Michael Commins
JOE Coleman was back at Knock Shrine again last Tuesday. But the crowds of some months ago were but a distant memory. The man from Ballyfermot in Dublin had heralded this visit with forecasts of crosses in the sky and other celestial marvels. But on a cold day in Knock, there was nothing out of the ordinary to enthuse those who came seeking such signs.
It is beyond doubt that tensions have been simmering away under the surface between followers of Joe Coleman and the Knock Shrine and Diocesan authorities. The festival atmosphere that was prevalent on Coleman’s first big day in Knock changed to more questioning attitude after the stampede in the basilica at the end of October. A third event on a very wet day in December was far more low key.
It is understood that Coleman met with representatives of Knock Shrine around noon last Tuesday. The basilica was off limits on the day. A request by Coleman to conduct a prayer session in the Apparition Chapel was not acceded to and it was pointed out to him that this area is almost always reserved for solitude and reflection, except when special Masses are celebrated close to the old gable wall.
Now, Coleman and his supporters are most definitely on a full collision course with the Knock Shrine authorities. In a statement published the following day (Wednesday) on his new website, Knock apparitions.com, he claims he received a message from “Our Blessed Mother Queen of Peace” saying she will “return to Knock at 2pm on Wednesday the 14th July 2010 where my people must and will pray my most holy Rosary in my sacred Apparition Chapel.”
Around 1.30pm (Tuesday), Coleman and some followers gathered outside the Apparition Chapel and soon afterwards commenced the Rosary. They relied entirely on their voices; they were given no access to a PA system. At the end of each decade, a chant of some well-known hymns like Golden Rose and Queen of the May arose from the assembled small crowd.
At 2pm, the voice of a priest came across the main PA system which can be heard throughout the church grounds. He welcomed all the pilgrims to Knock and informed them that the official ceremonies were about to get underway. But this did not deter Coleman and his followers who continued to recite the Rosary even as the Stations of the Cross appeared to drown them out at times.
The battle for hearts and minds of the devout followers intensified further sometime later after Coleman and his supporters decided to leave the gable end and move 100 yards or so to the area close to the Chapel of Reconciliation. Here, he again he went into “ecstasy” as a television crew filmed from close range.
Minutes later, the official procession of the large statue of Our Lady of Knock, led by chief steward, Tom Neary, proceeded from the gable end down to beside where Coleman and his followers had congregated. They too recited the Rosary as they drew near and passed by. For a few brief moments, it had symbolic connotations of a “Drumcree” situation. Indeed, one could not help but think of the friction that oft’ times takes place at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem where four Christian sects hold their “own” territory and where “reconciliation” is often way down the agenda.
By 3.30pm, Coleman had eased away from the gathering. Some followers claimed he had seen two visions of the Virgin Mary, one at the Apparition Church gable and another down near the Confessional Chapel. “He did see her. She was crying. He got a message,” one follower told me.
However, it was far more difficult to convince many of the locals. Curiosity had brought some of them along again. “There’s nothing whatsoever happening here. Some people are getting totally carried away. Someone points to the sky and they all starting looking up. It’s pure daft. Why don’t these people pick on somewhere else rather than Knock where they know pilgrims come all the time? Let them go to Tooreen or Gorthaganny and see how many they attract there,” said one disgruntled local resident.
The appeal of Coleman’s visits appears to be wearing thin. The thousands that attended his first two big days in September and October have dwindled away. The crowd was no more than 300 or 400 on this occasion. But he has promised to come back again on July 14, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in 1789.
One cannot help but feel that it’s going to be difficult to keep tensions under wraps for much longer. Something is going to bring all this to a head sooner rather than later.
