3-10f) The Fourth No from the Bishop

Reprinted with kind permission from St. Joseph Publications

from the book She Went in Haste to the Mountain (Book 1)

NOTE: All excerpts from Conchita's Diary will be in extra-bold type

Perhaps the feverishly antagonistic reaction from that group of priests pushed the Commission at Santander to publish a new «Nota» on the matter of Garabandal. Bishop Beitia Aldazabal, who was no longer titular bishop of the diocese, but who continued at its head as Apostolic Administrator, honored this «Nota» with his approval and signature, although there are reasons to doubt that he personally was in full accord with what was offi-cially declared. The «Nota» was dated July 8th, and inserted into the Bulletin Official del Obispado of that month:

The Bishopric of Santander has received extensive documentation during these years on everything that has happened there. It has not closed its file on this matter. It always gratefully receives all the evidence for judgment that is submitted to it.

There have been three official Notas that have appeared up to this moment, trying to orientate the judgment of the faithful. This Nota will be the fourth, and its conclusion: the same as that of the preceding Notas.

The Commission that studied the credentials of these matters has not found reasons to modify the judgment already pronounced, declaring that there is no evidence of a supernatural character in the phenomena of which it made a careful examination ...»

As an illustration of the «extensive documentation» received and of the «careful examination» made, we cite here an extract — up to now, never responded to by the chancery — from Fr. Laffineur in the book, L'Etoile dans la Montagne:

Fr. Laffineur and his French companions had a good occasion to see how the Commission of Santander carried on its work — by their personal experience on the morning of June 24th, six days after the message, during their return trip from Garabandal . . . Anyone wishing to know the remarkable and .astounding experiences they had with the Commission, can read them in the L'Etoile dans la Montagne. [On May 1st, 1969. Father Laffineur gave a conference at Lisieux, France and in it he reminisced about his meeting on June 24th with the one who had been the secretary, lawyer, judge, and everything else in the Commission:

«A11 my responses were interpreted beforehand, giving a feeling that there could be nothing else than what was unfavorable to Garabandal . . . And listen to this. When I had finished my statements (which took place in a restaurant! The ultimate scandal in canon matters!) he said to me, Sign it.

I answered, I won'tsign this thing.

Then I saw what none of you could have imagined: with his own handwriting, at the bottom of what had been written, he calmly put my first and last name in large capitals . . . How can this be called canon law? When some of my friends from Germany passed through Santander sometime later, he assured them that I had given a deposition in front of the Commission against Garabandal, and that the deposition was signed by me.»]

But let us return to the bishop's «Nota».

«Nevertheless, we state here that we have not found any reason for ecclesiastical censure with regard to condemning either the doctrine or the spiritual recommendations that have been promulgated in this affair, in so far as they are directed to faithful Christians. Rather they contain exhortations to prayer and sacrifice, to Eucharistic devotion, to devotion to Our Lady in traditional praiseworthy forms, to the holy fear of God offended by our sins.

We accept the good faith and religious fervor of the people who go to San Sebastian de Garabandal, and who merit the deepest respect; and we wish to call upon that same religious fervor so that they, relying fully on the hierarchy of the Church and its magisterium, comply with the closest exactness to our repeatedly published recommendations.»

It can be assumed that these paragraphs were the personal part of Bishop Beitia; perhaps the sole part of the whole «Nota» that was composed by him. But there are serious indications that he, in the middle of his confusion with regard to Garabandal, personally came to be closer to its acceptance than its rejection . . . And so? Mysteries of God. Or, perhaps, simply mysteries of man.

During the days in which the fourth «Nota» was composed — the second and last «Nota» from Bishop Beitia — his bewilderment on this matter had to be increased by the abrupt change taking place in Father Luis Lopez Retenaga.

From the end of 1962, that priest, mentioned so many times in our story, had been confronting the bishop of Santander as the most convinced and qualified defender of the authenticity of the Garabandal events. But, suddenly, unexplainably — or perhaps, too explainably, as some might say — he made a complete aboutface, changing his enthusiastic defense not just into doubt, but into an outright opinion that all the events could well be considered the result of diabolical intervention. Something of what happened to Father Retenaga can be read in Star on the Mountain: «A priest stopped believing in Garabandal.» (His name is not given.)

Upsetting? But not too much. Garabandal was continuing to be, more and more fiercely, a sign of Contradiction. But was that not the same thing that had been prophesied for Jesus Himself? (Luke 2: 34)

Only a fool would pretend that the affairs of God have the 2 + 2 = 4 clarity that we like to see in the affairs of men!