ANNE CATHERINE EMMERICH
Anne Catherine Emmerich was born in 1774 in Germany and
she became an Augustinian nun. She was a stigmatic and she was watched very
closely in 1819 to see if there was any evidence of fraud. None was found. But
magicians could have fooled her observers. God gave her a cross on her breast
shaped like a t and a y forcing dirty doctors to look at it which is a strange
thing for God to do.
She wrote a book on her revelations but a layman, Clemens Brentano, rewrote them
so we can’t be sure of them anymore (page 18, Twenty Questions about
Medjugorje). If God went to the trouble of giving her long visions and had
Brentano taking notes meaning he wanted them to be preserved why didn’t he find
some way to preserve the authentic account? The revelations have to be false
when God failed. The Holy Shroud and Four Visions argues that that Bretano
turned the notes he took as she dictated into poetical language resulting in
inaccuracies but it says that since her visions of the suffering of Jesus match
the Turin Shroud the errors are few (page 16). But the Turin Shroud does not
depict Christ. If the Shroud is a miracle then Christ was a fraud. The Shroud
cannot be the winding sheet of Jesus and its existence would be evidence that
miracles prove nothing at all and can mislead. Jesus said his miracles proved
what he was saying was true and with the Shroud we would have physical evidence
against him. And physical evidence for him is something that we don’t have even
with the gospels which only give questionable and too brief testimonies for him.
Why then did Brentano get rid of the original notes? Catherine got a revelation
saying that God wanted Bretano to write her notes so if he lied it is more her
fault than his. She called him the Pilgrim because he had the role of being
pilgrim to the sacred place of her side from which revelations from Heaven were
to be received.
According to her visions, the cross of Jesus was the usual shape but Christ was
fastened to two arms going upwards in a Y shape. But the victims of crucifixion
carried one beam to the execution site but this kind of cross would be ready
made and the whole thing would have to be carried. Also it is unnecessarily
ornate. Catherine’s vision of the cross seems to have more to do with the Y
shaped cross in her parish chapel than Jesus. She described a scourging at the
pillar that is so horrific (page 27, The Holy Shroud and Four Visions) that it
is strange the gospels did not say that and which is inconsistent with the
gospel that Pilate was anxious to save Jesus and too bad a scourging could kill.
Yet her revelation says the gospels are infallible in all matters.
She reports as fact the fictitious story that was made up centuries after the
Church began that Veronica wiped the face of Jesus. Veronica means true icon so
she was made up for there was a picture of Jesus on cloth that some wished to
link with the time of Christ.
Emmerich claimed that the leg of Jesus was broken out of its socket to make it
stretch on the cross for a hole for the nail was too far away for the leg to
reach. Death rapidly ensued if the legs were unable to support. But Jesus was on
the cross for a few hours. The Turin Shroud is supposed to back this up which if
correct is another reason it is not Jesus’ cloth. Emmerich saw the arms being
stretched unnaturally and it is thought that the Shroud man had arms broken out
of the sockets. This makes it all worse for her claims. These details are on
page 39 to 44 of The Holy Shroud and Four Visions.
Mark recorded Pilate’s surprise that Jesus died so soon. Mark made no effort to
prove the resurrection and he just said it happened. Don’t you think he would
have said if the stretching had killed his Lord prematurely? The evidence must
have been confused and unconvincing when Mark could find so little to say.
What was Emmerich doing with stigmata in her palms if she saw Jesus nailed
through the wrists? She never saw this at all. When God gave her a cross on her
breast to match the cross in the vision it follows the stigmata would match the
vision too.
In her visions of the Virgin Mary’s house at Ephesus she reports that there was
a tabernacle containing an image of this cross. Why would Mary use a tabernacle
for a cross? Moreover, tabernacles did not come in till much later. And St John
gives the dying Virgin the wafer and no chalice which did not come in for
hundreds of years later. The apostles use altar lamps and altars and chrism and
blessed salt – later inventions of the Church. The work is full of anachronisms.
The Church might speculate that God led the apostles to privately use these
emblems of a later Church but the fact remains that they are more likely to be
anachronisms. Strangely, the apostles have nothing with them to drink but tiny
flasks on their belts and tiny loaves. And we are to believe they travelled a
long way with just that! There were even rich vestments that they put on for the
final Mass for Mary! And of course the account climaxes with the Virgin being
assumed into Heaven from her tomb - a legend that did not appear till long after
the apostles. She had a vision of the true Church dwindling to just a few
families which could lead to schism. She never hinted this vision was
conditional and apostasy is wide-scale today.
Even if Brentano invented many of these things it is certain that many of these
errors were originally Catherine’s. Now if stigmata is meant to be a miracle
that provides evidence for the faith and it is accompanied by visions then it
must bear witness to the visions as well. If the visions are false then the
stigmata was faked even if there is no physical proof. Her visions and wonders
really undermine the Church so if her stigmata and visions and ability to live
for years without food are real the Catholic Church is not the true Church of
God.
Emmerich hid her stigmata and swore those who bandaged them to secrecy but the
doctors spilled the beans. Stigmata would not prove she was a saint so what had
she to be ashamed of – exposure?