Francesca, a charismatic Maronite Christian of Lebanese decent, who speaks in tongues and has purportedly had visions in the past, claims she first saw the Virgin Mary on 7 May during a family meal.

“She had ice blue eyes, brown hair, long brown hair, and an ice blue cloak. Her hands were open, there was light coming out of her hands,” said Zackey according to Independent Online.

Following her revelation, hundreds of devout Christians, and the occasional sceptic, have flocked to Zackey’s home to receive her blessing. Some claim to have been healed by her touch, while others – like 37-year-old Amal Nassif – have been blinded by following her advice and staring at the sun in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the Virgin.

The message

“I doubt it very much…We know that people in desperate situations search for answers from God. The God that we know reveals himself in a meaningful manner.”

According to the Sunday Independent, the Virgin Mary’s message to Zackey was to “pray the rosary, and to get others to pray it, as though it were the last day on earth” and to complete a book that is to be called ‘Doorlight to Heaven’.

Johannesburg Archbishop Buti Tlhagale, while not dismissing Zackey’s claims outright, set a cautious tone during an interview on Carte Blanche.

“I think one would be extremely cautious about the spiritual phenomenon, the invisible part of it, making claims. But I think one also wants to see as a practical outcome, if there is a message, how does it affect the community that believes? So one would be looking at whether there is anything that contradicts the official teaching of the church.”

According to the Archbishop, “people often have visions and we do not investigate every case”, however, a team of Catholic priests will undertake the investigation because of the massive public interest in this particular case.

So, just how do you go about investigating a Marian apparition and what does it take to get the Catholic Church’s stamp of approval?

Famous Marian apparitions

During a Marian apparition, the Virgin Mary supernaturally appears to one or more persons. Apparitions sometimes reoccur at the same site over an extended period of time. In Zeitun, Egypt, for example, thousands of people claimed to have seen the Virgin over a three-year period.

The first Marian apparition occurred in 40 AD while Mary was still alive. The apparition of Mary appeared to St James in Saragossa, Spain. She gave him a pillar and a wooden statue of herself and instructed him to build a church in her honour - Our Lady of the Pillar.

The more famous apparitions include Our Lady of Lourdes in France, where Bernadette Soubirous (1888) claimed she saw the Virgin Mary 18 times. She was beatified in 1925 and canonised in 1933 by Pope Pius XI. Lourdes Spring, where the apparition took place has been the site of over 60 spontaneous healings (out of thousands) which have been classified as ‘inexplicable’ by the physicians of the Lourdes Bureau.

At another revered site, Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, three prophecies (the three secrets of Fatima) were given by the Marian apparition to three children – Lucia Santos, Jacinta and Francisco Martos. The first secret foretold World War II, the second of the destructive nature of communist Russia and the third, which was only made public in 2000, apparently predicted the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.

Seeing is believing

According to the website www.livingmiracles.net, percipients usually see the Virgin as a luminous figure, sometimes holding her son, dressed in a long robe and surrounded by a bright white light. Other than that, the apparitions tend to be rather personalised – she often takes on the ethnicity of the region in which she appears, speaks the language of the visionary and wears clothing of the particular period.

The apparitions are often accompanied by other miraculous signs: the spinning of the sun, strange physical sensations, the scent of roses and the transformation of ordinary objects (rosaries from silver to gold and water to oil). Zackey’s apparition was allegedly accompanied by the spinning of the sun, a gentle breeze, the scent of roses and the household water supply has supposedly been mixed with holy oil.

In the cases where apparitions have been approved by church authorities, huge shrines or churches have been built and millions of devotees have flocked to the sacred spots in search of blessings and miraculous cures.

During the 20th century, which was nicknamed the ‘era of Mary’ due to the proliferation and frequency of alleged apparitions, more than 400 apparitions were reported from around the world. Of these, only seven have been fully approved by the Catholic Church. Contemporary apparitions tend to be serial in nature and often occur in the presence more than one person.

Investigating apparitions

Apparitions are usually investigated by the local bishops at their discretion, but the Vatican can intervene at the request of the bishops or of its own initiative.

In the 1970s the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith set out guidelines for evaluating apparitions. The evaluation is based on positive and negative criteria.

Positive criteria include an evaluation of the personal qualities of the person in question; an evaluation of the content of the actual apparitions (it must not diverge from the morals or faith of the church); and finally, an indication that the revelation will result in healthy devotion and spiritual practices.

Negative criteria include glaring factual or doctrinal errors, the pursuit of financial gain in relation to the alleged apparitions, any psychological disorders or gravely immoral acts committed at the time of the event by the percipient.

Having completed their investigation, the Church deems the apparition ‘Not worthy of belief’, ‘Nothing contrary to the faith’ (not condemned but not endorsed) or ‘Worthy of belief’.

Divine intervention or delusions of grandeur?

Considering that it is impossible to scientifically prove the existence of an apparition, it is not surprising that there are many that question the legitimacy of Marian apparitions.

The most common critique is that they are not apparitions, but rather hallucinations. If Zackey has been visited by the apparition of a man called Bob, she would, no doubt have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Why then, is it different if she is visited by a virgin called Mary?

Other critics suggest that apparition claims are in fact hoaxes, aimed at attracting attention or financial gain. Apparitions often occur in poorer areas - or in the case of Benoni, an area which has few other attractions - attracting pilgrims and with them money and trade.

If indeed the Virgin Mary did appear to Zackey, instructing her to pray and complete a book, then surely these were private revelations, which have very little to do with the rest of Benoni, let alone South Africa?

While it is not likely that Zackey’s alleged visions of the Virgin are part of a greater Benoni tourism conspiracy, one does need to question whether the publicity and blind faith given to her claims is productive.