The Apparition At Knock, Ireland, August 1879

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY

Part 2
(Editor’s Note: Part 1 of this article appeared in the August 28, 2014 issue of The Wanderer, p. 8B.)

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The previous article looked at what happened during the apparition of Our Lady at Knock in Ireland, in August 1879, and this article will look at subsequent events. For the rest of his life, Archdeacon Cavanagh, the parish priest, regretted that he had not seen the apparition, but consoled himself with the thought that it was undoubtedly God’s will that only the ordinary poor people should have had that privilege.
The news spread rapidly, despite the fact that the local and national papers accepted a request not to publicize the events at Knock from the local clergy, many of whom were skeptical and disapproving.
The archbishop of Tuam, John MacHale, quickly set up a commission of enquiry, with nine priests questioning the witnesses and recording their answers. Regrettably, the original documents from this commission have not survived, and the accounts we now have, which agree substantially, were first published in booklet form in 1880. This publication, The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock, by John MacPhilpin, was accepted by the 1936 commission as faithful to the original accounts.
One theory advanced to explain the apparition was that it was due to someone painting the figures on the church wall with some type of phosphorescent or luminous paint. But this explanation is incompatible with the evidence of Mary McLoughlin, who saw the apparition in daylight, apart from the fact that no trace of any paint was found on the wall. Tests were also carried out with a magic-lantern, a sort of slide projector, which showed that it was impossible that the apparition could have been produced by means of shining an image on the church wall.
The evidence given by a Mrs. Flatley, who saw the figures from the side as full and rounded, also argues against the use of luminous paint or a magic lantern, as does this explicit testimony from Patrick Hill: “I went…up closer; I saw everything distinctly. The figures were full and round, as if they had a body and life; they said nothing, but as we approached, they seemed to go back a little towards the gable.”
The commission concluded that the testimony of the witnesses was reliable and trustworthy, but Archbishop MacHale, who was aged and unwell, made no definitive statement for or against Knock.
The general situation in Ireland, and an exaggerated prudence on the part of the Irish Church, is the probable explanation, although it seems that the archbishop personally believed in the reality of the apparition. He died in 1881, in his 90s, and his successor refused to take a definite position regarding Knock.
The symbolism of the apparition, when examined in detail, is of great interest. The fact that the witnesses saw the figure of the Blessed Virgin on a slightly higher level than either that of St. Joseph or St. John the Evangelist, correctly expresses her spiritual exaltation over them. Similarly, the altar, lamb, and cross, symbols of Christ and His sacrificial death, were on a still higher level, indicating their supreme position, and yet they were in the background, suggesting that the focus of the apparition was on Mary and her role as Mediatrix of all graces, who has been crowned as Queen of Heaven, and who intercedes for the Church.
The position of St. Joseph was of someone paying honor to Mary, whose joined hands symbolized prayer and petition. St. Joseph had been declared Patron of the Universal Church in 1870 by Pope Pius IX, and so his stance in the Knock apparition could be said to have expressed this ideal.
The figure of the Christ as a lamb occurs particularly in the writings of St. John the Evangelist, and he is the only Gospel writer to describe Jesus as the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29-36). John also described a vision he had, in the Book of Revelation, where he saw a slain Lamb being given all power and authority. This was a reference to the sacrificial death of Christ, which resulted in his being raised to the highest possible degree of glory (Rev. 5:6-14).
John describes the activities of the Lamb on more than 20 other occasions in this book, as well as the altar in the Temple of God in Heaven, before which the angels ministered (cf. Rev. 6:9; 8:3, 5 etc.). The cross, of course, is the basic Christian symbol, and so these three elements, cross, lamb, and altar, are very closely associated with the writings of St. John the Evangelist.
Meanwhile, large crowds of pilgrims had begun to arrive, drawn by the apparition and the reports of miracles resulting from drinking water in which scraps of the cement from the gable wall had been immersed. One young girl was cured of deafness by having a piece of this cement put in her ear, and within a year it was claimed that up to 600 miraculous cures had taken place. Although many of them could not be medically verified, medical testimony has been preserved in some cases indicating that extraordinary cures did apparently take place.
The general tendency of the people, who regarded their cure as miraculous, was not to want to undergo medical tests in case it seemed as though they were doubting what had happened, and thus questioning God’s power.
The number of pilgrims to Knock diminished toward the end of the century, and it was not until the 1920s that real interest began to grow again, when, in 1929, the then archbishop of Tuam took part in ceremonies at Knock for the first time. In a reference to the 1879 commission, he explained that, since the Church had given no definitive ruling on Knock, people were free to accept the apparition if they wished.

Pope John Paul II

In 1936, another commission was set up to examine the three surviving witnesses, and this continued its work until 1939. Mary Beirne, who had now become Mrs. Mary O’Connell, was in her 80s when interviewed, but strongly reaffirmed the evidence she had earlier given, ending with the words: “I am quite clear about everything I have said, and I make this statement knowing I am going before my God.”
Patrick Beirne and another witness, John Curry, who were young boys when they saw the apparition, were again interviewed and both were judged to have trustworthily recollected what they had seen. It is interesting to note that a special tribunal was set up by the archbishop of New York on July 6, 1937, to take sworn evidence from John Curry, who had immigrated to the United States.
This commission examined eight reported cures, including cases of tuberculosis and clubfeet, as well as a lady suffering from Pott’s disease, which affects the spine, and which had left her completely incapacitated. She had visited Knock in 1925 and the next day could walk again, eventually resuming an active life. This case had full medical documentation, including the judgment that her condition was inoperable; and some of the other cures were likewise regarded as inexplicable in scientific terms.
After three years’ work, the findings of the commission were submitted to the Vatican with a request for some form of recognition, although no public statement was issued by the then archbishop, Thomas Gilmartin.
Over time, this recognition was forthcoming, according to the usual Vatican custom, through the granting of certain privileges to the shrine, culminating in a special Mass of Our Lady of Knock in 1972. A new basilica was built in the 1970s, just in time for the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979 — the centenary year of the apparitions — an event that indicated effective Church approval of Knock.

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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theoto
kos.org.uk.)