faith and the Christian
life, especially the life of the family and the education of children. The
crisis began during Vatican Council II, and infected all the ranks of society;
especially in the technologically advanced countries of Western Europe, the
Americas and the Far East. It is taking on frightening proportions. Our Lord
forewarned us of this in the Gospel. Who knows when the Son of Man returns, will
he still find faith? The faith is being rejected even by those who continue to
call themselves Catholic.
This is why Our Lord is
now entering into the affairs of men. An awesome sign is the disaster of
September 11. As the Lord admonished through some of His messengers: this is the
beginning of the chastisement of the world for the sins of abortion and the many
others against life. Jesus did not blow up the towers. He is a God of life, not
of death. And at the very beginning God gave us His commandment “Do not kill.”
But as we learn from the Old Testament and from history, He is present in the
affairs of men, and uses even the folly of men to chastise and
purify.
The Holy Father and the
Vatican are very much aware of the world situation in the Catholic Church; and
the Holy Father knew of the miracle with Julia Kim of which he himself was a
witness, even though the Vatican and the Holy Father dissimulated about their
knowledge of the Eucharistic miracle for several years.
As Mary’s Touch informs
us, the Holy Father addressed the issue of the Naju miracles directly with
Korean bishops in March 2001 during their quinquennial visit to Rome… The latest
now is that he and Cardinal Ratzinger are becoming more directly involved in
this issue, for they realize its importance as a voice of Heaven. The new
archbishop of Kwangju is continuing to submit to the pressures of his priests.
It appears that the Vatican will now take a more direct stance.
Secondly, in the past
few months knowledge of these miracles has become publicly acclaimed in Rome and
Italy, and also in Mexico and Guadalupe. And in Canada and the U.S.A.there is a
lively interest growing, notwithstanding the reticence of the local bishops. No
one can continue to hide or to dissimulate about the voice of Heaven. There is
no need for you to organize intervention with the Holy See, because it is fully
appraised of the situation, and is now beginning to act.
What we must continue to
do is to make these miracles and messages, given through Julia, more known
throughout the world. You can now speak more boldly of it, because the Holy
Father has finally acknowledged the miracles. And more importantly we must
firmly believe that heaven is involved and will not allow even priests and
bishops to frustrate the work of our Lord and the Blessed Mother.
Please accept my
sincerest thanks for your devotion to the truth about Naju and its miracles and
messages.
I remain
Respectfully yours in
the Lord and the Blessed Mother
† Roman Danylak
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