Virgin Mary? What crap!

Maybe the bird ate some crumbs from the Virgin Mary toast.

Now did you know that the Pope issued new guidelines for these kinds of images? From The Daily Mail:

When a claim of heavenly apparitions occurs, the local bishop will need to set up a commission of psychiatrists, psychologists, theologians and priests who will investigate the claims systematically.

The first step will be to impose silence on the alleged visionaries and if they refuse to obey then this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false.

The visionaries will next be visited by psychiatrists, either atheists or Catholics, to certify their mental health and to verify whether they are suffering from conditions of a hysterical or hallucinatory character or from delusions of leadership.

The third step will be to investigate the person’s level of education and to determine if they have had access to material that could be used to falsely support their claims.

If the visionary is considered credible they will ultimately be questioned by one or more demonologists and exorcists to exclude the possibility that Satan is hiding behind the apparitions in order to deceive the faithful.

There is so much ridiculousness in these guidelines, I don't think I can possibly address it all adequately. First, what bearing should a witness' willingness to shut up about their vision have on the validity of the vision? Next, how do you differentiate between vision and delusion? Is it more believable if the claimant is poorly educated, implying that he/she wouldn't be clever enough to effectively lie? And I would LOVE to know how one determines whether it's Satan or any specific supernatural entity behind something since that's a question I ask god believers all the time who claim they hear their god or somehow get signs from it. How do you know it's your god and not another, a devil, pixie, alien, a side effect from eating much too old leftovers, or anything else?

So I would love to hear how the Catholic church would investigate this new image that's come from above in order to determine if it may in fact have come from FAR above. Personally, I just think the image and these guidelines are all a bunch of crap.