Janske Gorissen gained great fame in 1937 because of her mystical experiences. Until the story was covered up in 1951. Seventy years later, Peter Jan Margry manages to obtain all archival documents – even as far as the Vatican – and thus reconstruct history.
Never before had such a thing been seen in the sober Netherlands:a young woman had blood flowing from the eyes as a result of the stigmata that revealed themselves. This woman, named Janske, so identified with Jesus Christ that the wounds of his crucifixion appeared on her body. At the same time, she called herself his bride. Her story came to the public in 1937 and caused a large flow of religious to the Brabant village of Welberg, where Janske lived. It was the village pastor Adrianus Ermen who was the first to know about Janske's mystical experiences:the Mary and Christ apparitions and the visits of the devil. He leaked the story to the press.
“When Ermen entered Janske's room, he still smelled the burning smell of the presence of the devil,” says ethnologist Peter Jan Margry. He did years of archival research and wrote the book Fiery Love about the 'bloody bride of Welberg'. For this he could draw on the numerous notes of Father Ermen. Not only the story itself, but also Margry's search for the archive documents give the book a high Dan Brown content. Because why did this case disappear in a triple safe in 1951 and thus covered up?
Permission from Muskens
The question arose when Margry conducted research into pilgrimage sites in the Netherlands in the 1990s, which are recorded in a large database of the Meertens Institute. In order to obtain the archive documents of Janske Gorissen, he requested access to the archives of the diocese of Breda several times – in vain. The breakthrough came in 2000, declared the Holy Year by the Catholic Church and the year Margry spent a sabbatical in Rome.
He had found a workplace where the Dutch bishops occasionally resided. And so, during a drink, he suddenly found himself sitting next to the then bishop of Breda, Tiny Muskens. He was less aware of the sensitivities surrounding the Janske Gorissen file than his predecessors, and immediately gave Margry permission to inspect it in that Holy Year.
Rome in lockdown
The researcher had to hurry, because Muskens became ill at the time and it was unclear whether the permission would remain valid under his successor. The visits ended with a small damper, says Margry:“Everything was present in Breda, but the final report of the Holy Office, the former Inquisition, was missing. I found an empty envelope:the report itself was in the archives in Rome, which would remain closed for a long time.”
This setback caused Margry to focus on other matters, until the year 2019. Pope Francis then announced that he would open the archives in Rome from the wartime early, namely on March 2, 2020. Welberg's file is public." Margry immediately filed a request and flew to Rome in early March, but on the same day Italy went into lockdown due to the corona pandemic. “While the Vatican was already completely locked, I was allowed to work through a side door for a few more days. I found everything I wanted to see – including the final report.” The quest was completed.
The role of the pastor
With all these archive documents, Margry was able to reconstruct the story of Janske Gorissen, which had always been kept secret. Especially the notes of Father Ermen were crucial. “The richness of detail is so great, because so much has been recorded and very crazy things happened. When you read it, you can hardly believe that this happened.”
According to Margry, Ermen lets himself be looked at very well by those notes. “You can see that he is busy creating 'phenomena'. This pastor had a naive belief in the devil and apparitions. When he was in seminary to become a priest, his fellow students already said it:If anyone ever has an apparition, it will be with him. He was very receptive to it, so it was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Janske as mother confessor
When the story became public knowledge in 1937, the gates of the dam were closed. Large groups of religious traveled to Welberg. “One of Janske's mystical gifts was that she could penetrate people's hearts, and in this way she could see whether people were adhering to the precepts of the Catholic Church. Because in the 1930s apostasy and doubts became more common among priests, she took on the role of a kind of mother confessor. A position against the teachings. So sisters who doubted chastity, pastors and chaplains who were unable to maintain celibacy or who ignored it and maintained a relationship, all turned to Janske for support.”
Normally, mystical revelations are followed by a thorough investigation of the Catholic Church, after which the bishop makes a statement about the authenticity. In Janske's case, that did not happen. According to Margry, this is partly because she had the gift of leading people on the right path. “The bishop from Breda has been to Welberg once. After seeing her and talking to her for an hour, he was totally convinced. He said:this is such a special mystic, we have not seen that before.” No extensive investigation followed.
According to Margry, what also played a part in the maintenance of this 'collective phantasm' is that mystical figures of this kind regularly appeared in the rest of Europe, but that the Netherlands had never fallen for it. This had to do with the fact that the Catholics had to adapt somewhat to the Protestants. “Whenever crazy Roman things happened, they protested. But at the same time, there was also an enormous hunger among Catholics in the Netherlands for these kinds of mystical phenomena. The Catholics here were very serious in their faith, more Catholic than the Pope, and thought they sometimes deserved an apparition.” Janske was therefore quickly embraced.
A sticky club
Meanwhile, the bishop lingered and no episcopal pronouncement was made. The cult got so out of hand that the Holy Office was tipped off in Rome. “They sent a handful of researchers,” says Margry, “but they all came back with enthusiastic stories.”
There was also a Dutchman in the Vatican at that time, who was quite notorious for being able to put people under pressure. He eventually manages to make short work of the ensuing veneration. When he arrives in Welberg in 1946, he is immediately successful, because around the cult of Janske and Ermen a sectarian group has arisen with the name 'het clubke'. “As a 'bride of Christ', Janske constantly receives hugs and kisses from Christ that must be shared. There is so to speak a very sticky club. And meanwhile, a physical "fiery love" develops between the village pastor and the mystic. They eventually confess their relationship to the Dutch delegate from Rome.”
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Untouched for decades
At that moment, Ermen is called to account and temporarily suspended. In 1950 the final report on Janske Gorissen was completed and the file was covered up. Cardinal De Jong in Utrecht then wrote a secret letter to all bishops in the Netherlands in which he ordered that all archival documents relating to this matter either be destroyed or handed over to the diocese of Breda, where they were stored in a safe, and never to be used again. to say about this matter. A complete cover-up. In Welberg people were left amazed, without knowing anything. The archive lay untouched for decades – not even the archivist was allowed in – until I was allowed to see it.”
The trauma suffered by the Catholic Church and the people of Welberg from these events still does not seem to have completely subsided. Even now the current bishop of Breda turned out to be unwilling to receive Margry's book. That role was eventually fulfilled by the vicar of the diocese – who, incidentally, received the book with praise. And the attraction of mystical events such as in Welberg, which brought the Catholic Church into a split, is still present. There are still people who see Mary or Christ or show stigmata.
With his book Fiery Love. The secret of Welberg's Bloody Bride Margry wants to provide insight into how faith can be created at a local level. “Because people so desperately wanted this to happen in the Netherlands, all critical capacity was lost and people fell into a collective phantasm or collective insanity. I see this as an exemplary case for all those other cases of stigmatization and appearances in the world, up to Lourdes.”