Vatican approves devotion at site of Marian apparition in Spain

Devotions at a Marian shrine in Spain that communicate Mary’s “close and affectionate presence” can and should continue, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, dicastery prefect, authorised the local archbishop to issue a document so that the Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows of Chandavila can “continue to offer to the faithful who wish to approach it, a place of interior peace, consolation, and conversion.”

The cardinal’s letter titled, “A Light in Spain,” was approved by the pope during an audience 22 August and was published on the dicastery’s website 23 August.

The devotion began after the Second World War, when two girls, 10-year-old Marcelina Barroso Expósito and 16-year-old Afra Brígido Blanco, separately had similar spiritual experiences in which they said they encountered Mary where the shrine now stands in La Codosera, Spain, along the country’s border with Portugal.

The Vatican dicastery did not make a ruling about the nature of the apparitions themselves but said, “there is nothing one can object to in this beautiful devotion, which presents the same simplicity that we can see in Mary of Nazareth, our Blessed Mother.

“Many positive aspects indicate an action of the Holy Spirit in so many pilgrims who come, both from Spain and Portugal, in the conversions, healings, and other valuable signs in this place.”