Man faces charges for debunking miracle in Catholic church

Photo ~ Sanal Edamaruku charged for debunking Catholic miracle in Mumbai

Man faces charges for debunking miracle in Catholic church

You would think that the Catholic church would be grateful when someone debunks one of those mysterious “Virgin in the Toast” miracles. After all, look at all the paperwork they save not having to document every shred of evidence.

But such is not the case at Our Lady of Velankanni Church in Mumbai. According to a July 10, 2012 article at GhostTheory.com, debunk one of their miracles and you're likely to end up in jail.

Sanal Edamaruku is facing possible charges for "deliberately hurting religious feelings and attempting malicious acts intended to outrage the religious sentiments of any class or community” after determining that the reason there was water dripping from the feet of a statue of Jesus was simply because the church's plumbing system was clogged.

Edamaruku is the founder and president of Rationalist International and president of the Indian Rationalist Association. He was invited to investigate the anomaly by a Delhi TV studio and the church authorities agree, thinking, perhaps, that he'd verify the miracle and the town would become an overnight mecca for tourists.

Inside the Our Lady of Velankanni Church in Mumbai was a statue of Jesus and there was water dripping from the feet. The parishioners all took this as a sign from God and believers came from miles around to drink this supposed holy water.

According to Catholic Online, the Catholic church has grown in membership by more than 40% in India over the last 35 years and they attribute much of that growth to an inordinate number of miracles occurring throughout the country.

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prodeocommunications

Jul 12, 2012

In the first place, full disclosure, I am (I hope) a faithful Catholic. In the second place this man has done imprudent people and the public authorities, not to mention the local ordinariate, an enormous favor with his discovery and warning about infected water that people were... Assuming he has no reason to lie about anything... Eeee-yuck... In the third place I see nothing about the response of the local bishop but instead, just the usual comically irrational -- coming from people who call themselves rationalists, mind you -- and vague, light-your-hair-on-fire, standard-issue anti-Catholic canards that must needs feature words like "powerful" and don't forget "dark ages". De rigeur. Irrational rationalists. Do they not even realize how this makes them look? Maybe they don't care. In the fourth place, hey Great Britain, especially if any of your Internet petition signatories are Catholic, there's a little word we use: subsidiarity. Look it up. Subsidiarity is something so-called rationalists seem to find irrational. You wouldn't march up and knock on the door at #10 Downing street to demand immediate commands from the Prime minister because you heard a report of someone in India jay-walking would you? Are you sure you aren't irrationalists? A repeated typo could explain a lot of this. So far all I see is a successful self promoter, maybe doing a public service to some people more pietistic than prudent, running away from charges laid by a real court, while a self-appointed global kangaroo court of public lynching sentences the Catholic church, as usual, to being "powerful" and "dark ages" like a character in another idiotic Dan Brown fantasy. I have no idea why this guy ran away. Maybe he's got a pile of unpaid parking tickets? Did the rationalists consider anything like that? But how does the Catholic Church (worldwide of course, and the Pope in particular) become guilty of something other than not discovering the leak on its own? If indeed the leak is the cause. I'm sure a simple lab test or a simpler colored dye test could determine very quickly the cause of this water dripping. But that's the sort of thing the local ordinary will order. Funny how the rationalists are so irrational they can't use the interwebs to learn anything whatsoever about the actual rigorous process by which the Church investigates each claim of a "miracle." Instead they just rely on nonsensical presumptions about "darkness" and "ages" bolstered by a cavalierly specious approach. Doesn't seem very rational. It's almost as if these rationalists are so irrational that they believe there is no such process in existence. But of course the important thing is to get that kangaroo court sentence enacted so that everyone can jump on the anti-Catholic bandwagon again, led again by self-styled "rationalists" and well, bolstered by an online petition to the Pope. Started in the UK. Yes, THAT United Kingdom. Oh, yeah, baby. Now we're talking some serious public pressure leverage. We all know when it comes to commanding the Pope, the UK's online petition community has got it going on. How rational does all this look to you?