The Church's Position on Medjugorje
The hope is that this document will help eliminate confusion and misinformation regarding the Church's official position on Medjugorje. Following is the latest information from the Vatican and Pope Francis announced in May 2019.
This announcement is another step forward in the Vatican’s formal approval of Medjugorje. For anyone not closely following the Church’s position on Medjugorje, let me provide a brief summary.
A formal commission was launched on March 26, 2010, led by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, to further investigate all aspects of Medjugorje. The commission finalized its investigation late summer 2016. Recommendations were then given to Pope Francis by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in May 2017, in what is called the Ruini report. Pope Francis commented on the Ruini commission/report and said: "A commission of good theologians, bishops, cardinals. Good, good, good. The Ruini report is very, very good."
There were four important recommendations contained in the Ruini report.
1. That Medjugorje be placed under Vatican control.
2. That Church oganized pilgrimages to Medjugorje be allowed.
3. That Medjugorje be declared a pontifical shrine of the Church.
4. That the first apparitions be declared authentic and supernatural in nature.
We must realize that the Church moves slowly and cautiously. There have only been about 12 apparitions throughout history that have been approved by the Church. For Medjugorje, which is an ongoing apparition, to receive this level of support and approval by the Church, is truly rare.
So although the statement below cautions us that there has not been a full "authentication of known events", two of the recommendations of the Ruini report have now been realized.
May 2018. Pope Francis permanently assigned retired archbishop HenryK Hoser to Medjugorje to help oversee all aspects of pastoral ministries there. This esentially places Medjugorje under Vatican control.
May 2019. The following announcement was made by archbishop Henryk Hoser, and the Apostolic Nuncio, authorizing official parish and diocesan organized pilgrimages to Medjugorje.
Image taken from Medjugorje parish web site: http://medjugorje.hr
The following announcement was made by the Apostolic Visitator, Henryk Hoser and the Apostolic Nuncio. Ad Interim Director Gisotti: "Attention given to favouring and promoting the fruits of good", but this does not mean "an authentication of known events".
Massimiliano Menichetti – Vatican City
Pope Francis has decided to authorize pilgrimages to Medjugorje, which can now be officially organized by dioceses and parishes and will no longer take place only in a private capacity which as has so far been the case. The announcement was made today during Mass, at the parish shrine which has become a destination for millions of pilgrims, by the Apostolic Nuncio Luigi Pezzuto in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Archbishop Henryk Hoser, the Holy See’s Special Apostolic Visitator.
Pilgrimages do not authenticate known events
The "ad interim" director of the Holy See Press Office, Alessandro Gisotti, responding to journalists’ questions about the announcement, specified that the papal authorization must be accompanied by "care to prevent these pilgrimages from being interpreted as an authentication of known events, which still require examination by the Church. Therefore, care must be taken to avoid creating confusion or ambiguity from the doctrinal point of view regarding such pilgrimages. This also concerns pastors of every order and level who intend to go to Medjugorje and celebrate or concelebrate there even in a solemn way".
Pastoral attention
"Considering the considerable flow of people who go to Medjugorje and the abundant fruits of grace that have sprung from it – continued Gisotti – this authorization is part of the particular pastoral attention that the Holy Father intended to give to that reality, aimed at encouraging and promoting the fruits of good".
The apostolic visitator, concluded the ad interim director, "will have, in this way, greater ease in establishing – relations with the priests in charge of organizing pilgrimages to Medjugorje, as well as, safe and well-prepared persons, offering them information and indications to be able to fruitfully conduct such pilgrimages, – in agreement with the ordinary people of the place."
The Pope’s decision comes a year after the appointment of Hoser, Archbishop Emeritus of Warszawa-Prague in Poland, as "Apostolic Visitator for the Parish of Medjugorje", on May 31, 2018.
Both that nomination and today’s announcement do not, therefore, enter into doctrinal questions relating to the authenticity of the account of the six visionaries of what has happened in Medjugorje since June 1981, a phenomenon that has not yet been concluded. Of the six visionaries, at that time children or young people, three assure us that they still have a daily apparition of the "Queen of Peace", always at the same time in the afternoon and wherever they are: they are Vicka (who lives in Medjugorje), Marija (who lives in Monza) and Ivan (who lives in the United States but often returns home). A fourth visionary, Mirjana, says that she receives an apparition every 2nd of the month, and also once per year on March 18. The remaining two visionaries, Ivanka, and Jakov, receive an annual apparition each year (June 25 for Ivanka, and December 25 for Jakov).
November 27, 2021 Update - The Press Office of the Holy See announced the news today that Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Msgr. Aldo Cavalli, titular Archbishop Vibo Valentia (Vibo Valentia – lat. Dioecesis Vibonensis), former Apostolic Nuncio to the Netherlands, as the Apostolic Visitor with a special role for the parish of Medjugorje, indefinitely and ad nutum Sanctae Sedis. It is a continuation of the mission carried out in Medjugorje by Archbishop Henryk Hoser, S.A.C., who died on August 13, 2021 in Warsaw.
Flannel.
ReplyDeleteNone of this changes the Church's official position.
Pompous, ignorant prick.
THIS IS THE CHURCH'S OFFICIAL POSITION !!!
ReplyDeleteThere you go again. Manifestly wrong but you try to bluff it out.
Balls:
DeleteFrom the above:
PILGRIMAGES DO NOT AUTHENTICATE KNOWN EVENTS
The "ad interim" director of the Holy See Press Office, Alessandro Gisotti, responding to journalists’ questions about the announcement, specified that the papal authorization must be accompanied by "care to prevent these pilgrimages from being interpreted as an authentication of known events, which still require examination by the Church. Therefore, care must be taken to avoid creating confusion or ambiguity from the doctrinal point of view regarding such pilgrimages. This also concerns pastors of every order and level who intend to go to Medjugorje and celebrate or concelebrate there even in a solemn way".
In other words, we know that it's bogus, but it's too good an opportunity to pull in the credulous and superstitious to miss.
Come off it, pompous ignorant prick.
"In other words, we know that it's bogus, but it's too good an opportunity to pull in the credulous and superstitious to miss."
ReplyDeleteDisgraceful! You pompous, ignorant lying prick.
Medjugorje, over time, will no doubt become the major Catholic pilgrimage site anywhere in the world.
And apologise to Mirjana Soldo. She and the other Medjugorje visionaries have been subjected to batteries of medical test over the years. None of the medical experts have come to your ignorant conclusions.
I will not apologise to Mirjana Soldo, you pompous, bombastic prick, for the simple reason that I have offered her no insult. I have no doubt that she sees what she claims to see. On the other hand, I have no doubt that what she sees is authentic only to her and probably caused by some kind of mental illness. A member of my family is bipolar, and one of the symptoms of the manic phase is vivid olfactory hallucinations, the reality of which is utterly convincing to this person.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Pope Francis has it right - source, Reuters 14/05/17
Pope says doubts Medjugorje apparitions are authentic
By Philip Pullella
"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.”
Game, set and match, and another epic fail for Gene "Two-faced Crybaby Lying Prick" Vincent - or are you going to tell the Pope that he is wrong, arsehole?
Francis has his doubts. He is entitled to as is anyone. But, the commission of investigation has come to its positive conclusions and amongst other proposals Medjugorje is recommended to become a pontifical shrine. It is not condemned or 'disclaimed' by the Church as you wrote. Remember both Lourdes and Fatima has doubters in the highest ranks of the Church - but both were eventually recognised years after the apparitions ceased. No phenomenon in the history of the Church has been examined and scrutinised with such intensity as has Medjugorje. My belief is that it will become the most famous shrine in Church history.
ReplyDeleteSo game set and match once again to Gene.
And apologise to Mirjana Soldo if you have an ounce of decency. She has been repeatedly examined by medical experts and never pronounced mentally ill. And who are you, a pathetic nobody, to make a diagnosis on someone you have not met?
I have followed events in Medjugorje since 1983. I know what I am talking about and you don't.
No Gene - you know what you think and dismiss anyone else’s right to think differently. The whole Medjugorje phenomenon is an unlovely mixture of mental aberration, individual and mass hallucination, commercial greed and straightforward deceit. Any fool can claim to see a vision, and such a claim cannot be disproved. Pope Francis, as so often, cuts through the bullshit beloved of simpletons like you.
ReplyDeleteBut lets not get away from abortion - Mirjana Soldo's report on her questions to Our Lady about abortion and Our Lady's answers should put the fear of God into the pro-abortionists.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteNo, it won’t.
It might impress credulous simpletons like you.