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Mother Angelica Live (EWTN) - December 1995

Theologian Father Mitch Pacwa speaks about

the True Life in God messages

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Added on September 9, 2004

WARNING: the following transcription is not official. It was made in an amateur way by a person who was viewing the program. For more information, please read: www.pseudomystica.info/tligangelica.htm . We have added the footnotes with the references to the messages cited by Fr. Pacwa.

 

Series Name: Mother Angelica Live

Pg. Name: Dish Network/Visionaries

Guest: Fr. Mitch Pacwa

Date Programmed: December 12, 1995 (?)

 

M.A: Bob and Penny Lord are with us and not too long ago I read to you a document from the Holy See about Vassula, the seer that is not approved. And I myself mentioned the Poem of the Man-God. Now we’ve got all kind of phone calls, letters, some inquiring because they want the truth, some very angry but we have to give the Truth. See your soul and your future is at stake. We are here to give you the Truth. You don’t have to accept it, but it’s our job to tell you if there is a danger anywhere. So I want to introduce you a good friend, a mutual friend, yours and mine, Fr. Mitch Pacwa. We’re going to discuss the situation and we’re open for phone calls. Let us welcome Fr. Mitch Pacwa.

Fr.: Thank you Mother. It’s so good to be here.

M.A: Okay Fr., there are an enormous amount of seers around. And today with a good example, I think of the simplicity of Our Lady in appearing in such a simple Motherly way through Juan Diego. And even when his uncle was sick, and he went to get, the you know, the priest for him, he was kind of doddering Our Lady, She caught up with him. Tell us about it in "real vision".

Fr.: One of the issues in "real vision" is that, they have an effect on a number of different levels. And we have to pay attention through them (...)

M.A: Well what level?

Fr.: For instance, there is the effect that a vision had on the person who is the visionary. Juan Diego now is blessed. Bernadette is a Saint. Now we look at how it changed their lives.

M.A: If you would say the effect on both Seers and Saints?

Fr.: Sure. That’s when there is vision, we see at least 3 different type of effects. One is the Seer, the visionary has a growth of holiness, like St. Bernadette, Juan Diego now blessed and many others through the centuries who became holier personally.

Secondly you also see, and some of this the Church has to look at right away, is the "messages of the vision", true? Is it keeping with what we know from Scripture and the teaching of the Church? And we judge the vision by the norm of the Church and the Bible. And what the Lord does regularly reveals to us, He will not contradict with new visions, new revelations, they go against the Bible or the teaching of the Council.

The third level is the fruits that we look for, it is the effect of this one that we can’t go through necessarily first. We have to wait and see, and know what that fruit is in the long term. For instance, so many time people would have an immediate conversion, a change right away and then down the line, fall away. Or a movement can look good at the start and then later on, not be so good. A classic example of how good fruit is showing, is what happened at Guadalupe. That some 30 million people became Catholics as a result, through the centuries now 400 years, 1664. People have had tremendous conversions and a constant call to love Blessed Mother and to love Christ. That’s good fruit in the long run. (...)

M.A: But the Seer is almost forgotten at that point.

Fr.: Right, right

Fr.: Now the same thing has to apply to any other vision. Now people can say that there is good fruits, and so often that is one of my concerns; people say this vision is having good fruits because people are converting and so on. But we all have to ask the question to what are they converting? Are they converting to the True faith? Are they converting to attraction to the Visionary? Are they converting to attraction to a movement? Or is it True faith in Christ? Know these, and the Church has an obligation to discern. Discernment is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit according to 1 Corinthian, chapter 12. And the main job of discernment comes from the Church, not from the Visionaries. Visionaries do not discern their own visions ultimately. That’s what St. Paul said, it is not up to the prophets themselves or herself. Leave to the Church the decision, based on it's own norms of the Magisterium, that is the deposit of faith we have received in the Scripture and tradition. So these are some of the things we have to pay attention to.

And in regard to someone like Vassula Ryden and Maria Valtorta, the Church has given consistent and regular decisions. In the case of Valtorta and recently for Vassula, saying that there are problems in what they have written. And that their claims to be directly from Christ; in case of both ladies, cannot be substantiated by the Church. Now you see in both, Vassula claims when she writes Christ moves her hand and in some way or other He is the author of these books that she’d written. And Valtorta called herself the "secretary" of Jesus and Mary, and that she is called "little John", and she [wrote] exactly what they told her.

Now, that is a very heavy claim! A very heavy claim!

Now the Church never even said that is exactly how the Bible was written. We never say the Holy Spirit grabed hold of the hand and wrote. It’s inspirational. How God inspires the Church hasn’t been made specific. We just know that the Holy Spirit is the author of the Scripture and the primary author, and the secondary the human author. How and exactly it happened, the Evangelists didn’t tell us, neither St. Paul; it’s up to God and them. These two said that they are actually "secretaries" writing in case of Valtorta, writing in case of Vassula. Given that, we have to submit what they say to the norm of the Church, okay ? And the Church said "No" on both cases.

And with that I think, come a certain amount of obedience that we have to submit too. Even if we like them. Whether we like them or not, is really irrelevant because I get concerned about people who said that "well, I find it helpful to me so I am going to use it". That is just as disobedient as the person who says "well I feel like having a certain amount of dancing at the altar" the Church doesn’t approve it but I do, so I am going to do that. Or I feel like having reading from Jablio Shoblank(?) instead of reading the Bible, because I find it meaningful. We don’t make those decisions about what we do in the liturgy and of what we believe, just on personal opinion.

…………………..

M.A: What are some of the errors father, I mean the people who write to us, they are heated about it.

Fr.: Absolutely they did the same thing to me

M.A: And even when you give some of these, but I think there are very serious errors in both.

Fr.: In Maria Valtorta books, the errors I think are not as serious as in Vassula. But serious nonetheless…(pertaining to Valtorta)

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Fr.: With Vassula there is another kind of problem. I got some quotes. Listen to this quote: "I love you Father beyond words" and then the Father responds: "I love you daughter. My sufferings I will make you feel, when My Crucifixion comes nearer, I will come to you leaving you My nails and thorned crown. I will give you My Cross, beloved share with Me My sufferings." (1)

This is supposed to be the Father, unless she addresses the Father, the Father did not die on the cross. God the Son became Incarnated. He died on the cross. Now there is an old heresy called "Patripassian" means the Father suffered and it was condemned as an error. Now maybe He doesn’t mean God the Father here, but it’s very unclear and that’s what the Vatican has said about in the Osservatore Romano.

Some of the things she said are very unclear. They are very unclear. This is an example of what is unclear, do you mean the Father is suffering or you call Jesus the Father? Now that is not good either.

M.A: No,

Fr.: Now as a matter of fact there are a number of other things.

About Jesus, where He says for instance, "I am the Spirit of Truth who speaks" (2) wait a minute, I thought that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, that is what Jesus called Him in the Gospel of St. John. That is in Volume 2 page 10, "I am the Spirit of love" all right, and then here Jesus says "anyone who rejects the Works of My Holy Spirit is rejecting Me, for the Holy Spirit and I are One and the same" Now that’s not quite right! That is not right at all! In fact "The Holy Spirit and I are One and the same" (3) Jesus goes on to say "remember that I am Spirit, and all I have I share with your spirit, you and I are One, linked in union of Love" (4).

What does she mean Jesus, the Spirit? You know, I don’t know, it’s vague to me and confusing because Jesus is God Incarnated and He still has a body to glorified the resurrected body since His resurrection from the dead, but He still has a body. He’s not Spirit, only Spirit now. He has a spirit, He has a human spirit, of course He is God, He is Spirit and divine, but it’s not clear.

And then, there are, this is some of the oddest things where she said in Volume 3 page 98 "I Am the Holy Trinity all in One. I Am the Spirit of Grace" (5) Jesus is not the Holy Spirit all in One, Jesus is the second person of the Holy Trinity.

There are other places that I have where she talked about the Father where Jesus said that "the Father and I are One and the same" (6) that is not correct! First of all, St. John Gospel chapt. 14 said "The Father and I are One" and the Father, for instance, St. Apo(?) made a very important comment on that Jesus said "the Father and I are One, One in being" and He used the word "One in gene one in Pau (?) " but "We are". Notice that Jesus doesn’t say in the Gospel "the Father and I are One and the same" because if He said "the Father and I are One and the same" that would mean He is the Father, but He said "the Father and I are the One and the same",the distinct person but One being so that the One, but Jesus in the books by Vassula says "know the Father and I are One and the same" That is exactly what had been rejected by the Fathers, by the Pope Damascus the 1st whose feast we just celebrated a couple days ago (early December) and also by the Council, there is the Council of Florence. That those formulated are rejected and it’s because of that incorrect formulation about the Trinity, that the Church has problems with Vassula. I’ve written about this on a number of places. I did serious articles on it, for a Catholic print circle about 2 or 3 years ago. Saying all, 2 years ago. Can I tell you a story about what happened with that?

M.A: Yeah, yeah,

Fr.: I, I sent,

M.A: I don’t think I can stop it! (laugh)

Fr.: What happened was I wrote all this down, I wrote it on my computer. I sent a copy to Vassula’s spiritual director by fax. And a few days later, in May, a couple of years ago, I got a fax back. Saying that I am going to be in big trouble. Vassula talked to God the Father for 7 hours about this, and something bad is going to happen to me and she is going to make it known and every one is going to blame me. All right? And at the end, the last line of the letter said "you are destined for bigger and better things" and if you don’t publish this letter, you’ll get them.

M.A: Oh? What is that a fortune-teller?

Fr.: No, it sounds like the Mafia to me, (laugh) but then I am from Chicago, I don’t know. But you know, it , and I said I can’t stop publishing because of those words.

M.A: If you were wrong, it wouldn’t take the Father 7 hours to tell her.

Fr.: No, it’s right, exactly. And I submitted my article to the censors of the Jesuit Fathers, The Jesuit censor for them to look at. So, I published it and then, sometimes after that, I don’t know who it was, who thought of it, but they sent a letter to my father general and they said, accusing me of two things: besides of being all wrong, I didn’t understand her (...). I sent a letter I asking to clarify clarify the things or I will publish it. Because I am concerned about the errors here or maybe they are not errors, I wanted to know, giving an explanation (...)

M.A: Father, please, don’t you fall for it

Fr.: Well, I want to see what she meant. You know, give her a chance, that’s in charity, we should do that. But what they said is I never contacted them before I published the articles. And that I was trying to destroy the Orthodox and Catholic Unity. And that is the opposite. As a matter of fact, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in North and South America asked for a copy of this because they were thinking about condemning her. And I did not send it to them. I am sure I could get permission from the Father general. And so, that is a sure step. I sent him a fax. And the fax didn’t have a date on it but the fax machine did date it. And I sent a letter to them, four months in advance. And so they weren’t corrected. I had sent them and I sent them a copy to let them, you know, to let them express their objection. And they chose not to. And at least not to explain to my satisfaction, and so I would not stop, one of the things Our Lord said that anybody is called to be a shepherd in the Church, is that you can’t run away from wolves and that you just don’t do it for hire. You make sure to the best of your ability that the sheep are going to be fed well and for the Truth.

M.A: Right,

Fr.: And that’s my role and I would, I had to write it. Father general, of course, exonerated me. And when Cardinal Ratzinger, a thing from Cardinal Ratzinger came out, there is definitely the same concern as I have. For instance, (?) when she goes to communion. Not only in the Catholic and the Orthodox Church but the Episcopalian Church too. See, she receives communion in all three according to her own books. Now that’s not right!

M.A: No,

Fr.: No, there are certain situations in which the Orthodox can receive communion with us because they share the same faith. But not the Episcopalian, we don’t have an agreement on the Eucharist with them. But we do with the Orthodox. So it is not quite right to do that. And so I object that to the Vatican, and the same thing about the Christology and the confusion of the Trinity, the exact same issue. We have to know what the New Testament teaches about Christ. And what we should expect from any visionaries. Jesus will not contradict Himself. He will not undo what is written in the Gospels.

And therefore, we have to have either her explaining away the confusions, or submit totally, and this is what she should do, I think and for all of us not just, Vassula or Valtorta, I, you, all of us must submit to what the Truth has been revealed by Christ through His Church.

M.A: I think the reason for all this is Fr., people are starving, starving for the Truth and for spirituality.

Fr.: yes, yes,

M.A: And they get all this mumbo jumbo, all this, the liberals give everywhere. I think that what makes people rush to these places because they don’t know.

Fr.: … They hear this stuff and then they say well, now, it’s up to us to talk, and this is one of the things I commend that somebody like Valtorta or Vassula would want a personal relationship with Christ. They want to know Christ, they want to love Christ, they want to devote their hearts, their love. Vassula speaks beautifully well, not always correctly but she speaks, she desires to love the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Great, I love that too, that’s good. We should seek a personal relationship with Christ.

M.A: See we have to have the Truth with all of that.

Fr.: Exactly, exactly. That’s the thing, the desire for a personal union and a personal love is important. But like any love if you love your children strongly and personally, but you let them do whatever they want as deep as you love, they still come up spoiled. And if you love Jesus with all the warmth and sometimes, gosh, and all this, but if it is not the real Jesus, you’re asking for trouble, spiritually.

M.A: Yeah,

Fr.: We have to know the real Jesus Christ, not some imitation, not some that fall short of the real Jesus Christ.

- End of transcription -

 

Footnotes

(1) Message dated April 7/8, 1987.

(2) Message dated October 26, 1987.

(3) Message dated October 11, 1988.

(4) Message dated September 24, 1988.

(5) Message dated July 28, 1989.

(6) Messages dated January 17, 1989 and February 15/17, 1989.

 

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