Reprinted with kind permission from GARABANDAL JOURNAL July-August 2004
Excerpted from LOS MILAGROS O FAVORES DE NUESTRA MADRE DE GARABANDAL
Translated from Spanish by Dr. Edward Serrano

Doctor Luis Morales, now 86, has no interest in hearing people praise his long professional career which made him an institution in the area of mental health throughout Cantabria. He has lost his faith in psychiatry, but has regained his faith in God and — more risky yet in scientific circles — in the Virgin. As a member of the original bishop's commission appointed to study Garabandal, he declared at the time that the events were not authentic. He has since recanted his previous declarations and even goes so far as to say that there never was a formal investigation — that the whole thing was a farce.

    In 1961, Doctor Morales was in charge of mental hygiene for the province of Santander and as the maximal authority in psychiatry, he had been appointed by the Catholic Church to investigate other alleged Marian apparitions. While he never hesitated to pronounce the others "false," he never used that word in referring to Garabandal.

PHOTO: Dr. Morales, now deceased, in Garabandal a few years ago.

    When he first declared against the authenticity of Garabandal, he was given recognition, but when he retracted his formerly negative assessment of Garabandal placing it in the same spiritual league as Lourdes and Guadalupe, he was ignored.

    "I recognize the Virgin as our intercessor with God and have no fear of making a mistake when I affirm that the events of San Sebastian of Garabandal are of the same nature as Lourdes and Fatima, even to the point of involving children of similar ages living in remote areas," he explains.

    For this doctor there is no natural explanation for the events.