page_title: Notification (Holy See)
section_title: Mary Faustina Kowalska
hierarchical_section_title: Notification (Holy See) / Examples of notifications by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith / Mary Faustina Kowalska
caption_attribution_description: English: Saint Faustina Polski: Św. Faustyna Kowalska
context_page_description: A notification by the Holy See is an official announcement by a department of the Holy See, the leadership of the Catholic Church in Rome.
  The term used in Latin is notitiae, and in Italian it is notificazione. English translations most frequently use the similar word "notification", but sometimes use the word "note" or, as is more common for similar announcements by English-speaking entities, the word "notice".
  A notification is issued "by one with executive authority, which usually serves as a reminder of something contained in the law, or explains more clearly the meaning of a law".
  Notifications are one of the many forms of documents issued by the Holy See. Apart from the more solemn declarations on matters such as doctrine, religious freedom or Christian education, and the legislative, judicial and administrative decrees supplementing or implementing a law, there are instructions, circular letters, directories, notifications, statutes, norms and ordinances.
  As for the many other documents of the Holy See, the subject matter determines the department that issues a notification.
context_section_description: Sister Mary Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, had repeated visions of Jesus beginning in 1931. She determined to have an image of Jesus painted, one that would be the focus of a Divine Mercy devotion. Kowalska died in 1938. The devotion to Divine Mercy spread in Poland; by 1951 there were 150 Divine Mercy centers. In March 1959, the CDF published a notification, signed by Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, prohibiting distribution of images and writings that presented the Devotion to the Divine Mercy in the form proposed by Sister Faustina. In 1965, while the ban was still in force, the future Pope John Paul II, who was then Karol Wojtyła, Archbishop of Kraków, Poland, initiated with the approval of the Holy Office the informative process on the life and virtues of Sister Faustina. On 15 April 1978, the CDF issued a notification stating that, in consideration of the many original documents that were unknown in 1959 and taking into account the views of many Polish ordinaries, the prohibitions in the 1959 document were no longer in force. Kowalska was canonized in April 2000.
caption: Mary Faustina Kowalska
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