Vassula Ryden - Criticism

Criticism

In 1995, Dominican theologian François-Marie Dermine, a Canadian-born priest serving as exorcist for the diocese of Bologna, Italy, wrote a book, Vassula Rydén: indagine critica (Vassula Rydén: critical inquiry), analyzing Rydén's first six books. Dermine described Rydén's early works as promoting a New Age-type spirituality including millennialism and pan-Christian ecumenicism, preceded by a time in which the antichrist dominated the Church. He said these ideas were heretical to Roman Catholicism, and that Rydén stopped putting them in her writings after warnings from the Church, a factor which demonstrates that they are her own thoughts, not those of spirits. He showed how Rydén's automatic writings were said by her to be from a variety of sources: guardian angels, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, God, and several Christian saints. Dermine noted that Rydén found some of her own messages to be false; she cancelled these ones. He wrote that Rydén explained away the problem by saying that God told her she could change any messages that she felt did not work. Dermine said that the whole body of Rydén's writings could be dismissed on the basis of this supposed revelation. More damning than that was Dermine's assessment that Rydén's automatic writing was directed not by Jesus or God but by the Devil. Dermine wrote that automatic writing has never been part of Christian mysticism and divine revelation, but it has been connected with demonic possession.

In 1996, Belgian theologian Joseph Moerman criticized an attack made by Laurentin on those who had been speaking out against Rydén. Moerman said that Laurentin's defense of Rydén included unwarranted caricaturization of CDF leaders, and unsupported positive analysis of her writings. Moerman said that Rydén's writings could not be directly from Jesus because of inconsistencies within them, and because of differences between the style of known mystics writing in a state of religious ecstasy and Rydén's writings performed in "normal lucidity".

In 1999, the Argentine organization Servicio Para el Esclarecimiento en Sectas (Foundation S.P.E.S.), formed to investigate new religious movements and sects, published a two-part bulletin critical of Rydén and her followers, authored by Mónica de López Roda. De López Roda described how Rydén's mission appeared to be the unification of all Christian churches under a non-hierarchical ecumenicism; a spiritual Christianity devoid of doctrinal differences. She said that the positive words from Rydén provoked division among Christians because of questions about whether the messages were fake. De López Roda named supporters of Rydén who were acting in defiance of the directives of the 1995 Notification by the Holy See: Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, and Fathers René Laurentin, Emiliano Tardif and Guido Sommavilla.

In Skeptical Inquirer magazine in 2011, longtime investigator Joe Nickell compared Rydén's "messages" to alleged communications from Jesus to other women claiming revelations and wrote, "the contrived handwriting, the linguistic lapses, and the indications of fantasizing all suggest that Vassula Ryden is not in touch with supernatural entities but is simply engaging in self-deception that in turn deceives the credulous. Her automatic writings therefore are not works of revelation but simply of pious imagination." Nickell says that Rydén's personal misspellings and linguistic errors are identical to those claimed to be written as Jesus, God, Mary, her own invisible "guardian angel, Daniel," and Satan, and all seem to have the same hand writing and grammar. Nickell suggests, "If God deigns to use the English language, should we not expect it to be rendered accurately?" According to Nickell, "One suspects that if Ryden were prevented from seeing what was being written, the entities supposedly guiding her hand would be unable to so faithfully follow the lines! I invite Ryden to accept my invitation to perform a scientific test to refute or confirm this suspicion." Some skeptics have noted how the revelations have changed with time and now conform more with church doctrine.

In September 2005, the spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland warned people against going to Rydén's conference in Edinburgh. Referring to the 1995 Notification, he said Rydén "certainly did not" operate with the approval of the Church and that "the advice to Catholics is not to attend her gatherings due to the suspect nature of her alleged revelations, which contain doctrinal errors."

In January 2006, Roger Mahony, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, California, approved the withdrawal of an invitation to host to a conference at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels at which the main speaker was to be Rydén. Mgr. Kostelnik, pastor of the Cathedral, explained in a press release that the organizers had assured him that Rydén's writings had "been cleared by the Vatican", but that he had discovered that those assurances were "a serious misrepresentation of the current Vatican view of Mrs Ryden's speeches and writings" and that the 1995 and 1996 Vatican statements cautioning Catholics against following Rydén remained "in full force".

On March 16, 2011, the Greek Orthodox Church and synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople issued a disapproval of her teachings and instructed all Orthodox Christians not to associate with her. The Ecumenical Patriarchate "denounce from the Mother Church" Rydén and her organization, "True Life In God", and refused "ecclesiastical communion" to those involved. The Synodical Committee for Matters of Heresy of the Church of Cyprus announced on January 13, 2012, that Rydén's "teachings are heretical, and her claims that she communicates directly with Christ are fantastical and outside of the spirit of the experience of the our Church."