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July 3, 2006 • VOL. 44, NO. 13 • Oakland, CA
Medjugorje 25
years later:
Apparitions and contested authenticity
ROME (CNS)
-- Twenty-five years after six children in Medjugorje, a village in what
is now Bosnia-Herzegovina, began reporting apparitions of Mary, pilgrims
are still flocking to the site and church officials are still cautious
about the authenticity of the events.
Marian experts continue to debate the significance of Medjugorje, and
several have published books -- ranging from enthusiastically supportive
to skeptical -- to coincide with the anniversary.
In Medjugorje, Franciscan pastors prepared for overflow crowds on June
24-25, the dates on which the alleged apparitions and messages began in
1981. They insisted, however, that no special commemorations were planned.
“Everything’s been booked solid for more than a year, and
we’re expecting thousands of pilgrims. But we’re not putting
on any spectacle or festival -- just the usual program of prayer,”
Franciscan Father Ivan Sesar, pastor of St. James Parish in Medjugorje,
said in a telephone interview.
Of the six children who originally reported visions from Mary, sometimes
daily, one says she still receives messages from Mary on the 25th of each
month. They are published online, eagerly awaited by a large network of
Christians dedicated to Medjugorje.
According to Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar-Duvno, whose diocese includes
Medjugorje, the messages now number more than 30,000, a fact that only
increases his own skepticism about the authenticity of the apparitions.
Bishop Peric discussed Medjugorje with Pope Benedict XVI earlier this
year during a visit to the Vatican. In a summary of the discussion published
in his diocesan newspaper, Bishop Peric said he had reviewed the history
of the apparitions with the pope, who already was aware of the main facts
from his time as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“The Holy Father told me: We at the congregation always asked ourselves
how can any believer accept as authentic apparitions that occur every
day and for so many years?” Bishop Peric said.
Bishop Peric noted that Yugoslavian bishops in 1991 issued a statement
that “it cannot be confirmed that supernatural apparitions or revelations
are occurring” at Medjugorje.
Bishop Peric said he told the pope that his own opinion was even stronger
-- not only that a supernatural element cannot be proven, but that “it
is certain that these events do not concern supernatural apparitions.”
Other priests and bishops have spoken favorably about the apparitions,
saying there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the visionaries or
the spiritual effects among pilgrims.
At Medjugorje, the debate over authenticity has been largely set aside
by the Franciscan friars who minister to pilgrims and keep in contact
with the visionaries.
“We are not here to give a judgment about whether the apparitions
are true or not. We’re here to follow the people who come, to hear
their confessions, to give them pastoral care,” said Father Sesar,
the 39-year-old pastor.
Father Sesar said that, while early pilgrims to Medjugorje may have been
drawn there by curiosity or a thirst for supernatural signs like rosaries
turning different colors, that is less true today. Much more significant
are the long lines for confession that form every day, he said.
“The biggest things in Medjugorje today are prayer and the sacraments.
It’s no longer a place where people come to see miracles. They are
coming for spiritual growth,” he said.
Considerable attention, however, is still given to the apparitions and
messages which one of the visionaries, Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti, says she
continues to receive. She now lives with her husband and children in Italy.
The message from May 2006 strikes a pious tone typical of most of the
thousands of alleged communications over the last 25 years: “Decide
for holiness, little children, and think of heaven. Only in this way will
you have peace in your heart that no one will be able to destroy. Peace
is a gift, which God gives you in prayer.”
At the Vatican, officials said they are still monitoring events at Medjugorje,
but emphasized that it was not necessarily the Vatican’s role to
issue an official judgment on the alleged apparitions there.
More than once in recent years, the Vatican has said that dioceses or
parishes should not organize official pilgrimages to Medjugorje. That
reflects the policy of the bishops.
But the Vatican has also said Catholics are free to travel to the site,
and that if they do, the Church should provide them with pastoral services.
That has left a margin of ambiguity among Catholics. Adding to the confusion
have been claims that the late Pope John Paul II strongly supported Medjugorje
in various private statements; the Vatican has never confirmed those statements.
After Pope Benedict was elected, it was rumored that as a cardinal he
had once traveled incognito to Medjugorje, and that as pope he could be
expected to officially approve the site as a Marian shrine.
In his February visit to the Vatican, Bishop Peric said he spoke to the
pope about these rumors, and that the pontiff only laughed in surprise.
Pope Benedict, who headed the doctrinal congregation for 24 years, once
said the multiplication of Marian apparitions was a “sign of the
times” and should not be discounted. But he has also counseled prudence,
even when it comes to apparitions officially recognized by the Church,
like those at Fatima, Portugal; Guadalupe, Mexico; and Lourdes, France.
Behind the Vatican’s careful approach is a basic Church teaching:
that public revelation ended with the death of the last apostle, and that
no private revelation, however interesting, will add anything essential
to the faith.
Yet some, like Msgr. Arthur Calkins, a Vatican official and a member of
the Pontifical International Marian Academy, believe that while apparitions
do not furnish new truths of faith, they can help Catholics understand
them better.
Private revelations recognized by the authority of the Church “may
serve to bring home to the faithful truths which are already known, but
not fully appreciated,” Msgr. Calkins said in an interview.
“The apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, for example, brought home
to the faithful the need for prayer, penance, conversion of heart, reparation
for sins. All of this expands on the doctrine of the mystical body of
Christ,” he said.
Like several other experts at the Vatican, Msgr. Calkins declined to offer
any opinion about Medjugorje.
Marian expert Donal Foley, in his new book, “Understanding Medjugorje,”
reviews the public evidence, particularly from the early days of the reported
visions, and says that, “sadly, the only rational conclusion about
Medjugorje is that it has turned out to be a vast, if captivating, religious
illusion.”
In a phone interview, Foley listed several factors that make him dubious:
contradictions over how long the apparitions would continue, the excess
number of messages, their questionable and sometimes “silly”
content, excess focus on inexplicable “signs,” and the credulous
local culture in Medjugorje.
Pilgrims climb the hill where apparitions of Mary are said to have first occurred in 1981 in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
CNS FILE PHOTO/DAMIR SAGOLI/REUTERS (June 25, 2004)
