Vatican will hold press conference today on “supernatural phenomena”

The Vatican will hold a press conference to announce the Church’s updated doctrines on “supernatural phenomena” on Friday. A notice about the press conference was posted on website of the Holy See Press Office, which led several media outlets to incorrectly report that the ad is about “aliens.” Instead, Church officials will “present the new provisions of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for discerning between apparitions and other supernatural phenomena,” according to the notice.

An “apparition” refers to a case in which a divine entity, such as a saint, the Virgin Mary, or Christ himself, appears before a person on Earth.

The press conference will be chaired by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, Monsignor Armando Matteo and Sister Daniela Del Gaudio.

The announcement will be broadcast live on the Vatican’s YouTube channel.

A report published in Fox News Last week, Fernández said the dicastery is “in the process of finalizing a new text with clear guidelines and norms for discerning apparitions and other phenomena.”

In accordance with established practice, apparitions are documented and examined by the diocesan bishop and then forwarded to Rome for further investigation.

The ad is gaining traction because an ad like this hasn’t been made since February 1978.

Fox News said that the best-documented apparition in the modern day is the Miracle of Fátima in 1917. Following an alleged series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary to several peasant children that promised a public miracle, tens of thousands of people in Fátima, Portugal, claimed to have witnessed the sun move erratically across the sky and produce radiant colors for several minutes.

The Pope formally recognized the “supernatural” event in 1930 and formally approved it a decade later.