Course Description

This four-week seminar (11/11/25 - 12/2/25) examines two of the most consequential modern Marian apparition traditions—Fátima (Portugal, 1917) and Garabandal (Spain, 1961–1965)—through a historical, religious-studies, and even ufological lens. Students engage primary sources (memoirs, episcopal statements, press accounts, Vatican documents), scholarly analyses, and selected documentaries. We will outline Catholic discernment procedures and learn about the impact of these cases beyond Catholic communities. While Fatima is an "approved" appartion, the Catholic Church has not approved Garabandal (though it may at some point). We will also read works by researchers like Jacques Vallee and Jeffrey Kripal, who approach the phenomena from a Ufological lens. We will read the work of Ingo Swann--who is a non-Catholic believer, and works by Catholics.


Sources we examine:

Sister Lúcia of Fátima, Fatima in Lúcia’s Own Words, vol. 1 (any reputable English edition).

Congregation/Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fátima (2000 theological commentary + texts of the “secrets”).

Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena (2024).

Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary: From La Salette to Medjugorje (Princeton, 1991) — selected chapters.

Eusebio García de Pesquera, She Went in Haste to the Mountain (documentary history of Garabandal) — selected excerpts.


We will review excerpts from the following:

Robert A. Orsi, History and Presence (Harvard, 2016), chs. 1–3.

Ingo Swann, The Great Apparitions of Mary: An Examination of Twenty-Two Supranormal Appearances

David Morgan, Visual Piety (University of California Press, 1998), selections.

John De Marchi, The True Story of Fátima (classic popular account).







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