Baltimore, Md., Oct 16, 2008 / 20:59 pm
Edwin F. O’Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, has ordered a woman who claims to receive visions of the Virgin Mary to stop disseminating alleged Marian messages within his archdiocese.
Gianna Talone-Sullivan, now a resident of Fairfield, Pennsylvania, claims she began receiving messages from Mary since before she and her family moved from Scottsdale, Arizona in 1993. She and her husband founded Mission of Mercy, a nonprofit that provides health care to the poor and uninsured in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Texas.
Sullivan complied with the archbishop’s order by suspending her monthly appearances at a Frederick County conference center. She also pledged not to disseminate messages in written, spoken, or electronic form within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Associated Press reports.
Archdiocesan spokesman Sean Caine said Archbishop O’Brien’s letter was prompted by confusion and anxiety resulting from strong apocalyptic language in Sullivan’s June 1 message, which read in part: