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BY GRETCHEN KEISER
Staff Writer
ATLANTA--Nancy Fowler has publicly dissociated herself from Our Loving
Mother’s Children, Inc., the non-profit group that owns and maintains the
Conyers site of her reported Marian visions and publishes material based on the
messages.
Following a disagreement with Bob and Bernice Hughes of Fairfax, Va., who
are officers of Our Loving Mother’s Children and who have been close
associates of Fowler since 1991, she met with Archbishop John F. Donoghue, gave
an interview to The Georgia Bulletin and issued a statement separating
herself from Our Loving Mother’s Children and its future activities.
Areas of disagreement surfaced very recently, Fowler said, probably in
January or December. The Oct. 13, 1998 gathering at the White Road site known
as “the Farm” drew tens of thousands to hear what Fowler said was the
last public Marian message and vision she would receive. The events, drawing
pilgrims from across the U.S., Mexico and Latin America, began in 1990.
After October 1998, a monthly recitation of the rosary on the 13th at the
Farm was being transmitted live by satellite by Our Loving Mother’s
Children. However, Fowler said she has not attended the rosary, praying
privately instead.
Fowler cited three concerns with the “new direction” taken by Our
Loving Mother’s Children that she said diverged from their past patterns
and approaches and with which she disagreed.
One was a request for specific and potentially large financial donations in
the November/December newsletter distributed to supporters. The newsletter,
reproduced on their website, suggested a range of donations from $25 to $10,000
to help underwrite the cost of monthly satellite transmissions of the rosary
from the Farm.
“It has been common knowledge that we need donations to help support
the publishing of the books, but there was no pressure, just whatever they
felt--if they wanted to leave a dollar or two, or if they wanted to leave ten,
but there never was encouragement for them to spend,” Fowler said.
“So I think of it as a relatively new change.”
“There seems to be a more aggressive action to get people to
come,” she added. “I’ve always maintained that the Holy Spirit
will inspire people’s hearts and Our Lord and Lady will bring them. It is
not a human endeavor. If you are called there to pray, then you come ... I
think it is important to preserve that spirituality and not to humanize that
effort.”
She said that she could no longer advise others to support the group
financially since the direction appeared to be changing and her name and
experiences were being used in a way she opposed.
Fowler also said that a book of compiled messages from Conyers, entitled
“Be Children of God,” was being published without her final approval
including, against Fowler’s wishes, references to the visions and messages
of a reported Bolivian stigmatist, Catalina (Catia) Rivas.
Fowler also said that a “new direction” of Our Loving
Mother’s Children was attempting to bring the events in Conyers together
and link them with a movement in Bolivia called the Great Crusade of Love and
Mercy tied to the reported visions and messages of Rivas.
She cited a postcard to supporters promoting the Feb. 13 Conyers satellite
telecast which quoted a message reportedly received from the Blessed Mother by
Rivas. The postcard said Rivas was at the Conyers site Jan. 13 when she
received this reported message and would return Feb. 13. However, because of an
airline strike Rivas was not in Conyers Feb. 13.
Fowler said she was asked to attend the rosary of Jan. 13, kneel next to the
visiting visionary and pray alongside her, but declined to come. “They
were upset,” she said. Fowler said she picked her son up at school and
took a long route home instead, praying the rosary.
Fowler said that a meeting between herself and Mr. and Mrs. Hughes in
February had not resolved the differences. She then requested a meeting with
Archbishop Donoghue and released the statement dissociating herself from the
organization which was formed to publicize and support the reported Conyers
apparitions.
“If they want to change the apparition site and promote something else,
then I think I can only dissociate myself from that because I can only be held
accountable or responsible for what I have received,” she said.
Our Loving Mother’s Children owns the property associated with the
visions, except for Fowler’s home, where there is also a well believed by
pilgrims to have blessed water and a prayer site known as the “Holy
Hill.”
Fowler said that she would no longer go to the Farm in order to separate the
events for which she feels spiritually accountable from any new activities that
she does not endorse.
“We have always kept the apparition site focused to one apparition and
I’m accountable to Our Lord and Our Lady ... for what I say,” Fowler
said. “I don’t want to be held accountable for other messages of
other people and other directions that we are going or literature that is going
out that I don’t have knowledge about.”
“I have no objections to people publishing other people’s messages
per se. That is their right to do,” she added. “I do object to the
use (of) the apparition site for something other than what it is intended
for.”
She said from its inception she has not been on the board of Our Loving
Mother’s Children because she wanted to remain focused on prayer. She said
that she receives no money from the organization.
“My apparitions of the Blessed Mother have ended on Oct. 13,” she
said. “I have prayed in unison with everyone in the quiet of my home. If I
am now back at the apparition site, it would be confusing.”
In an interview, Bob Hughes said that after receiving Fowler’s Feb. 26
statement dissociating herself from the organization, he had turned the text of
the upcoming book over to her associate, George Collins, and would not publish
it without her approval.
“We have basically returned the book to George and it is in their
hands,” Hughes said.
He said that the text had been available to Fowler throughout the
pre-publication process and the content was not in dispute until January.
He said he would refund money to an estimated 1,500 people who have already
ordered the book if the dispute over the content is not cleared up by the end
of March. He confirmed that Fowler has never been on the board of Our Loving
Mother’s Children or involved in the administration of the pilgrimage
site.
The current board of directors of Our Loving Mother’s Children is Mr.
and Mrs. Hughes, Collins and Michael O’Connor, according to attorney
Stephen DeBaun. The organization received non-profit status from the Internal
Revenue Service in December 1991.
Hughes said that the fund raising in the November/December newsletter was
not new or a departure from prior procedures. “We’ve always had fund
raising,” he said. Donations are requested for copies of the books
compiling messages from Conyers, Hughes said. The organization has also mailed
out envelopes to supporters in the past to raise funds to put in roads at the
site, he added.
The $10,000 amount is in this newsletter, Hughes said, because that is the
cost of one of the satellite broadcasts. He said that the appeal brought in one
donation of $10,000 from California.
Hughes also said that “the Lord has put Bolivia and Conyers
together.”
Fowler was invited to speak in Bolivia in 1993, Hughes said, and after
hearing her speak, Rivas had a conversion experience. Hughes also said a statue
in Bolivia has had unexplained phenomena, shedding tears and blood, and is
believed by people there to be a sign from God linked to Fowler’s visit.
Fowler visited Bolivia again and on one visit was observed medically and
psychologically to evaluate the authenticity of her prayer experiences. Dr.
Ricardo Castañon, who did this evaluation, “was an atheist,”
Hughes said, but is now associated with Rivas and the Great Crusade of Love and
Mercy.
Since her initial conversion, Rivas is reported to have received the
stigmata during a visit to Conyers and to have written 900 pages of spiritual
material in two weeks that have been published in Spanish with the approval of
her local bishop, Hughes said.
The Conyers website lists both Fowler and Rivas as speakers at a Marian
conference in Pittsburgh last October and on a program in Australia Dec. 18-20.
Following the end of the public apparitions in October, Hughes said Our
Loving Mother’s Children began the monthly rosary telecasts, but Fowler
declined to come to the Farm for these broadcasts in November and December.
“In January, Catia got a message from Our Lord to come and help for
five months ... Nancy left and would not come,” he said. He characterized
the dispute as stemming from human nature and said he believed jealousy was
involved.
In February an airline strike prevented Rivas from reaching the U.S. and the
Bolivian woman reportedly received a new message that she would not have to
return since her efforts to help had not been accepted. “She won’t be
back,” Hughes said.
However, Our Loving Mother’s Children has also produced a new mission
statement. The organization’s “transition from apparitions” will
include broadcasting the rosary on the 13th of each month from the Farm by
satellite and on the Internet. This broadcast will also be linked to a
“New Evangelization” effort and to the Great Crusade of Love and
Mercy, the mission statement says.
Hughes said he did not consider the Great Crusade of Love and Mercy a
“new direction.” He said it would include praying the rosary, forming
prayer groups and “living the messages” that had been given to Fowler
since 1990.
Both Hughes and Fowler said that the relationship between the Conyers
housewife with reported visions and the Catholic couple from Virginia who
helped her for the past eight years had been close and supportive until now.
“I believe the apparitions are true. I believe Nancy is true. It is
human stuff we are talking about,” said Hughes.
Fowler said that “it is very difficult ... to dissociate yourself from
an organization that has helped you over the years. I find it one of the most
painful experiences.”
“I have to protect what I have received ... I don’t have any
direction from heaven to be joined with any other apparition,” Fowler
said. “This is my life’s work. Let us keep it pure.”
Text of statement released by Nancy Fowler
Feb. 26
I have been associated with an organization, “Our Loving Mother’s
Children, Inc.,” in the publication of messages that I have been receiving
from Jesus, His Mother, Mary, Our Loving Mother, but I must disassociate myself
from this organization. My total obedience has been, and will continue to be,
to God through my Bishop. Recent developments in Our Loving Mother’s
Children, Inc. soliciting large sums of money and joining in an association
with other groups, movements and/or individuals makes it contrary to the
principles upon which I stand. I have never been associated with any other
organizations, movements or individuals, and neither have I received any money
from Our Loving Mother’s Children, Inc. In order to be obedient to my
Bishop, I have chosen to continue on the same path. I divest myself of interest
in and to Our Loving Mother’s Children, Inc. or from any individuals
distributing my messages in writing or speaking for me or in any way using my
name.
I am grateful to Robert “Bob” Hughes and Bernice
“Bernie” Hughes, of Fairfax, Virginia, president and vice-president
of Our Loving Mother’s Children, Inc., and all the volunteers, for their
help and support over the years. But I remain firm in my decision to keep pure
the teachings of private revelations that I have received.
Nancy Fowler
Conyers, Georgia
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