Saturday, August 02, 2008

Dottie Zimmerman: Psychic to the Schoolkids

As one who catches at a shadow and pursues the wind, so is he who gives heed to dreams. The vision of dreams is this against that, the likeness of a face confronting a face. Divinations and omens and dreams are folly, and like a woman in travail the mind has fancies. For dreams have deceived many,and those who put their hope in them have failed. (Sirach 34:2-7)

There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD.... (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)

Unless, of course, you are (the aptly named) Dottie Zimmerman, purported channeler of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, in which case being a medium is not only not a grave sin, on the order of human sacrifice, but a gift from God, and therefore an affirmative obligation.

Zimmerman, an ex-Ursuline nun and sister of an ex-Jesuit priest, is, reports the Toledo Blade religion editor, an "award-winning" religion teacher of 30 years' standing at St. Patrick of Heatherdowns School in Toledo, Ohio. She reports having heard voices for years, which she dismissed as figments of her over-active imagination; however, it took the encouragement of her daughter (reportedly in communication with St. Michael the Archangel) and her brother, the ex-priest, to get her to "explore" her "gift" via "dream therapy." Whereupon she began encountering Padre Pio, whom she at first, quite understandably, mistook for Merlin the magician.

So Zimmerman began entering into conversations with what purported to be Padre Pio, inquiring as to what she owed the great privilege of his visitations. Answer: "Well, because you have the gift. You have something that you have to do with it. You have this gift but you weren't accepting it. The angels kept tell you [sic] but you wouldn't listen, so we sent in the big guns."

Having received from St. Pio the green light to practice spiritism in violation of Holy Scripture, Zimmerman began (a) teaching vulnerable children in the ways of spiritism, and (b) holding seances. In addition to "channeling" the spirits of the dead, she also "channels" the alleged St. Pio himself, who has vouchsafed to her such pearls of wisdom as the following:

-- On the upcoming U.S. presidential election:
"All [the candidates] are all having their plans, their paths. Which one do you feel comfortable with? That, my brother, is your choice and I cannot tell you that." There you have it, the official word from Heaven: makes no difference whether or not Catholics support candidates who support abortion on demand, or any other anti-Christian principles. It's all in what we're "comfortable" with.

-- On the candidacy of Hillary Clinton: "But do know that there was no accident that there was a female within this, because her purpose was to open the awareness of the line of the females, of the path of the females, not her particularly, but the path of a female, that nurturing, that love aspect that is part of what goes along with the term female." Too stupid for comment.

-- On the priest sex abuse scandal: "The priest abuse and some of the other things, that is not making the church a bad or a good place. The way it will work is how it is handled. And in those dioceses where it is being handled openly and with compassion and with care, and explanation and openness, I think those parishes and that church there will be very strong." Easy enough to believe this could have come from a priest who devoted hours and hours on end in the confessional to reconciling sinners to the Church for the sake of their salvation.

-- On the fate of the 9/11 terrorists: "[E]veryone who 'transitioned' that day went immediately 'home,' or into heaven, 'including those who perpetrated this particular incident. They didn't have their 21 virgins in their party but they were celebrated for three days in partying and love and acceptance because they did what they thought they were supposed to do.'" Too appalling for comment.

Padre Pio is alleged to have closed a recent seance by bidding the participants "to be open, to be aware, and I ask you to laugh because laughter is so wonderful, and to love and to breathe deeply often during the day." Compare and contrast to the homily Pope John Paul II delivered on the occasion of Padre Pio's canonization, in which he said:
Throughout his life, he always sought greater conformity with the Crucified, since he was very conscious of having been called to collaborate in a special way in the work of redemption. His holiness cannot be understood without this constant reference to the Cross.

In God's plan, the Cross constitutes the true instrument of salvation for the whole of humanity and the way clearly offered by the Lord to those who wish to follow him. The Holy Franciscan of the Gargano understood this well, when on the Feast of the Assumption in 1914, he wrote: "In order to succeed in reaching our ultimate end we must follow the divine Head, who does not wish to lead the chosen soul on any way other than the one he followed; by that, I say, of abnegation and the Cross."
All of which leaves us with just two questions, the answers to both of which are at once sobering, frightening, and readily ascertainable: (1) who is Zimmerman really contacting during her seances, and (2) is she one of your children's teachers?

2 comments:

  1. I've never heard of Zimmerman before. She's a regular wing-nut! Wacky indeed.

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  2. It's scary to think that ex people like her get more media coverage than good PIOus people.

    ReplyDelete