On Tuesday was the story across the wires on Associated Press that firefighters in Italy had freed a seven-month-old baby and his older brother from rubble ealier in the day, following a 4.0-magnitude quake on the resort island of Ischia off Naples, and rescuers were working on helping a third brother who remained trapped.

“At least two people were killed in the quake that struck just before 9 p.m. Monday, while another 39 were injured and some 2,600 were left homeless,” said the report. “The victims were an elderly woman who was in a church that crumbled in the quake, and a second person who has been located in the rubble but not yet extracted.”

Not a big quake, not a big toll (though, with loss of even a life, plenty too big), but the name “Ischia” rang a bell, and indeed, it’s a place that has reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary in recent years — apparitions that, we come to learn, were allowed by the Church. We are unsure of the current status and are endeavoring to find out. In 2014 was a formal espiscopal decree to study them.

Last May, one of the visions involved earthquakes around the world (see messages below). Another: “My children, hard times await you, war sounds are getting closer and closer, the battle is near, be ready children.

She is known here as “Our Lady of Zaro,” in accordance with the specific community, and it started on July 26, 1993, when a local fellow named Paul, with his brother Luigi, began seeing the Madonna.

On July 26 — at the end of the fifth glorious mystery — Paul fell to rest. While still on the ground, he knelt and after visions of light saw the Madonna.

Paul and his brother Luigi were part of a prayer group and, we are told, as far as their backgrounds, were charismatic: had “rested” in the Spirit since early June 1993.

But the point: once again, an apparition in a place that incurs shaking, another place that sets us in wonderment at how many such places and claims there are.

Are they all products of imagination?

A little background, as best we can glean:

On October 8, 1994, the families of four of the prayer members, including those of additional future seers named Imma and Marianna, went for a walk in the woods of Zaro after lunch and after a while climbed a hill, where they were “overcome.” They were facing two rocks in front of which there was a clear space (much dense brush in the area).

It was then, as they recited the Rosary, that the heavenly mother (they call her “Mom” or “Mamma”) appeared to Paul and said to him,“This is a blessed place.” The same evening during the Rosary the Madonna allegedly spoke to Luigi, telling him, “Zaro will be a place of pilgrimage. “

On 14 October Imma also saw the Madonna, who, as in many cases, was preceded by a strong light. The next day the little group returned to Zaro, recited the Rosary, and the Madonna presented herself to Paul, Imma and Marianna.

We get the picture: a group-type apparition like Fatima.

A priest intervened and took the matter into his own hands, reading the messages once a month and prohibiting the kids from interviews or otherwise sharing messages. The bishop agreed.

By this time other young people were also (allegedly) seeing her.

The prohibition to give interviews was lifted following the events of September 11 in New York, it seems, “because this prophecy had been announced by Our Lady of Ischia to the seers,” says a website devoted to it.

Now it gets particularly interesting.

After the death of Don Franco Patalano, the parish priest of Lacco Ameno, who had been given the task of following the apparitions, the bishop revoked any prohibition imposed on October 2, 1995. 

Our Lady asked for recitation the Holy Rosary of Peace once a week for fifty weeks, and after a few times it was scheduled for Wednesdays. “Our Lady asked for it as a fixed day for the recitation of the Holy Rosary of Peace,” says the site.

Between 1995 and 1996, the Virgin Mary and Jesus dictated to another boy what was called the Holy Rosary of the Resurrection for the beginning of the recitation at Easter. An official inquiry was started in 2011.

And so it is.

Just last May 6, one supposed visionary said, “I saw Mamma, she had a white dress, a long blue mantle that came from her head down to the feet that stood barefooted on the world, where there were wars, revolutions, earthquakes and tsunami, felt hate and suffering. Mom was sad; in her hands in prayer she had a pearl crown.”

Quakes. Little hints here? Bigger hints or consequences to come? “Loving children, what will happen will be tremendous, and many will turn away from the truth,” is another alleged (and underscore “alleged”) message.

One asks: why would these young people — so preoccupied these days with other matters (not to mention smartphones) — perpetuate a “hoax” for so long?

Sometimes, the explanations of naysayers exceed in unlikelihood the notion that: Mary appears, somewhat urgently, in our modern world — even very urgently, struggling to stave off chastisement for so many years now.

[Footnote: recent alleged messages: Message July 26th to Angela; rough translation]

This afternoon Mamma presented himself as Queen and Mother of all peoples (apparently also with Jesus).

[Feedback from Emmett O’Regan:

“It appears that the 4.3 magnitude earthquake which struck the island of Ischia occurred during the solar eclipse itself. It seems significant that this tiny island off the coast of Naples is the location of alleged apparitions which foretold judgment coming on America in the form of the events of 9/11. It also warned of a volcano and an island sinking into the sea. An image very similar to Sr. Lucia’s 1944 Tuy apparition, and of course Rev 8:8. St. Januarius’ blood also failed to liquefy in Naples at the end of last year. It seems that God is trying to tell us something…”+