🚀 go-pugleaf

Here's what Reuters has reported so far.
News is on CNN, and I heard a brief blurb on the Today show news.
Of course, Reuters has to throw in about the crowds and the nuisances, etc.
Nothing about the messages!
More news as it develops!
-=MikeF=-
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'Virgin Mary message' drawing thousands to Georgia

By June Preston

CONYERS, Ga. (Reuters) - More than 100,000 pilgrims were expected to converge on
 a rustic farm in Georgia on Tuesday to await what they believe will be a final
 message from the Virgin Mary.

The faithful began gathering over the weekend at the farm where former nurse
 Nancy Fowler has relayed messages she says are from the Virgin Mary over the
 past seven years. The farm is located on hilly terrain 35 miles east of
 Atlanta.

The annual event, which is not sanctioned by the local Roman Catholic hierarchy,
 drew 30,000 believers last year, but the Rockdale County Sheriff's Department
 estimated between 100,000 and 150,000 people would turn out this year.

Fowler, 47, has told the faithful this will be the last message the Virgin Mary
 will issue through her to the public. Fowler says she has received hundreds of
 private messages from the Virgin Mary and Jesus since 1983.

``I understand from Our Lady that next year will be the last of her public
 messages,'' Fowler told pilgrims last year. ``His Mother said my life will
 continue, but the public messages will come to an end.''

Many Catholic leaders in the region have distanced themselves from Fowler's
 claims. Archbishop James Lyke wrote to priests saying he doubted the
 authenticity of Fowler's apparitions and urging them to discourage visits to
 the farm.

Rockdale County authorities have also expressed concern about the influx of
 visitors in the largely rural county with a population of just 60,000.

In 1991 the county health department asked Fowler to post signs warning pilgrims
 about water from a well on her property. The well, which Fowler said Jesus
 blessed in an appearance to her, tested positive for coliform bacteria.

In 1992 the county asked Fowler to help regulate the flow of vehicles entering
 and leaving the farm after a traffic jam prevented emergency workers from
 reaching an elderly woman with heart problems.

In 1993, The Atlanta Constitution reported, the county threatened to declare
 large crowds at the farm a public nuisance. The complaint failed to deter the
 public, however, and in November of that year 80,000 people showed up, the
 largest gathering so far.

Fowler said that year that her monthly messages would stop and she would speak
 only once a year, on Oct. 13, the anniversary of a reported appearance by the
 Virgin Mary to three children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. Pope John Paul II
 has recognized the Fatima appearance as a factual event.

Caravans of buses from the United States and Latin America began rolling into
 Georgia over the weekend for the final message. A local television station
 reported that Fowler plans to move to Florida next month.

Authorities said the final message would be a nightmare for commuters bound for
 Atlanta on Tuesday.

``It's going to be extremely bad, that's all I can tell you. It will be backed
 up for six to eight miles,'' Terry Stewart, a dispatcher at the Rockdale County
 Sheriff's Office, said. ``It's going to be traffic hell -- and more.''

Fowler, who shuns interviews, surprised the faithful Monday with an impromptu
 appearance on her front porch. She took questions from her audience, but when
 one pilgrim asked what Jesus looked like, she said she did not know.

``I can't tell you that it was a visual thing,'' she said. ''But it was a
 feeling of love. My heart was filled with love.''

05:53 10-13-98
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