Explorations in Theology: Spiritus Creator Book

I turned to this little book to help me evaluate Heaven is for Real, both the book and the movie.

His second of four rules to aid discernment was an eye-opener: "No private revelation comes directly from God and therefore none can be assumed to be inerrantly true." Groeschel shows through many examples that saints whom we honor as imitators of Christ are not necessarily infallible, despite their mystical graces and holiness of life.

St. Catherine Labouré, who gave the world the miraculous medal, actually predicted the bloody disturbances of the French Commune forty years before they occurred and with the precise date. However, she made several other predictions that were wrong. When confronted with these errors, she simply apologized for getting the facts of the revelation wrong. She obviously did not know what to say, since she had thought she had got the message right. This admission of simply "getting it wrong" on the part of this simple visionary is something one should never forget. (34)

I believe Colton's recovery was a miracle; I believe God spoke to him personally in images and language perfectly accommodated to the understanding of a four-year-old boy; I believe we have a lot to learn about how to express our anger at God without fear; but I don't agree with his father's presentation of the contents of his son's vision or dream as "the truth" (153), without any further qualification. Groeschel advises that "the possibility of distortion, error, or even innocent self-deception needs to be grasped in its entirety" (109). His cautionary tales of the Church's 2000-year experiences with visionaries help to make this understanding possible.