Yesterday, the DDF (Dicastery for the Destruction of the Faith) made public a letter dated July 5, 2024, providing its evaluation of the diary of an Italian visionary named Pierina Gilli.
Aspiring to the religious life in the Handmaids of Charity, although never consecrated, Gilli allegedly saw apparitions of, and received messages from, the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title Mystical Rose in the 1940s and 60s.
Gilli’s diaries have been undergoing a process of review at the Vatican for upwards of a decade. Finally, in early July, Cardinal Tucho Fernandez, with the approval of the Holy Fibber, Francis, informed the Bishop of Brescia (where these events took place) of the good news:
The Dicastery “has not found in the messages released by Pierina Gilli elements that directly contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church on faith and morality.”
After extolling the positive aspects of Gilli’s writings, the letter expresses concern that certain entries “require interpretation with a view to clarification,” mostly having to do with Our Lady’s role as intercessor and mediator. Doubtless this concern was motivated more by ecumenical concerns than theological rigor.
For instance, Tucho writes:
We certainly do not want to convey an image of God or Christ who is distant or devoid of mercy, who must be “restrained” by a “mediation” of Mary … This image of Mary as a “lightning rod” mediator, often used in other times and also inherited by Pierina, must be avoided.
Used in other times? Clearly, he is referring to the Fatima apparitions, the supernaturality of which few of the clowns in Rome seem to accept. Recall what Jacinta once testified:
Our Lady cannot stay the arm of her Beloved Son upon the world anymore. It is necessary to do penance. If the people amend themselves, Our Lord shall still come to the aid of the world. If they do not amend themselves, punishment shall come.
Returning to the letter’s positive notes, it states:
Pierina’s writings express a humble and complete trust in Mary’s maternal action, as such we do not find in her attitudes of vainglory, self-sufficiency or vanity, but rather the awareness of having been freely blessed by the closeness of the beautiful Lady , the mystical Rose.”
Some paragraphs later, the letter provides the following details of a message of encouragement allegedly given by Our Lady to Gilli:
…climb high, to the peak of holiness and not remain down in the valley among those Christians who are dying of starvation and spiritual languidity, because they do not want to live and savor the life of grace that the Lord wants to favor in their souls and which he gives to each one individually.
Does this suggest an attitude of vainglory? Perhaps not, but it certainly calls to mind the attitude of the Pharisee who prayed: “I give thee thanks, O’ God, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican.”
Too harsh? Maybe, but there are more reasons for reservation.
Other details concerning Pierina Gilli’s visions, not cited in Tucho’s letter, are available online (much in Italian), a cursory examination of which reveals some remarkable (if not suspicious) similarities to the Fatima apparitions.
For example, on an archived version of the website of the Mystical Rose Association of Fontenelle-Montichiari, we find the following entry in Gilli’s diary (1947):
Here, in a low voice but full of goodness and confidence, she [the Blessed Virgin] communicated to me a personal secret concerning my future, a Message to the Holy Father, and another secret. She recommended me to put everything in writing and to keep the secret which will only be revealed upon my death.
Later that same year, Gilli related that an interior voice summonsed her to the parish church one day for an encounter with Our Lady. Once there, accompanied by her Superior and her Confessor, the threesome waited for Our Lady to appear:
Then, she [Our Lady] wasn’t alone: her white cloak, open, was held up at the sides, on the right by a beautiful child, also dressed in white, with a white ribbon encircling his forehead; on the left a beautiful little girl also dressed in white, with a white ribbon encircling her forehead and head, with her thick hair left over her shoulders, which gave greater emphasis to her angelic beauty.
They both had long dresses. I thought those children were two little angels, they were so beautiful. Our Lady was very smiling. She spoke up and looking at us she said:
“I have come to bring you three thanks and blessings, to compensate you for the work and sacrifices you will have to make for this cause of mine.”
Any guesses as to the identity of the children? Gilli continues:
I felt intrigued by the presence of the two children and I asked the Madonna: “Who are the children next to you?”
She answered me sweetly: “Jacinta and Francesco.” (The two little visionaries of Fatima).
Admittedly, I’m suspicious of everything that meets with the approval of conciliar Rome. Do I believe that every last drop of it is necessarily contrary to the faith, deceptive, and dangerous? No, that’s not how the Evil One rolls, he mixes truth with error. All of it, however, demands intense scrutiny – rites, canonizations, devotions – all of it.
In the present case, I find it odd that there are so many similarities between the Fatima apparitions and Pierina Gilli’s testimony, e.g., Our Lady appears to three seers, she gives a secret message meant for the pope, about the secret, which is to be revealed later, Our Lady says, “put it in writing, safely sealed.”
To top it all off, Jacinta and Francesco even make a personal appearance, as if to certify that the Lady conversing with Gilli is truly the Mother of God.
Are these common threads evidence that Pierina Gilli really was visited by the Mother of God, the same who appeared at Fatima, or do they indicate something else?
The answer, in my estimation, is right there in the text. Gilli writes, again in 1947:
[Gilli asks]: “Dear Madonna, there are many people who recommend themselves to you, sick people, family members who have soldiers who are in Russia and want to know if their loved ones are still alive”.
Somewhat sadder, she [Our Lady] replied: “We will have to pray a lot for the conversion of Russia.”
RED FLAG: This encounter allegedly took place eighteen years after Sr. Lucia formally received Our Lord’s request for the Holy Father to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in union with the bishops of the world.
This, Our Lady promised, is the way in which Russia will be converted, and apart from this, she warned, Russia would “spread its errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions of the Church.”
Seven years after the formal request, in 1936, Our Lord appeared to Sr. Lucia. She asked Him why the consecration of Russia is necessary for its conversion. His answer is recorded in Lucia’s diary as follows:
Because I want My whole Church to acknowledge that consecration as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that it may extend its cult later on, and put the Devotion to My Mother’s Immaculate Heart beside the Devotion to My Sacred Heart.
In this same vision, Our Lord said of the consecration:
Pray very much for the Holy Father. He will do it, but it will be late! However, the Immaculate Heart of Mary will save Russia. It has been entrusted to Her.
Are we now to believe that the Divine plan for the conversion of Russia, the same that Our Lord desires in order to inspire devotion to the Immaculate Heart of His Mother, was no longer worthy of mention just a decade later?
If that red flag isn’t large enough, consider the following citation from Gilli’s diary as mentioned in the DDF letter. It begins with the words of the seer:
“Listen, my Madonna, since the Council created the new Liturgy it is so beautiful because we pray together.” […] [Mary continued explaining the symbols that appeared in the apparition]: “These balloons [she refers to spheres of light] that I hold in my hands are to demonstrate to the whole world the symbol of the Ecumenical Council and how much it was pleasing to the Lord” » (27 April 1965, p. 307).
OK, hold the phone… At this point in time (April 1965), although the fourth and final session of Vatican II had yet to take place, in addition to having issued the liturgical minefield known as the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the Council had already passed the Decree on Ecumenism, the same declaring that Christ uses the heretical communities – including those that bristle at the mere mention of Marian devotion – as “means of salvation.”
Pleasing to the Lord? Yes, I’m sure He was tickled silly.
Now, what of those “balloons”? There’s an entry in Gilli’s diary that reads:
I saw in her [Our Lady’s] right hand a balloon of pale red light, the tip was facing upwards and inside it looked like many clasped hands, while in her left she had another balloon of white light and inside it looked like a Church. The bell tower formed the same point and the word “Peace” stood out above it.
Sounds like Our Father time at the Novus Ordo (or a Protestant Kumbayafest, hard to tell the difference), does it not?
In any case, the “explanation” provided by the DDF as if it is a direct quote from Gilli’s diary is nowhere to be found from any other source online.
Is it possible that the conciliar cretins at the Vatican made it up? Sure. These are the same sort of lowlifes that have been lying about the Third Secret of Fatima for decades.
What’s more, as Gilli wrote in April 1965 about the “new Liturgy,” the Consilium (as it was called for short) was two years away from completing its draft missal for the rite that eventually became the dreadful Novus Ordo Missae, or what is often called the Normative Mass. The first public celebration of that liturgy didn’t take place until October 1967, two-and-a-half years after she allegedly raved about the virtues of the “new Liturgy.”
Was the date a typo? Maybe. The quote a complete fabrication? Again, this seems entirely possible since the comment in question is likewise nowhere to be found online (as far as I can tell) other than in Tucho’s letter.
Furthermore, “the Council” didn’t create any new liturgies at all. One may wonder if the entry actually refers to the Consilium, however, the Italian text (which I presume to be the original since the diary was written in Italian and the letter itself is addressed to an Italian) states “Concilio” and then “Concilio Ecumenico.”
In any event, the closer one looks at this story, the thicker the aroma of rat fills the air…
Long story short, one would do well to ignore this Mystical Ruse. As it is, the rich and reliable tradition of the Church provides us with all that we need to know.
