By Gretchen Keiser

Several miles away from the reported apparition site, St. Pius X parish in Conyers is heavily impacted by the thousands of people coming once a month to experience the phenomenon.

Saturday night, June 12, as thunder rumbled and an occasional crackle of lightening struck, a steady line of cars and buses moved into the parish parking lots, directed by rain-drenched parish volunteers.

A new sign was hung at the entrance: special Mass schedule.

Instead of one Vigil Mass, there were three, at 4 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. and the parish was prepared to double or triple seating capacity, by holding a Mass in the church, a Mass in the parish hall and a Mass outdoors under a striped tent at each of the three times.

Father John Walsh, pastor, celebrated his June 12 birthday and anniversary of ordination overseeing this influx of thousands of Catholics into his parish from all over the United States. He celebrated one Mass after another in jam-packed hall where body heat quickly over-whelmed the air conditioning.

Father Michael Campbell, ordained a priest only a week, spent his first Saturday in his first parish hearing confessions for the better part of five hours from 4 until 9:30 p.m.

He had taken the prayer of absolution into confessional with him printed on a page, since he didn’t yet know it by heart. “In the seminary they told me not to expect to hear too many confessions,” he said, grinning.

Pat Barnes, parishioner and member of the Knights of Columbus, coordinated a group of 60 volunteers using a walkie-talkie. Many were out in the parking lots wearing fluorescent vest and waving buses into place like airport tarmac workers. Others were ushers, Eucharistic ministers and go-fers.

In addition to Knights, members of the parish Men’s and Women’s Clubs were helping out, Barnes said.

Scanning the faces of hundreds of people as they entered the grounds, parishioners recognized few as being from St. Pius X. Most were visitors, seeking a place to go to Mass on Saturday night, so they could reach the pasture nearby early Sunday morning and be sure they had a parking place and a folding chair set up close to the reported apparition site.

The 15-decade rosary is prayed beginning at noon on the thirteenth of each month and, at times, it has taken more than an hour to negotiate the drive from I-20 to the White Road site because of bumper-to-bumper traffic. This month traffic flowed easily, however.

At St. Pius Saturday night, the weather upset the smooth plans of the parish to absorb thousands of pilgrims for evening Mass. A severe thunderstorm warning and visible lighting made use of the outdoor tent unwise, Father Charles Kerscher decided.

As a result, people had to be turned away from both the parish hall and the church sanctuary at 5:30 p.m. Fire marshal Jim Magnus stood outside the glass doors, preventing access for safety reason.

While some complained, most people accepted the situation. Dozens set up folding chairs in a nearby parish room and said the rosary for an hour, while waiting for the 7 p.m. Mass.

Explaining her presence this weekend, Viola Geiser, a widow from Cincinnati, said, “Sometimes you feel you have to go beyond the ordinary.” A Catholic, still recovering from the loss of her husband, she said her faith is strong enough already to know that “in an atmosphere of unified worship, miracles happen.”

This was her first trip to Conyers, where another ordinary Catholic, housewife Nancy Fowler, claims to receive messages from the Blessed Mother for the United States on the thirteenth of the month.

Although Mrs. Geiser had not yet attended the reported apparition, she, like others interviewed, already believed in its authenticity. “I just want to be where there is visible proof of the Holy Mother,” Mrs. Geiser said.

Larry Wilmes, 50, from Wentzville, Mo., had returned to Conyers after coming on March 13, when the event was canceled by organizers because Georgia, along with the rest of the East Coast, was hit be a blizzard.

Wilmes cheerfully descried the six hours he spent at the White Road site March 13 as “probably the greatest event of my life.” He described high winds, people wearing bags on their feet because they were ill-prepared for the weather, officials trying urgently to get everyone to leave the site and go home.

“Everyone was laughing, smiling. No one would leave, nobody wanted to leave,” he said. “People would talk to you for half an hour. The atmosphere was unbelievable. It was marvelous.”

The faith of pilgrims and their joyful experiences of sharing worship and prayer with thousands of like-minded people is evident. Another aspect is the proliferation of misinformation that is accepted at face value.

One Maryland woman who came back this month for the fourth time expressed joy that the Church was sending what she described as official observers, cardinals and bishops into the reported apparition room. Informed that the archdiocese did not have official observers there and that cardinals were not witnessing the event, she seemed unsure who to believe, saying that a volunteer at the site had told her this.

A medical team present at the June 13 event was invited by organizers. According to George Collins, an associate of Mrs. Fowler’s who copies down the reported messages, the medical people were from Florida, with one neurologist from St. Joseph’s Hospital, Atlanta, identified as a Dr. Ramon Sanchez.

Mrs. Fowler declined an interview, saying that the late Archbishop James P. Lyke, OFM, had discouraged her from making public statements.

In a telephone interview, Collins was asked to respond to reports that the messages are prepared ahead of time and not necessarily received on the thirteenth as it appears.

“They do tell her something about the message ahead of time,” Collins said, adding that “some of the messages are serious” and Mrs. Fowler was frightened to announce them. “She’ll get enough of the message that she’ll calm down … Nancy says it’s like any mother would do to (help) a child” making an important speech. “To my knowledge, it’s not the exact message.”

To statements by Mrs. Fowler that the reported apparitions may end in the near future, Collins said, “Nancy says the visions are not as frequent as they were and she (Mary) doesn’t speak” in some of the visions. “Nancy doesn’t know what that means … As far as I know she doesn’t know when they are going to end.”