Knock and Pontmain - Did Mary appear?
The chapel gable at Knock and the region of Pontmain are Virgin Mary
apparition sites. In neither vision did she speak. Both visions are really
about images of Mary as opposed to the Virgin personally appearing.
They can be considered parallels in many respects.
Knock is a scandal with doctored statements taken from the visionaries and
their clear declaration that they saw statues and neglected a dying woman to
enjoy the vision.
Even if we cannot explain the Knock apparition, we can explain that it is
not a miracle for there is no good evidence that it is a miracle and that is
enough.
The apparition of Pontmain, France, in 1871 reminds one of Knock. There a
few children saw the Virgin in the sky for two hours. One of the witnesses
Jeanne-Marie Lebossé of Pontmain made a formal retraction of her claim to
have seen the Blessed Virgin (page 200, The Cult of the Virgin Mary). She
confessed that she had never seen her. What supports her assertion is the
fact that the Virgin spelled out a message in the sky, “Mais prieze mes
enfants”. The nun who taught the children, Sister Vitaline, had a habit of
starting sentences with the word Mais though it was terrible grammar (page
55, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary). The Virgin making
grammatical mistakes shows that the children imagined her. Something similar
could have had a lot to do with Knock.
We know that human nature being what it is, wittingly or unwittingly
exaggerates. The visionaries who said that the light covered the wall, that
the images were moving and that no rain fell on the gable during the vision
might have been doing just that.