The Decades-Old Saga of the Lipa Apparition

Lipa Archbishop Gilbert Garcera has publicly revealed the document affirming the Vatican's declaration that the 1948 Lipa Apparition does not have a supernatural origin or character. 

This document has long been the center of a dispute between Catholic Church authorities and devotees of the apparition, also known as Our Lady of Lipa, the Mediatrix of All Grace. For a time, the Church banned veneration and devotion to this apparition based on the decree, while devotees maintained that the decree never existed.

Teresita Castillo and the lady in white

The story begins when Teresita Castillo, a postulant (candidate for admission) at the Carmelite Monastery in Lipa, Batangas, claimed to have seen a lady in white (believed to be Mother Mary) several times on the monastery grounds in September 1948. Before this, Castillo stated in a later interview with journalist June Keithley, that she had been tortured by the devil himself.

The monastery's prioress, Sister Mary Cecilia of Jesus, later became involved after participating in a miraculous healing event with Castillo, witnessed by Auxiliary Bishop Alfredo Obviar of Lipa. News of the event spread, leading to the formation of a devotee cult. Devotees claimed that rose petals would miraculously materialize at the convent and various other places, which they collected and preserved as sacred objects.

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Subsequently, Cardinal Rufino Santos, along with six Filipino bishops, led an investigation into the claims of the apparition. In 1951, they concluded that the apparition was not supernatural. Pope Pius XII accepted and announced their findings that same year.

Castillo apparently left the monastery due to the controversy, while Sister Mary Cecilia was removed as prioress. In another interview, the former prioress mentioned that religious authorities ordered the destruction of documents and items related to the apparition, including rose petals and Castillo’s personal diary. Furthermore, an image of Mary associated with the incident was also ordered to be destroyed, but some nuns chose to save it instead.

Despite rejection by church authorities, devotees of the so-called Lipa Apparition persists to this day. The document affirming the Vatican's rejection of the apparition was not released in the Philippines in 1951, contributing to devotees' claims that it never actually existed.

Deathbed revelations

In 1992, Keithley's book on the Lipa Apparition claimed that one of the bishops involved in the initial investigation recanted his position on his deathbed. The bishop’s nephew, who was a priest, filed an affidavit in 1990 regarding this retraction. Consequently, in 1991, the case was reopened. 

Although the image of Mary associated with the apparition was saved, religious authorities banned its display for veneration until 1990, when then-Archbishop Mariano G. Gaviola of Lipa lifted the ban.

In 2009, the succeeding Lipa Archbishop, Ramon Arguelles, lifted the ban on devotion to the same image and initiated a new investigation into the issue. Since 2005, he had been publicly expressing his belief that the apparition was genuine.

Arguelles released the results of that investigation in 2015, declaring the Lipa Apparition to be supernatural and worthy of devotion. However, the Vatican overruled him, reiterating the 1951 decree.

Faith on trial

The recent events that led to the release of the 1951 document began in December 2022 when former Sandiganbayan justice Harriet Demetriou filed lawsuits against Dominican exorcist Fr. Winston Cabading, who defended the Church's rejection of the Lipa Apparition. Demetriou, a Marian devotee who believes in the apparition, sued Cabading for "offending religious feelings," as outlined in Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code.

Cabading was arrested and detained in May 2023 but managed to post bail after two days. In 2022, Demetriou filed a separate case against Cabading for perjury, but the Makati City prosecutor’s office dismissed it in January 2023.

Both Demetriou and Bishop Arguelles support the devotees' stance regarding the non-existence of the Vatican document.

In January 2024, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) decided that a copy of the 1951 decree on the Lipa Apparition must be made public. However, the CBCP had been requesting documents on the issue for a long time; their request was granted only after seven decades.

In October 2023, CBCP President Bishop Pablo Virgilio David announced that the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) at the Vatican would finally supply the decree on the Lipa Apparition. Current Lipa Archbishop Garcera released the decree to the public last March 19.

Translated from the Latin, the decree reads:

S.O. 226/49

By order of the Most Holy Father’s will:

The apostolic delegate is to authorize the apostolic administrator to issue a document from the Curia in which it is declared that the events of Lipa, after serious examination, turn out not to have a supernatural origin or character.

In an audience with His Holiness

Thursday, 29th day of March 1951

Certified authentic:

Victor Cardinal Fernandez, Prefect

David also mentioned that the decree was accompanied by a copy of a letter from Prioress Mary Cecilia in which she confessed to deceiving the faithful regarding the Lipa apparitions and asked for forgiveness. At the time of this writing, the letter has not been made public.

Demetriou refused to accept the decree and questioned the document's authenticity. “For more than 70 years, this decree has not appeared, and suddenly it was released to the public,” she said. She also called for the document to be further examined and vetted, noting that it is handwritten and contains some erasures and corrections.

In an article by the Catholic News Agency, Michael O'Neill, a Catholic miracle researcher and author, theorized that one probable reason for the Vatican's rejection was Castillo's vision of the devil prior to the apparition. "There has always been the question of whether the devil was disguised in further apparitions," he said.

None of the original participants in the event are alive to provide their accounts, as Castillo passed away in 2016, and the former prioress passed away in 1982. Their testimonies are mainly documented in Keithley's book and the documentary "The Woman Clothed with The Sun - Lipa," both of which are accessible online.