The Bogus Apparition at Tre Fontane

Pope John Paul II referred to Jesus' mother as “Holy Mary of the Third Millennium at the Three Fountains”.
 
He was referring to the apparitions of Mary that allegedly happened at the three fountains on the outskirts of Rome called Tre Fontane.
 
In 1937, the so-called Servant of God Luigina Sinapi had a vision there. Mary appeared to her commanding her to go to Cardinal Pacelli with the prediction that he would one day be pope. He became Pius XII. This was a good guess for he was Secretary of State for the pope. Also, it is quite common for different Church dignitaries to be told by nuts that they got a revelation from Heaven that they will be pope. One of them has to get it right.
 
Mary told Sinapi that in a decade she would appear again in order to convert a man who would be planning to murder the pope.
 
Bruno Cornacchiola was born in Rome in 1913.
 
He got involved in Fascism believing it would lead to the end of the Catholic Church.
 
He claimed that a Lutheran in Madrid told him that the Catholic Church was the greatest force of evil ever and Bruno was inspired by this conversation to buy a dagger with which to kill the pope. He inscribed, "Death to the Pope," on it.
 
He returned to Italy and he said later that this was to bring his plan to kill the Pope to fruition. Catholic sources are clear that he never revealed this until after his reported apparitions of Mary at Tre Fontane.
 
He joined the Seventh-Day Adventists because they taught that the papacy was Antichrist and evil. He even joined the Communists because of their anti-Catholic agenda.
 
He beat up his wife and children nearly every day and bullied her to leave the Catholic Church.
 
She urged him to go to Mass for the Nine First Fridays and he said he agreed as she was so insistent. She said that she would leave the Church if he went along with this. They both attended the Masses and she left the Catholic Church.
 
He did missionary work for the Adventists and preached hatred against the Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 
On Saturday April 12th 1947 he was at Tre Fontane planning things to write against the Blessed Virgin. His children who had been with him were not to be seen. He went in search of them.
 
He found his children praying O what a beautiful lady! in the grotto at Tre Fontane.
 
He tried to lift them but they had a supernatural weight about them that made it impossible.
 
He cried to God to help. Then he felt forced to kneel and someone touched his eyes with invisible hands. Then he saw the beautiful lady. He saw black clothing symbolising the priests refusing to wear the black. And he saw broken crosses under her feet indicating the lack of faith in Christ that many priests would be afflicted by.
 
Mary spoke saying, "I am She who is in the Divine Trinity. I am the Virgin of Revelation. You have persecuted me! Now is the time to stop, enough of this! Come and be part of the true Church, which is the Celestial Court on Earth. God’s promises are unchangeable and will remain so. The nine first Fridays in honour of the Sacred Heart of My Son, which your faithful wife persuaded you to observe before you walked down the road of lies, has saved you. Go now and reconcile with the Church, and with the Holy Father. Live the Divine doctrine, practice Christianity, live the faith. The Hail Mary’s that you pray with faith and love are like golden arrows that go straight to the Heart of Jesus. Go, pray much, recite the rosary, and pray for the conversion of sinners, for unbelievers and for all Christians”.
 
She spoke to him for longer than 80 minutes. She spoke slowly to make sure he memorised what she had to say. And she used rhythm to help him remember it better. He could remember all she said afterwards exactly as she said it. The children saw her lips move but they heard nothing she said.
 
Referring to the soil in the grotto, a grotto that was used for sexually immoral purposes, she continued, "I promise this special favour, that with this sinful soil, I shall perform great miracles for the conversion of unbelievers and of sinners. Science will deny God and will refuse His calls.”
 
Then she gave him an interior insight into his errors and he saw that the Catholic Church alone was the true religion.
 
She then had a message for Pius XII, “You must go to the Holy Father, the Pope, the Supreme Pastor of the one true Church on earth and personally tell him of my message, bring it to his attention. I will also point out to you a priest to whom you must go to confess and who will accompany you to see the Pope”. Then she said, “ say to each priest you meet, Father I wish to speak to you. When the priest who answers you like this “Ave Maria, my son what do you want”, then, he will be the one who will lead you to a confessor and on to meet the Holy Father.”
 
Later a shrine was developed, and Pius blessed her statue that was placed there.
 
Was this really an apparition to somebody who did not believe the Catholic faith and who had become a non-Catholic?
 
It was nearly two years before Bruno found the priest.   
 
Bruno went to see the pope in May 1949 and had the dagger with him and showed it to the pope.
 
He seems to have experienced future apparitions. He may have had 28 visions in total.
 
Cornacchiola died in 2001.
 
ANALYSIS
 
Catholic writer Donal Anthony Foley wrote, "It also seems that he has not been completely truthful in his biography. This is like the tragic history of Mélanie at La Salette; her initial experience was trustworthy, but she allowed events to go to her head in later years."
 
There is no evidence that Bruno experienced true ecstasy during his visions.
 
The Adventists did not allow their missionaries to go around mocking the Virgin Mary. They respect her as the mother of Jesus but they simply oppose honouring her as if she were a being who had power with God. Bruno's claim that he mocked Mary as an Adventist preacher is really just based on the Catholic urban myth that Protestants hate Mary because Catholics love her.
 
"Sono colei che sono nella Trinità divina." The original message in Italian clearly says: “I am she who is in the Divine Trinity”. This suggests that Mary is somehow God. A Catholic never mind an Adventist like Bruno would immediately accuse the vision of pretending to be Mary and banish it. Bruno emphasised how he had it word for word. He suspected that the statement would be controversial and would have known from his interest in religion that some Catholics would try to pretend she said something like, "I am she who is with the Divine Trinity". He was acting in advance to halt them.
 
The statement "The nine First Fridays in honour of the Sacred Heart, which your faithful wife persuaded you to observe before you walked down the road of lies, has saved you", contradicts the Catholic teaching that this devotion is only fruitful if you engage in it with devotion and repentance and love. Bruno himself admitted that he only went through the motions.
 
His wife was not faithful when she did the devotion and she left the Church. Bruno lied then that Mary said his wife was faithful. That came from Bruno not Mary.
 
She refers to Adventism as "the road of lies." The context is about the true religion as opposed to the false. It's refreshing to hear what Catholicism honestly thinks about other religions! Today it tends to pretend that every other religion means to tell the truth.

"Sono la Vergine della Rivelazione. Ecco, prima di andare via io ti dico queste parole: la Rivelazione è la Parola di Dio, questa Rivelazione parla di me. Ecco perché ho dato questo titolo: Vergine della Rivelazione." “I am the Virgin of Revelation. Before you go away I am going to tell you these words: Revelation is the Word of God, this Revelation talks about me. That is why I have been given this title: Virgin of Revelation.”
 
The Virgin of Revelation is to be understood as follows. The Seventh Day Adventists who Bruno followed treat this book with extreme important and they say that it predicts the formation of their Church. The Revelation speaks of a sign in Heaven of a pregnant woman wearing twelve stars for a crown. Catholicism has distorted that bit to make it seem like it speaks of a vision of Mary. Mary is obviously confirming that ridiculous interpretation. The Woman of Revelation is not even described as a virgin.
 
The apparition preached the truth of the assumption of Mary, the doctrine that she was taken up body and soul into Heaven.
 
"Il mio Corpo non marcì, né poteva marcire, Mio Figlio e gli Angeli mi vennero a prendere al momento del mio trapasso..."

“My body could not perish and did not perish, My son and the angels came to claim me at the moment of my death." She is boasting that her body was unable to rot.

"Si preghi assai e si reciti il rosario quotidiano per la conversione dei peccatori, degli increduli e per l’unità dei cristiani. Le Ave Maria del Rosario sono frecce d’oro che raggiungono il cuore di Gesù…"
 
"Always pray and recite the rosary daily for the conversion of sinners and the non-believers and for Christian unity. The Hail Mary’s that you say with faith and love are as many golden arrows that pierce the heart of Jesus”. This is the only time she mentions Jesus. She is not interested much in bringing us to Jesus. The reference to arrows imply a wish to inflict pain on Jesus. The rosary according to her is intended to hurt him to make him give one what one asks! Believers answer that the arrows are golden arrows of delight. A revelation called the Golden Arrow takes that understanding.

"Con questa terra di peccato opererò potenti miracoli per la conversione degli increduli".
 
The Virgin's promise is ludicrous. "With this sinful earth I will perform great miracles for the conversion of unbelievers." If she would do that, then clearly there will be queues forty miles long for the soil. How could it last and what about the damage to the environment? Making the soil get used for magic is an admission of inability to make a magic spring.

"I want to give you absolute proof of the divine realty which you are experiencing, so that you will exclude any other motive for this encounter, evil motivation included. This is the sign: Every time you meet a priest in church or in the street, approach him and address him with these words: 'Father I must talk to you.' If he answers: 'Ave Maria! - My son, what do you want?', beg him to stop because he is the chosen one. Tell him what your heart dictates and obey him.
 
Bruno would have encountered a priest like that eventually. And as he had a reputation for apparitions of Mary, this increased the chance a priest would say that to him. This prophecy is based on good guesswork.
 
The following was easy to fulfil by manipulation, "In fact, he will direct you to another priest by saying, 'He is the one for you.' Afterwards you will go to the Holy Father, the Supreme shepherd of all Christians, and give him My message personally. The one that I will point out to you will take you to the Pope. Some people to whom you relate this vision will not believe, but let that not disturb you."

"In questo luogo voglio avere un santuario ed essere venerata con i nuovi titoli Vergine della rivelazione e Madre della Chiesa!"
In this place I want a sanctuary and I want to be venerated with the new titles of Virgin of Revelation and Mother of the Church.

Why would she emphasise getting the title of Virgin of Revelation? It was not exactly a title that would make Catholics or schoalrs buzz. And she already was known as Mother of the Church.

She said, "Science will deny God and will refuse His calls." She would have said an interpretation of science woudl do that. To say it will be science itself is really saying, "Those who check God's existence out scientifically will see he is to be denied".
 
Bruno scratched on the ground the following, "On 12th April 1947 the Virgin of Revelation appeared in this grotto to the Protestant Bruno Cornacchiola and his children and he was converted." Strangely he told the children to say nothing. Despite the fact that he allegedly beat them up all the time, they were not afraid to disobey him. They told everybody about the vision. Bruno was a very untruthful man. Had he wanted the events to be kept secret, he would not have been scratching the message on the ground.
 
The police interviewed Bruno and his family and thought their stories tallied in the main details.
 
Cornacchiola went on to claim a total of 28 further apparitions by 1986. The messages became disturbingly fanatical overladen with apocalyptic themes verging on glee. Also many great evils were forecast and never took place. There is not a single convincing prophecy from the lips of his Virgin.
 
The apparitions were impostures. Bruno was a religious fantasist. His association with the Adventists was insincere and he had been planning to get fame by fabricating apparitions all along. His sudden conversion was simulated. It was all a scam to get honoured as a latter-day St Paul. Bruno went to great lengths to promote the catechism and the Catholic faith. His motive was really his own fame. The holy woman Sinapi made a prediction that a man would be converted by a vision at Tre Fontane. Bruno decided that lie or truth, he was going to be that man.
The proof is that his plot to kill the pope was not mentioned until after the apparition...