A "prudent reserve or scepticism" should be maintained about claimed apparitions and visions coming up to the millennium, the Catholic Primate, Dr Cahal Daly, has said.
"Such phenomena would seem to be associated with the last years of a century, and particularly with the last year of a millennium.
"It is well to have criteria for evaluating them in the light of Christian faith," he told the Armagh diocesan pilgrimage to Knock yesterday.
The church, he said, was slow to give official approval to claimed visions and messages, and few were officially approved. Even with approval there was no obligation to believe in them.
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Dr Daly said he was convinced about Lourdes, Fatima and Knock, but it was important to keep some proportion.