Private Revelation
Numerous books that allege private revelations have a disclaimer in the beginning that quotes an alleged saying of Pope Urban VIII. The disclaimer usually goes:
In cases which concern private revelations, it is better to believe than not to believe, for, if you believe, and it is proven true, you will be happy that you have believed, because our Holy Mother asked it. If you believe, and it should be proven false, you will receive all blessings as if it had been true, because you believed it to be true.
Whether or not Urban VIII said this is debated.
Pope Urban VIII did make a public statement about private revelations and their dissemination in the Catholic Church in his Constitution, Sanctissimus Dominus Noster of 13 March 1625.
Main article: Sanctissimus Dominus NosterRead more about this topic: Pope Urban VIII
Famous quotes containing the words private and/or revelation:
“The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Music, feelings of happiness, mythology, faces worn by time, certain twilights and certain places, want to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have missed, or they are about to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation that is not produced is, perhaps, the esthetic event.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)