And the local bishop there rejected/condemned the apparition, while the Vatican rejected appeals of his decision.

Same thing happened with Majegouri too, except I think it's been condemned locally more than once.  Yet people still hope that it will be approved.  ??  They act like the Church is a democracy - that if they keep putting things up for a vote, they'll eventually get the result they want.

If the Church was running normally, I'd guess that instead of turning a blind eye to these places (there's probably modernists somewhere who are making $ off these places), the Church would excommunicate all those who go there or support these lies.  Send in exorcists to bless the site, condemn it, and shut these things down for good.

And the local bishop there rejected/condemned the apparition, while the Vatican rejected appeals of his decision.  So that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned.

 A random local bishop nowadays has about a 50% chance of being a fαɢɢօt.  So unless he behaved like a sensible Catholic I wouldn't care much what he thought.
Bishop Williamson believed in Garabandal, but with Joey dead I suspect he does not any longer.

But Bishop Williamson did.

And he is no fool.

Bishop Williamson still believes in Garabandal.

How about this though.... with Garabandal you need to see that there is a hierarchy in the level of certainty in the apparitions/ phenomena.

The last chapter of She went in haste to the mountain also talk of this

1) most worthy of belief are the visible day to day reality of the long ecstasies, the children praying in the cold in the winter for many hours, the spontaneous response the the llamadas, the ecstatic marches, the knowledge of holy things given to the children and of priests who were under cover... the many phenomena such as these that were seen by thousands of witnessess and are clearly supernatural or (preternatural)

2) the first public message that was given in apparition all the children agreed on and understood as from Our Lady

3) any messages from the apparitions that all the children saw/heard have individually reported

4) the 2nd message that was given publically but only to concita, but which the others attended and understood to be genuine and in accord with the many private conversations they had with our lady

5) so called bits of speech reported to be from conversations between the children and the Virgin

6) locutions that the children individually reported to have received interiorly and where only one child received the message

for me the whole Joey thing is on level 6. I believe in Garabandal solidly on level 1) 
I believe it less solidly down to level 4

level 5 and 6, nah. I don't think so, there is too much room for human error there and the messings of human psychology.

So, in conclusion, when one accepts Garabandal as a place our lady appears that is one thing, but it need not require you to thereby accept so called locutions supposedly heard by the grown up children some time later.

This kind of analysis one could even do with Fatima, e.g lower down the level would be the so called sayings of Jacinta to mother Godhino, In this case, let me add, I accept all of them, but point remains one can accept things around an apparition to one degree or to another.

In Christ and with the Immaculata, Refuge of Sinners.

 

It is true, they have all doubted their whole lives. 

That is apparently a reflection of the crisis of faith we are living through and something Our Lady assured would happen to them.

Of course even other seers have had doubts, st Bernadette, I understand did.

I'm not trying to cast any doubt or anything else on Garabandal, but I was very creeped out by the children running backwards and then slamming their knees down incredibly hard to kneel in front of our Lady... Would our Lady cause such a strange spectacle? (forgive me , but it appeared bizarely occultic- not saying it was, but gave me that feeling) It all seemed very weird, even barring the Joey Lamangino stuff. As far as the prophesies, I don't think there is anything against Church teaching and I found myself considering them at an earlier time. Now pretty much suspect of the whole thing.

Obviously the reported overhearing of the children asking the Blessed Virgin about the council, and of the overhearing of the responding along the lines of "o good the council will speak well of you" and "so through the council and the miracle the world will be converted" is problematic.

However 

1) we don't actually know what Our Blessed mother said to the kids. It may be our Lady was referring to a later council....

2) It may be that the children are caught up in the collective enthusiasm for their council and are applying their enthusiasm on Our Lady's words 

3) It may be that the point Our Lady was speaking was prior to the complete hijacking of the council by the new docuмents etc etc, the re writing of the apparently orthodox original docuмents and their replacement by modernism.

4) it may be that the report is incorrect, these so called sayings that the children apparently said are not very athoritative in the whole garabandal scheme.

St. John of the Cross: Even true apparitions, beware.

What an apparition says does not always happen. They ain't the Fifth Gospel.