In November 1996 a letter from Bishop Jose Vilaplana Blasco of Santander, Spain, “postmarked October 11, 1996” appeared in a periodical called GOSPA MISSIONS. Since then, it has been widely circulated causing confusion because the English translation of the original Spanish is inaccurate in key areas.

This letter has now appeared on the Internet and in The National Catholic Register and was reprinted in SOUL Magazine in its March-April 1997 issue. We have, therefore, to rectify the situation.

Firstly, the letter is not new. Ramón Pérez, the author of “Garabandal – the Village Speaks”, received the original in Spanish, dated 8 June l993, from Bishop Vilaplana. (Where therefore did they get the above-mentioned date of October 11th 1996? Was it deliberately updated?)

Secondly, we have the original Spanish and it is obvious to those who understand the language that there have been serious discrepancies in the translation. We mention only one as follows:


Furthermore, the entire GOSPA translation conveys a harsh tone that is not characteristic of the Spanish original. Whoever made that translation is obviously hostile toward Garabandal. Incidentally, SOUL Magazine has made the correction in their May-June 1997 issue in accordance with the accurate translation outlined above.

We now quote the last two paragraphs of the Bishop’s letter in full because they are important for our comments. We will use our own translation and these two paragraphs are numbered 6 and 7 in the original:





Clarification Continued




The key word here is “constat”, which has the meaning — to be certain, to be sure, to be evident. So long as a manifestation is in the second category listed above, it is in the safe zone. Garabandal is in this second category and what is interesting is that the very letter being used to discredit the events confirms its second category status. In Spanish, the verb “constar” is derived from the Latin “constat” and has the same meaning. In Bishop Vilaplana’s letter, when referring to the alleged apparitions, he uses the expression “no consta” (not certain) clearly assigning it to the second category.

Also, the detractors of Garabandal claim that because Bishop del Val (predecessor of Bishop Vilaplana as diocesan bishop) said he was “in communion with his predecessors” (some of whom did not believe in the apparitions) that means he also did not believe. This simply is not true and Bishop del Val once admitted to Father Turner that it was an ambiguous statement.

All the bishops, at least of that diocese, are required upon their installation, to publicly affirm their communion with their predecessors. This does not mean they agree with everything they did nor said as evidenced by the fact that Bishop del Val launched a new investigation into Garabandal after his two immediate predecessors, Bishop Puchol and Cirarda, declared there were no apparitions. If “communion” meant “agreement” then why would he have bothered instituting a new study?

We are not at all concerned that Garabandal is still being attacked. Viewed in the light of all God’s authentic works throughout Church history, this is a good sign.


Original Source: Unfortunately the original source to this guest document, as well as other back up primary sources have simply disappeared from the Internet as of August 8, 2017.