The dicastery’s press release noted that while in the past, “as a rule” it had not made public the details of decisions of this nature, it was now choosing to communicate the information “so that the holy people of God and its pastors may draw the appropriate conclusions.”
“The Lady of All Nations” is the Marian title given to alleged visions that Ida Peerdeman, a secretary living in the Dutch capital Amsterdam, claimed to have received between 1945 and 1959.
In 1956, Bishop Johannes Huibers of Haarlem declared that after an investigation he had “found no evidence of the supernatural nature of the apparitions.”
The Holy Office, a forerunner of the DDF, approved the bishop’s verdict a year later. The DDF, then known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, confirmed the judgment in 1972 and 1974.
Peerdeman was born on Aug. 13, 1905, in Alkmaar, in the Netherlands. She claimed that on March 25, 1945, she saw her first apparition of a woman bathed in light who referred to herself as “the Lady” and “Mother.”
In 1951, the woman reputedly told Peerdeman that she wished to be known as “The Lady of All Nations.” That year, the artist Heinrich Repke created a painting of “the Lady,” depicting her standing on top of a globe in front of a cross.
