Irish turn out for apparition defying church plea

Some 10,000 people gathered at a Irish shrine hoping to witness an apparition of the Virgin Mary despite pleas from an archbishop to ignore invitations to the event by a self-proclaimed spiritual healer.

The Knock shrine in northwest Ireland, which dates back to an apparition in 1879 of Mary, St. Joseph and St. John, attracts 1.5 million pilgrims each year, including Pope John Paul in 1979.

The head of the local Roman Catholic archdiocese issued a statement on Monday urging the faithful to disregard the forecasts by Dublin-based "spiritual healer" Joe Coleman that Mary, venerated by Christians as the mother of the son of God, would reappear.

"Faith makes Knock pilgrims firm in hope," Archbishop Michael Neary said in the statement. "They do not expect visions or seek further apparitions."

Some of those present said Mary appeared yesterday, most attributing her presence to the sun suddenly breaking through the clouds, changing colour and appearing to come closer. "I saw the sun spinning," one pilgrim told public television RTE. She added however: "Who is to know that it isn't climate change or something like that causing that?"