Pope declares 'holy war' against people who falsely claim to have seen the Virgin Mary

The Pope is declaring a 'holy war' against people who claim falsely that the Virgin Mary is appearing to them.

He will attempt to snuff out an explosion of bogus heavenly apparitions with new guidelines to help bishops root out frauds.

Benedict XVI plans to publish criteria to help them distinguish between true and false claims of visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, messages, stigmata - the appearances of the five wounds of Christ - and weeping or bleeding statues.

In some cases exorcists will be used to determine if a credible apparition is 'divine' origin or 'demonic'.

The guidelines will be published by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Pope is said to be deeply concerned by the explosion in the number of pseudo-mystics who, claiming a direct line to God, set themselves against the bishops and lure the Catholic faithful out of the Church and into cults.