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Mon May 15, 2017 | 10:58am EDT
Pope says doubts Medjugorje apparitions are authentic
Pope Francis has
voiced serious doubt about the authenticity of alleged continuing
apparitions of the Madonna in Medjugorje, a once-obscure village in
Bosnia boosted by the pilgrim business.
"These
presumed apparitions don't have a lot of value. This I say as a
personal opinion," he told reporters on his plane returning on Saturday
night from Portugal where he gave the Catholic Church two new child
saints.
Six children
first reported visions of the Virgin Mary in 1981 in a scenario
reminiscent of famous apparitions in the French town of Lourdes in the
19th century and 100 years ago in Fatima, which Francis visited on
Friday and Saturday.
In
the following years, the Bosnian village became a major pilgrimage site,
giving many visitors a renewed sense of spirituality and locals a
steady source of much-needed revenue.
It
also became the focus of controversy as local Franciscan priests
running the site promoted their claims in such open defiance of warnings
from the Vatican that some were expelled from the order and the local
bishop called them schismatic.
Some
of the alleged visionaries, now adults, say they still experience
apparitions regularly, and that the Madonna tells them ahead of time
when she will appear to them.
Many say the apparitions are a hoax.
Former
Pope Benedict set up a commission of theologians and bishops to study
the situation. Its report has not been published but was given to Pope
Francis in 2014.
Francis
said investigations are continuing into the first alleged apparitions
when the reported visionaries were children or teenagers, but again made
it clear that he is highly sceptical about today's claims.
"The (commission) report has its
doubts. I personally am more nasty. I prefer the Madonna as mother, our
mother, and not a Madonna who is the head of a telegraph office, who
every day sends a message at such-and-such an hour. This is not the
Mother of Jesus," he said.
"Who
thinks that the Madonna says, 'Come tomorrow at this time, and at such
time I will deliver a message to that visionary?'" he said.
But
Francis acknowledged that some people who go to Medjugorje experience a
spiritual renewal and "encounter God, change their lives."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-medjugorje-idUSKCN18A0E8
================================
Local bishop says ‘no truth’ to alleged apparitions in Medjugorje
- Inés San Martín
February 28, 2017
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT
ROME- On the heels of the arrival of a papal delegate in the alleged
Marian apparition site of Medjugorje, the local bishop has reiterated
what he’s always affirmed: there is no truth to the claims from a group
of purported visionaries that Our Lady of Peace appears today, or that
she’s ever done so, in this otherwise unknown town of
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“Considering everything that this chancery has so far researched and
studied, including the first seven days of the alleged apparitions, it
can peacefully be affirmed: The Madonna has not appeared in Medjugorje!”
Bishop Ratko Peri of Mostar-Duvno wrote on his diocesan website.
“This is the truth that we support, and we believe in the words of Jesus: The truth will set us free,” he said in a
message published Feb. 26 in Croatian and Italian.
According to the bishop, the alleged apparitions, which began in the
early 1980s, are nothing more than a manipulation by the visionaries and
priests who work in the Saint James church that doubles as a pilgrimage
welcoming center.
The post from Peric comes two weeks after the Vatican revealed that
Pope Francis has sent Polish Archbishop Henryk Hoser of Warsaw-Prague on
a mission for “acquiring a deeper knowledge of the pastoral situation
there, and, above all, of the needs of the faithful who go there on
pilgrimage, and on the basis of this, to suggest possible pastoral
initiatives for the future.”
The city is a pilgrimage hub because of the reported apparitions,
with millions arriving each year to climb the Mount Podbrdro, a steep
and rock-strewn path that ascends to the actual location where the
Virgin allegedly first appeared, and at times is believed to continue to
do so.
In 1981, Medjugorje was an unexceptional farming community of some
400 Croatian families in the former Yugoslavia, and most believe it
would still be one had it not been for the regular Marian messages.
As the bishop notes in his statement, the “apparitions” have been
studied by several commissions: in 1982-1984 and 1984-1986 at a diocesan
level, and in 1987-1990 by the Croatian bishops’ conference. The
Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith studied the
phenomena from 2010-2014 and again from 2014-2016.
The local and national commissions arrived to the conclusion that there’s nothing supernatural to the apparitions.
Many devotees believe that the original apparitions were authentic,
but that the purported visionaries made up the thousands that followed
“for other reasons, most of which are not religious.”
Yet according to Peric, the transcript of the cassettes of the first
week of the apparitions, including conversations held between the
visionaries and church personnel, allows him to “with full conviction
and responsibility, expose the reasons why the non-authenticity of the
alleged phenomena is evident.”
He also notes that to this point 47,000 “apparitions” have been
registered, with three of the visionaries still receiving messages
daily.
As proof of the non-veracity of the messages, many of which have an
apocalyptic undertone, Peric noted that the woman who “appears” in
Medjugore is very different from that of the Gospel and the apparitions
from the Virgin Mary that the Church believes to be true.
Peric writes: “[She] laughs in a strange way, when asked certain
questions she disappears and then returns, and she obeyed the ‘seers’
and the pastor who made her come down from the hill into the church even
against her will. She does not know with certainty how long she will
appear, she allows some of those present to step on her veil which is on
the ground, to touch her clothes and her body. This is not the Madonna
of the Gospels.”
The fact that she allows herself to be touched, Peric writes, gives
him “the feeling and conviction that this is something unworthy,
inauthentic and outrageous.”
Then there’s the fact that the woman who appears takes different
forms, changing the color of her tunic, sometimes holding a child and
sometimes not. Another example he gives which he says proves there’s no
supernatural event in Medjugorje is the fact that during the first days
of the apparitions they asked the woman for a sign to prove she was who
she claimed, to which she allegedly turned the hands of the clock of one
of the visionaries, Mirjana Dragićević.
This, Peric writes, “is ridiculous.”
Of the six visionaries who still see her, three claim to see her
daily, even after 37 years. Two of them receive messages “addressed to
the world” once a month. The other three claim to see her once a year.
Never mind the fact that according to the recordings of the first
seven days, in June 30, 1981, Mary had allegedly told them that she was
going to appear only three more times.
“Then she changed her mind and still ‘appears’,” the bishop wrote.
Peric concludes his post saying that taking into account what the
diocesan curia has examined, they can’t but calmly affirm that “the
Virgin Mary has not appeared in Medjugorje.”
Many believe that Francis tapped the Polish bishop to evaluate the
pastoral situation of Medjugorje to perhaps help the Vatican take a
formal position regarding the alleged apparitions, something which
hasn’t yet happened, despite the two commissions sent to investigate.
Generally speaking, for the Vatican even to consider issuing a
finding on a reported apparition, the revelations have to be over, and
in Medjugorje they’re not. However, until the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith says something, the Vatican’s preferred course is
to defer to the local bishop.
Pope Francis has said little to nothing regarding the alleged
apparitions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, he’s warned against taking
the Virgin Mary as “a postmistress,” delivering letters daily, often
considered as a reference to Medjugorje.
However, there are other alleged “apparitions,” less well
publicized but which Francis might know about, such as those being
claimed in
Jacarei, Brazil, where a man alleges to see the Virgin, St. Joseph and the Holy Spirit every day at 6:30 in the afternoon.
https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/02/28/local-bishop-says-no-truth-alleged-apparitions-medjugorje/
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Medjugorje:
A Warning
MICHAEL DAVIES
The Remnant Press
1. MEDJUGORJE: THE OTHER
SIDE OF THE COIN
by Geoffrey Lawman Co-founder of Approaches; Co-editor of Apropos;
and Editor of Fatal Star, the
autobiography of Hamish Fraser.
We are hearing more and more about Medjugorje, the Yugoslavian village
where, it is said, Our Lady has been appearing almost daily to some or
all of six young visionaries ever since 1981. The natural question, as
with all such claimed apparitions, is "Are they authentic?" To this
there are three possible answers: "Yes," "No," and "We'd better wait
for the Church's verdict." The third is clearly the wisest answer for
any Catholic who recognizes the Church's teaching authority and the
limitations of his own private judgment. Yet equally it is part of our
tradition to revere Our Lady in the context of her numerous
authenticated apparitions, and, historically speaking, popular devotion
to any new apparition has often spread and become as it were
"established" well before the Church gave its final approval.
We cannot therefore object to devotees of Medjugorje trying to enlist
our support for phenomena which they strongly believe to be of God,
provided their publicity is balanced and honest and they are ready to
leave the last word to the Teaching Church. But they, for their part,
must be equally ready to face the questions of other Catholics,
possibly as devoted to Our Lady as themselves, but who have serious
doubts about the events in question.
A New Type of Apparition?
One reason for questioning the events at Medjugorje is that they are so
strikingly unlike all previous Marian apparitions. Which other
apparitions have gone on almost daily for over 12 years and are still going on?
Which others were announced a month in advance (at a charismatic
congress in Rome)? Which others have been so well publicized
internationally as to attract (it is claimed) 5 million pilgrims to
date? These 3 features may not in themselves constitute arguments
against the authenticity of the alleged apparitions (though one may
well wonder what Our Lady could have found to say that needed some
26,000 appearances!), but it is clear that Medjugorje is following a
pattern quite different from that of earlier (and approved) apparitions-----Lourdes,
La Salette, Pontmain, Fatima or Beauraing, for example.
A 'Holiness Explosion'
Supporters point to the devotional and spiritual impact of the
occurrences on both villagers and pilgrims, and it is true that the
apparitions have repeatedly urged greater assiduity in prayer and
fasting and regular confession, together with Bible reading,
Eucharistic devotions, etc., and that these recommendations have been
enthusiastically followed. However welcome this is, we should remember
that it is not in itself any guarantee of holiness or even of
orthodoxy, let alone evidence that the apparitions are authentic. The
Church's history shows numerous cases of heretical groups noteworthy
for intense devotion, prayer and fasting (the Fraticelli of
the 13th century, for example). One may perhaps question the prudence
of the "Lady's" subsequent extension of fasting, even partial, from 1
to 2 days per week (for growing teenagers!) and her unrealistic
recommendation of up to 3 hours of prayer daily. And the frequent
practice of "laying on of hands" and "the baptism of the Spirit"
suggests that the "holiness explosion" claimed for Medjugorje is as
much charismatic as Catholic.
Graver Reasons For Doubt
Three further, and far more serious, characteristics of the Medjugorje
phenomenon -----disobedience, lying and false doctrine-----form
the essential grounds for the view that Our Lady has not, and could not
have, appeared there at all.
Disobedience: The
diocesan bishop, Msgr. Zanic of Mostar, has on several occasions given
legitimate instructions to the Franciscan priests active in Medjugorje
parish, which they have consistently disobeyed. He has ordered certain
priests to leave the parish, and they have stayed. He has asked that
the occurrences should not be publicized, and that pilgrimages
should not be organized or welcomed (until his canonical enquiry was
complete). These orders have been ignored. But the most flagrant and
(to my mind) conclusive case is that involving Fathers Prusina and
Vego, two Franciscans being disciplined by their superiors (and who
have since been expelled from the Order). Bishop Zanic' had ordered
them to leave the parish. "Our Lady", questioned by the "visionaries",
is stated to have said on two occasions (19.12.81 and 20.1.82) that the
bishop was "in the wrong" and that the Franciscans "should stay put"!
"Our Lady" is thus shown as inciting
disobedience to a lawful order of a bishop.
Lying: I can understand the indignation this word will cause to
convinced Medjugorjists. Yet I honestly do not see how otherwise to
describe certain behavior on the part of the visionaries Ivan and Vicka
and of Fr. Vlasic: Vicka's alternate denials and admissions that she
was keeping a day-to-day chronicle of the events (and her concealment
of large sections of it from the bishop's commission); the unbelievable
perjury of Fr. Vlasic, swearing on the cross in the bishop's presence
that he knew nothing of Vicka's diary (though he had earlier supplied
extracts of that very diary to Fr. Grafenauer); young Ivan's "message"
regarding the great sign to come "in the sixth month", written and
signed by him and lodged in sealed envelopes with the canonical
commission, but which he retracted nearly 3 years later when the
"messages" were opened and shown to be invalid. Ivan, by then twenty
years old, agreed that the "Lady" had not objected when he wrote the
"message" originally, conveniently delaying her admonition for 3 years
until the day before he admitted his "mistake"! Only lack of space
dissuades me from continuing this distasteful and saddening list. A
whole study could be devoted to the subject, particularly if one
includes the suppressiones veri and
suggestiones falsi
purveyed by Medjugorje's chief propagandists, Frs. Laurentin, Bugalo,
and Co.
False Doctrine: Properly
doctrinal statements are rare among the interminable reported words of
the "Lady", but a single example of a doctrinal falsity ought to be
enough to discredit any apparition. Here are two examples, both dating
from 1983. In January, Mirjana told Fr. Vlasic how "Mary" was
distressed by the lack of unity between Catholics, Orthodox and
Muslims, since there was only one God:
"You
are not a believer if you do not respect the other religions, Muslim
and Serbian (i.e. Orthodox). You are not Christians if you do not
respect them." [This
is
false doctrine: we owe proper respect to non-believers, but none at all
to their false religion; this would be a betrayal of Christ and His
Church.] Even Fr. Vlasic was taken aback by this, but to his further
questions-----Mirjana
could only reply by repeating herself: ". . . lack
of unity among the religions. You must respect each person's religion,"
adding "Keep your own for yourselves and your children." This
Masonic syncretism in a supernatural message is quite inadmissible; it
rules out the missionary charity whereby we try to win our neighbors
over to Our Lord.
The second example is from April 1983. "Our Lady" is supposed to have
dictated to Helena (a charismatic 'mystic', aged 10 or 11 years, who
does not "see" the visions but hears what is said) a prayer of
consecration to her Immaculate Heart. Bear in mind that these words are
of the "Lady's" composition, but are intended to be addressed to her.
In them we find the following:
1. . . . give me the grace to
love all men as you loved Jesus Christ . . .
2. . . . give me the grace to
be merciful towards you . . .
3 . . . if, by chance, I should
lose your grace, I ask you to restore it to me.
To love all men . . . yes, God said we may all achieve that height of
charity. But to love them as Mary
loved Jesus
(her God, King and Savior as well as Son), as in petition 1, is
impossible and scandalous; it amounts to making gods out of our
fellow-creatures. Petition 2 is just stupid, not to say insolent; she
who is: "full of grace," the Queen of Heaven, has no need of our mercy.
Of petition 3 one could at least object that grace is never lost by chance,
but only through sin. The exercise as a whole is not impressive;
whatever "Spirit" inspired it was clearly not the Holy Ghost.
Other Reasons for Doubt
A fuller critique of Medjugorje would go into other doubtful aspects
which I can only mention in passing: the unedifying expatiation of "the
Lady" by the Franciscans in their
dispute with the bishop over the allocation of parishes; the
pretentious pseudo-science deployed to authenticate the "ecstasies" of
the "visionaries" (including the use of an electroscope to measure the
intensity of "spiritual energy"
developed during "apparitions"!); the rather suspect discrepancies in
the testimonies as to what actually happened
during the "miracle of the sun" of August 1981; the sentimental
banality of so much of the interminable stream of oracles uttered by
the "Lady", and the unlikely vulgarity that has marked some of the
"apparitions" (outbursts of laughter, "Our Lady" touched, and even caressed
by visionaries and pilgrims.) And Bishop Zanic has voiced his own
suspicion that the "visions" are less likely to be hallucinations than
well-rehearsed play-acting. Such a suggestion is bound to enrage
supporters of Medjugorje; the fact remains that if the ever-present
local Franciscans had left the young people alone and the world
charismfitic movement had followed suit-----in
other words, if the bishop had been
obeyed-----the
whole question of authenticity could have been resolved long back.
Misleading Publicity
There is one aspect of Medjugorje which I find particularly
unsatisfactory; I refer to some of the material put out by the London
Medjugorje Centre. It would be too much to expect, for example, that
their introductory leaflet, The Facts About Medjugorje,
would enter into
all the minutiae of such a controversial affair, but even in such a
short document one would at least have expected a more balanced account
than this-----one which was just to Bishop Zanic, and
which showed some
awareness of the doubts raised by the apparitions. One is surprised to
find no mention in it of such important issues as disobedience, lying
and unacceptable doctrine, even if only to refute them.
Here are some of the facts that The
Facts About Medjugorje does not choose to tell us:
-----that
the diocesan canonical commission of enquiry has found (by 11 voices to
4) that the apparitions are not authentic.
-----that
Bishop Zanic is speaking as the
responsible bishop of the
diocese (and therefore in somewhat more than "a private
capacity") when
he dismisses the apparitions as not authentic.
[See text of his July 25 sermon at Medjugorje.]
-----that
if Rome and the Yugoslav Bishops' Conference have put the
findings of his canonical enquiry into "cold storage", the most likely
explanation, to any objective observer, is the enormous influence of
the international propaganda campaign orchestrated by a pro-Medjugorje
pressure-group.
-----that
the local Franciscans "counseling" the "visionaries" are
virtually all connected with the charismatic renewal movement (i.e. a
sect of Protestant, "pentecostalist" inspiration, busy "colonizing" the
Church since 1967). The same is true of the 'leading theologians' cited
by the leaflet: Laurentin, Urs von Balthasar, and Faricy are all avowed
charismatics. As for the "several other Yugoslav bishops" who, the
leaflet claims, "fully accept Medjugorje as a precious gift from God,"
the only name that readily comes to mind is that of Archbishop Franic
of Split, an enthusiastic charismatic; the others, even the initially
favorable Cardinal Kuharic of Zagreb, seem now to have adopted a
waiting posture. Why did the London Medjugorje Centre feel it necessary
to conceal this heavy charismatic involvement?
Two other statements in this leaflet call, I feel, for comment.
Firstly: "The Holy See usually waits
at least until apparitions are
over before making any pronouncement." True . . . but has it
ever before
been faced with apparitions that continue for 12 years and show no sign
of stopping? What better way of putting off any definitive verdict
until these "apparitions" achieve a sort of de facto respectability
through their sheer indefmite continuance?
And secondly: "Unless and until the
Church condemns Medjugorje . . . we
enjoy the right to have as much to do with it as we like." Even
if its
messages clash with Catholic teaching (as I have tried to show above)?
Even if they incite priests and visionaries to reject the Church's
proper authority?
No, the leaflet, The Facts About
Medjugorje presents in my view a most
unsatisfactory and one-sided account, which cannot help but mislead
inquirers who have no access to the fuller picture. One would like to
excuse this as the result of enthusiastic devotion and inadequate
research-----pray
God this is so-----but
the fact remains that, objectively,
it is a travesty of the truth in important respects, and as such should
be withdrawn.
The Threat To The Church
Some readers may well be surprised at the severity of my criticism. To
them, the word "Medjugorje" conjures up Our Blessed Lady, humble and
hopeful pilgrimages, all that is best in Marian devotion and
spirituality. I assure such readers that I could have attacked much
harder and adduced even more evidence of the negative aspects of
Medjugorje. But what I have written above is already sufficient to
support my conviction that it is a dangerous and un-Catholic thing.
It divides Christians-----those
who accept its pseudo-spiritual humbug
from those who insist on a sterner, purer spirituality-----even
to the
point of driving a wedge between fellow-bishops: on the one side Msgrs.
Franic and Ianucci, on the other Msgr. Zanic.
It devalues and discredits the cult
of Mary,
and thus robs modern
Catholicism of its finest spiritual flower. How do we expect Marian
devotion to survive a "Lady" of interminable verbosity who submits to
indiscriminate "patting", incites her hearers to disobedience; and even
stages a pantomime "transformation-scene" between herself and Satan? An
earlier generation of Catholics would have blown this absurdity away in
a gust of Chestertonian laughter, but we seem to have lost. our sense
of the ridiculous in the last 20 years.
And, with the cult of Mary, Medjugorje weakens the message of Fatima,
with its cardinal insistence on the conversion of Russia and of
Communists as the prerequisite for any peace and progress. Medjugorje
talks airily of peace, but ignores the very precise recommendations of
Our Lady of Fatima and the disastrous consequences that will follow if
these are not complied with.
And, with the cult of Mary, Medjugorje weakens authority in the Church,
by its resistance to the legitimate authority of its own bishop, by its
partisan espousal of the cause of the dissident Franciscans in their
quarrel with the diocese, It could even be argued that the long
duration of the phenomenon constitutes an incipient "alternative
magisterium", in the sense that we shall have much less need of
hierarchies, a Teaching Church for our guidance if "Our Lady" is to
appear daily to give us our instructions direct from Heaven . . . a
disquieting prospect for all our bishops and for the Holy See itself.
Here I must rest my case, reminding readers that in presenting
arguments against the Medjugorje apparitions I am merely availing
myself of the same right as that claimed by its supporters when
recommending it. Both they and I are speaking in our private
capacities. As is customary and proper in these cases, I willingly give
the assurance that I do not intend hereby to anticipate the Church's
final verdict in any way. I merely hold the opinion, again in my private
capacity, that the most probable conclusion is that the matter of that
verdict exists already, in the shape of the findings of Bishop Zanic's
commission, filed away in the offices of the Yugoslav Bishops'
Conference and the Vatican, and will be re-worded and promulgated when
the Church decides that the right moment has come.
http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/medjugorje1.htm
==========================
