Last month, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith published a “long-hidden” decree from 1951 that had declared that the alleged 1948 apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Lipa, Philippines, — also known as Our Lady of the Mediatrix of All the Graces—have no “supernatural origin or character.”
For many years, the apparition has been a source of tension between those who have believed it to be authentic and the Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines.
The alleged apparition—in which the Virgin Mary would have appeared in the city of Lipa to a 21-year-old barefoot Carmelite postulant, Sister Teresita Castillo, for 15 days, beginning on September 12, 1948—was investigated and referred to Rome. , after which the Vatican declared it was not supernatural.
In a statement accompanying the publication of the decree, Cardinal Fernández noted how Mother María Cecilia de Jesús of the Discalced Carmelite convent in Lipa had, in 1951, confessed “to having deceived the faithful about the alleged apparitions in Lipa and, consequently, having asked for forgiveness.”