In February, Bishop Ratko Peric of the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno in Bosnia-Herzegovina issued a new summary of the Medjugorje case. At the end of the report, he lists the Holy See’s statements:
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has intervened four times through two of its Secretaries, while the Prefect, Cardinal Ratzinger, also made an important intervention.
In 1985, Msgr. Alberto Bovone notified the Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of Italy not to organize official pilgrimages to Medjugorje.
In 1995, Msgr. Tarcisio Bertone wrote to the bishop of Langres, Msgr. Leon Taverdet, and repeated the same to Msgr. Lucien Daloz of Besan�on, France, who were interested in knowing the position of the Holy See on Medjugorje.
Finally, in 1998, the same Secretary wrote to Msgr. Gilbert Aubry, bishop of Reunion. All these letters emphasized that pilgrimages, whether private or public, are not allowed if they presuppose the authenticity of the apparitions, since this would be in contradiction to the declaration of the Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia.
Ratzinger’s frei erfunden. In 1998, when a certain German gathered various statements which were supposedly made by the Holy Father and the Cardinal Prefect, and forwarded them to the Vatican in the form of a memorandum, the Cardinal responded in writing on 22 July 1998: “The only thing I can say regarding statements on Medjugorje ascribed to the Holy Father and myself is that they are complete invention” – “frei erfunden”.
Thanks for this link. The final 5 or 6 paragraphs were especially enlightening. I wasn’t aware of all these negatives!
It is nice to see other people stepping up and exposing the fraud that is Medjugorje. How people can believe in this, is really sad. Thank you so much for posting this!!
Peace!
-Kevin Symonds
For those new to Catholic Light, I should mention my site of documents on the Medjugorje case.
Sorry, been there don’t think it’s a fraud.. but will wait for the Church’s judgment nevertheless. There have been plenty of other situations that eventually got positive acknowledgment from the Church after enough time had passed to sort out local political issues, jealousies, etc.
From the linked site:
“Marija Pavlović. In response to an Italian journalist’s question Why haven’t any one of you decided to become a priest or nun? Marija in 2001 gave the following explanation: For many years I thought that I would become a nun. I began visiting a convent and my desire to go there was very strong. But the sister superior once told me: “Marija, if you want to enter, you are very welcome; but if the bishop decides that you must not speak about Medjugorje, you will have to obey”. At that moment I began thinking that my vocation might possibly be to witness to that which I saw and heard, and that I will be able to find the road to holiness outside the convent (O. P., p. 28).”
If this is true, then I know the sightings of at least this woman are false. Our Blessed Mother would never sway anyone to not obey Church leaders, even if they were wrong. Period.
Part of the trial put to causes of sainthood is whether or not the candidate ever showed any sign of rebelliousness against the Church. Not righteous objection, mind you. Saints are known to have nagged, cajoled and pleaded. But they always continue to obey until they change the minds of the Church officials.
The authenticated visionaries usually show this same sort of obediance. I am suspicious of any “visionary” who is afraid of obediance to the Church.
I’m squarely on the fence on Medjugorje after doing some research. Suffice it to say that since the apparations, alleged or otherwise, are still ongoing, the Vatican will not be ruling on them. They always wait until they are over, and then the decisions take years. We will all be much older, if not pushing up daisies, when the Vatican rules officially on Medjugorje.
That was a common take on the situation, Chris, but it overlooks some aspects of the procedure.
Cautionary and negative rulings can come at any time, and need not wait until the phenomenon is over.
The local bishop has first jurisdiction. In some cases, jurisdiction is transferred to the bishops’ conference, as in the case of Akita.
In the case of Medjugorje, the bishops’ conference confirmed the diocesan judgment.
CDF has been citing the bishops’ conference rulings as authoritative and there is no reason to expect that Rome will revisit the issue, so nobody should withhold his obedience under the expectation that Rome will rule favorably.
Now, if we could just get the diocesan papers to stop taking pilgrimage ads from Medjugorje promoters…
Here’s another eye opening discussion on Medjugorje. Good fruit and conversions aside, most people never hear the negatives. http://www.mdaviesonmedj.com/medtext1.rtf (its a PDF file)
Here’s a related post.
Sounds like somebody’s “in denial”!