Jonathan Kieran

YA THINK?!? Crazy Roman Catholic Virgin Mary “manifestations” have always gotten me riled, but one of the latest examples of desperate Marian chicanery on the part of kitschy Catholics is a real humdinger and this shit provides no end of entertainment for me.

The actual article is paywalled but the headline is hilarious and I can convey the gist of the SUPER-MIRACULOUS SIGNS involved with this particular Mother Mary case in all its steaming bull-manure.

Basically, some Italian Mamma Mia and her hubby went to the equally shamtastic site of Medjugorje in Frickofrackoslavia on a pilgrimage. The Blessed Virgin has been appearing there ON A DAILY BASIS since the early 1980s and MILLIONS of Catholics from around the globe have flocked to that formerly depressed little hamlet (which is now a thriving hub of multi-bazillion dollar religious commerce) to pray and listen to the most banal spewings of a dwindling cabal of “seers” who breathlessly report the gobbledygook that they supposedly hear directly from the Virgin’s piehole.

Since the FREAKIN’ 1980s, people! DAILY! To this day!

The “seers” who hobnobbed with Jesus’s Mama in Medjugorje were in their young teens when seven or eight of them got the oracular bug at the same time. Yeah, convenient. Now they’re all rich or at least quite comfy as the result of attention lavi$hed upon their insta-famous Holy Berg. Even the typically credulous Vatican, despite the site’s overwhelming popularity, balked at this howler of a Mary Craze and basically condemned the site without condemning it too hard … (it’s still a massive cash cow for the entire region.) For crying out loud, back in my Pre-Recovering Catholic Days, I remember parishioners in my church booking flights to Medjugorje by the planeload and experiencing great, emotional bouts of … well, emotions. Repentance. Dancing sun orbs were seen. Angel-babies were spied out of the corners of eyes, flitting hither and yon. Rosary chains suddenly TURNED TO GOLD (i.e. cheap onsite metal rosary chains oxidizing into a faintly iridescent color) and many alleged conversions from sinful lives. Shock therapy by sacred grift.

Well, it was/is all a bunch of hogwash. The Vatican probably got leery after Mary’s six-hundredth daily seance/rap session with the teens, along with the fact that she was blabbering the most bizarre New Age platitudes and theological piffle imaginable, e.g. “People must be nice to each other! God gets off on that stuff!” and “All religions are really the same!” etc. That last bit likely set the pom-poms atop the red hats of Vatican cardinals a-jingling. Catholic authorities urged members of the flock not to visit Medjugorje, as the so-called visions were bunk, but people kept going because, well, Mary’s Making Daily Invisible Matinees! And we have plenty of new restaurants and hotels to accommodate you!

Moreover, Medjugorje proved a fantastic business-model for other Catholic hucksters eager to extract some tourist cash from The Faithful. Offshoot visionary sites in Georgia, Watsonville, CA, and elsewhere tried to gin-up their own Heavenly Podcasts With The Mother of God to ephemeral (and frankly embarrassing) effect. Included amongst these entrepreneurial devotees are the aforementioned husband and wife team from Italy, who went to Medjugorje not too long ago and there purchased a life-size statue of the Madonna Mia, carted that garish thing back home, and promptly claimed to be receiving their own half-baked visions of The Big V. Crowds were welcome to come and gawk, of course.

Pilgrims soon flocked to their little Italian hamlet. You bet your cannoli they did. This Virgin Mary pulled out all the stops. Her statue cried tears of pig blood and chicken fat (which is pretty much a prerequisite for any self-respecting Holy Mama Shakedown in the world of folk Catholicism) and, not to be outdone by her Lord and Son, who once miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes to feed thousands, this Mary really upped her game in the razzle-dazzle stakes and miraculously multiplied PIZZAS for the gathered faithful! (NO ANCHOVIES OR PINEAPPLE! Mary don’t DO anchovies.)

Oh, I just can’t with this garbage. And the real kicker in all of this? Vatican authorities required the services of a Mariologist, a psychologist, a theologian, a bishop, an exorcist, and a scientist to investigate Our Lady of the Proliferating Pizzas and determine that it was all “unworthy of belief.”

Jesus wept, truly.

The visionary, too, had to watch in tears, probably, as her little chapel (aka. business opportunity) was bulldozed by local authorities and people were forbidden from assembling to disturb the local peace (and possibly dignity) by celebrating this asinine disgrace-of-a-sideshow.

Seriously, you can’t get much lower than the grift of religious charlatanism. Even Evangelical Protestants are getting in on the wacky miracle shit, these days. People are truly losing their goobs, but when have they not been goob-deficient? Same day, different snake oil. You can bet your ass that some old granny in a babushka is reading about that Italian fakir and drawing up a business plan for her own Miraculous Mary—one who multiplies piroshkis!

Buy your big statue, build a chapel, slaughter a hog, and get your ass to baking, Babushka!

Arrivaderci, Our Lady of the Pizzas!

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