A word of caution ... Have put Catalina Rivas 'on hold' until some serious allegations of plagiarism (from the book Formacion de Predicadores by Salvador Gomez and José Prado Flores) made against her some years ago have been cleared up. I have tried to find out whether these accusations have been refuted, but as yet have unfortunately seen nothing to suggest that the charges have been disproved. Would be grateful for any new information on the subject.
Peter B, I had never heard this, which message to Catalina was to of been plagiarized? Depressing if true. I believe Catalina received the stigmata.
Details of the accusations of plagiarism levelled against Catalina Rivas by author José Prado Flores can be found at http://www.skepdic.com/rivas.html - the fact that the case has been gleefully used by atheists to discredit supernatural religious phenomena is not in itself sufficient to dismiss the charge against Catalina R., as the evidence of the photostats is hard to ignore. I have been somewhat hoping that a credible refutation of this evidence would have appeared by now, given that the allegations surfaced in 2001, but I haven't found one, and when I wrote to CR's apostolate inquiring about this, I received no answer. This is not only depressing but potentially disturbing given that Catalina Rivas had been subjected to extensive neuro-physiological testing by Dr Ricardo Castanon-Gomez and his team, who had concluded that she was a genuine stigmatic. So it's really not at all clear what has been going on with all this, except to say that my own position is that until something appears to exonerate Catalina, I cannot treat her as a reliable prophetic source. It should perhaps be added that Nancy Fowler of Conyers, with whom Rivas initially associated herself, claimed that she never believed the Bolivian visionary, although this has been contested. I don't have a conclusion to offer here. Open verdict?
Thank you for the link and your inquiry. Oh my, I never knew this either, the second underlined. Makes it all the more confusing. Catalina Rivas received the stigmata for the first time at Conyers. From Our Lord given to whoever ???, The Passion is splendid. Take refuge in that message to Lec of the Philippines about the prophets. And it has happened, a messenger may start out truly hearing from God, then, be waylaid by the evil one. My personal interest... I was converted by private revelation at Conyers, at the last appearance of the Blessed Mother to Nancy Fowler. We all as watchers will never give up believing God's loving, merciful help, God speaks to us every day in the messages.
Thanks for your testimony, Jackie! I don't have the same reservations about Nancy Fowler as with Catalina Rivas - the Conyers case always struck me as compelling and the video of Nancy F. speaking very moving, although the human organizational handling of Conyers seems to have been something of a mess. By the way, one of the things I do is to collaborate with a French science-religion researcher who just prefaced the latest (and who knows, perhaps the last) book of René Laurentin, who visited Nancy F. on several occasions.
The author at the link slams Catalina. How can you fake stigmata and the testing of Catalina's stigmata? But, Prado Flores writing came first. ?? + + + ..."Not everyone has been taken in by Catalina Rivas. Besides those she has plagiarized, she has apparently lost favor with Juan Cardenal Sandoval Iñiguez, the Bishop of Guadalajara, who cancelled a scheduled appearance in Guadalajara by Rivas last summer (2001) after Prado Flores showed the bishop copies of his book and her “messages.” Prado Flores wrote to me: Catia was scheduled to appear in Guadalajara, Mexico where I now live. You can understand my total amazement when I put 2 and 2 together and figured out the famous "visionary and stigmatist" was the same lady that had "stolen" my book. A friend showed me a set books which were to be sold during the convention. We then went to the bishop of Guadalajara, Juan Cardenal Sandoval Iñiguez, who after seeing our study on her material immediately cancelled her participation. This of course made her write a letter accusing me of "stealing" her visions to write my book. According to Prado Flores, Rivas sent a letter to Fr. Argulo, who had invited her to Guadaljara, in which she made the accusation that they "stole her visions." How this was possible, since her visions and "messages" occurred many years after their book, is left to the reader to discern." + + + About Conyers' status, the present Bishop says take the good from the messages given there. I witness Conyers is true. Never in my life (I was dead in mortal sin arriving that day), had I ever experienced the presence of God the Holy Spirit in me until October 13, 1998 at the farm. I received an actual grace. God helps those who go in search of Him. And a Pope once said, if you believe Mary appearing and it is proved not true, you still receive the grace. This is God's way. You win even with certain confusing, can't figure it, we know it is the assault on the messengers, the faithful, especially the priests by Satan.
Peter B, I just now saw your post. Thanks to you...you help us all so much at MOG. Yes, the mess with the organizational handling of Conyers, a great cross for Nancy those years. Peter B, You are very, very knowledgeable along with your strong faith!
I have my own testimony of Nancy Fowler. The MIR center I helped start in Colorado had a conference in a little town in Colo. I had to go pick her up with her companion who had just flown in on a tiny plane through rough weather to get to the town. Nancy's words to me were, "This conference must be mighty important, Satan was standing in the aisle the entire flight growling at me!" We got into my mini van and as soon as we started going the entire car filled with the smell of roses. She was exhausted but was suppose to attend a healing service in which two other Calif. women who were visionaries also were to pray over people. She baled out and went to pray in the adoration chapel and asked me to take her place! I had never prayed over people....but I did it and it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, in that God gave me a great grace of tears and trust that it was Him, not I doing the healing. Nancy expressed that the two visionaries that were there from Calif. were false visionaries and we didn't quite know what to do. I found Nancy to be humble, embarrassed about her weight (she was a large woman and St. Michael was helping her lose weight..lol) and she really didn't want to get up in front of all those people and talk. She was very obedient to our Lord and only did it for Him and for the salvation of souls. When she did talk however, she was powerful and to the point. She didn't mince words and you could see the Holy Spirit was giving the talk, not her! The two other visionaries were pretentious, perfectly pious and snooty. She ended up being absolutely right about the visionaries and their 'priest'! We ended up kicking them out along with their companion Steve Mahowald... They wanted to reveal a '5th Gospel' that was revealed to them...uggg. Nancy also saw Jesus on the crucifix come alive while she and I were in the adoration chapel. Our Lord gave me a message through her concerning 'my motherhood'.. She could not have known what our Lord revealed. It was a confirmation to what he had revealed to me the previous day in prayer. She was very childlike and sweet. I wish I had gone to visit her in Georgia before she had died!
Nancy Fowler. Now there's a name I haven't heard in many years. I cannot even recall where I had read about her, I just remember the name.
