Approve: does it work on bounces?

[Special Projects <service @ ccat . sas . upenn . edu>]

I'm having no luck trying to get moderated list running:
-A -a <pword> is in place;
.majordomo    is in my home dir with <list> <pword> mjd@here and tabs in between

If I pipe the BOUNCEed message to approve or use "approve <file_with_saved_message> 
there is no message posted, no errors, nothing. Is there any way to trace/debug/try 
something to find what's going on?

Frustrated,
--Michael
michael@ccat.sas.upenn.edu

P.S. approve -d produces same void.