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The holy war over a visionary in a cardigan
Independent, The (London), Jun 25, 1996 by Paul Vallely reports
In Achill the locals have mixed feelings about all this. Shops, pubs and hotels which once closed down over the winter are now booming all year round. "We couldn't have dreamt up anything better than this if we'd tried," said one shopkeeper. And yet they are wary too. "Where does the money go? And what do they do there?" asked one businessman who has supplied the House and estimates, conservatively, that at least pounds 350,000 has been spent on the mysterious building. "Why has it got closed- circuit surveillance cameras outside? No other churches in Ireland have - yet those were the first thing they installed. And what is the keypad security on the sacristy door for?"
Certainly none of this was in the mind of the former Archbishop of Tuam who blessed the place at its opening in 1993. Then, "it was billed as a retreat house for a small number - the accommodation was only for six," said one priest who was shown round.
The local clerics know little. They were not invited to the opening and have not been since. Judiciously they are staying mum until the inquiry is finished. But their parishioners report that they are unhappy. They are plagued with phone calls from abroad about the place. They receive complaints from other priests. One rang to say the fishermen in his parish were afraid to go out to sea because "herself" had predicted a tidal wave. Another had a profoundly disturbed parishioner who heard from the altar the story of a terminally ill woman from Belfast whose friends prayed for her at the House; she was miraculously cured, but when she refused to acknowledge the power of prayer at the House she died of a second terminal illness which mysteriously appeared soon afterwards. "That kind of thing hits people at a time when they are most vulnerable," said one priest.
None of that doubt seems to touch Christina Gallagher as she makes her progress through the clutching pilgrims. Asked about the investigation she replies simply: "I know I'm telling the truth and regardless of what way the church decides, the truth will uphold itself. What I speak is the truth. So I have nothing to fear. I fear no man when I speak the truth of God." Such certainty always makes the church uneasy. No doubt there will be tears before the End Time.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO CHRISTINA GALLAGHER
The visions In 1985, Christina Gallagher, a housewife from Co Mayo, joined a huge crowd at Cairn's Grotto in Co Sligo where a statue of the Virgin Mary was said to turn to the figure of Christ. There she had a vision of the suffering Christ's head. Next came a 3am visit from Satan at home. Then in 1988 a wardrobe in a friend's house in Dublin turned into the Virgin. Later there were visits from various saints including Catherine of Sienna, St Patrick and the Italian stigmatic Padre Pio.
Other visions included trips to hell, purgatory and heaven, a preview of the horrors of Rwanda, an augury of "the Pope on his knees with blood coming from his stomach" and another of him being chased by pack of dogs against a background of a collapsing Colosseum.
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