A news item:
Cardinal Puljic: Report on Medjugorje ready before the end of 2012
14 February 2012 – 14:57
(ASCA): Rome, 14 Feb: The commission appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to evaluate the authenticity of the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje, led by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, is expected to present its concluding report before the end of 2012. “Within the year we want to finish our work and give our opinion to the Pope so that he may express his judgment,” said Cardinal Vinko Puljic, archbishop of Sarajevo and member of the commission, during the press conference announcing the Sant’Egidio community’s “Meeting for peace” which is to take place next September. “We cannot talk about what the commission is doing, because we are bound to secrecy”, the cardinal explained: “Our work is continuing. But we need to finish it this year.” (asp/mpd)
(my translation)
Source: ASCA
Thanks to Diane at Te Deum Laudamus for alerting me to the news.
Category: Apparitions and Mystical Phenomena
Vassula just can’t keep out of trouble
Just when one kerfuffle over the automatic-writing mystic Vassula Ryden is announced, along comes another.
Now the Orthodox Church of Cyprus issued a statement about her on January 13. The Synodical Committee for Matters of Heresy —
By the way, isn’t that a great name? Sure, we have a Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is a nice, positive-sounding name, but some issues really deserve a statement coming from an organization that gets right to the point. This is about identifying, defining, combating and routing heresy. I’ll send a little note to Levada and see if he– well, I’ll do that later.
The Synodical Committee for Matters of Heresy warned:
In reality, her teachings are heretical, and her claims that she communicates directly with Christ are fantastical and outside of the spirit of the experience of the our Church.
So how many Orthodox Churches have issued warnings against her: Greece? Cyprus? The Patriarchate of Constantinople? Does she plan to stop in at church offices to collect the condemnations on her tour?
There are probably more to come!
False mystic Vassula Ryden sues critical web site
What do false mystics do, besides peddle spiritual messages and collect money from naive followers? They sue people who try to expose them.
Last March the Patriarchate of Constantinople warned against Vassula Ryden’s claims of presenting messages from Jesus. It was an impressive statement from her own church (English translation here), which should help to diminish the bad influence of this long-exposed phony, especially when it is added to the warnings from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1995, 1996, and 2007.
In March 2011 the critical web site infovassula.ch, based in Switzerland, wrote, apparently incorrectly, that the document was a formal excommunication of Ryden, and in November 2011 Vassula’s organization sued the site author, Maria Laura Pio. A hearing about some issues was held on January 6.
The impression of an excommunication is understandable, since the Patriarchate’s document stated:
we call upon the proponents of these unacceptable innovations and the supporters who maintain them, who henceforth are not admitted to ecclesiastical communion, not only to not be involved in the pastoral work of the local Holy Metropolis, but also to not preach their novel teachings, to prevent the appropriate sanctions under the Holy Canons.
Of course we are dealing with translations, so ambiguities are possible. It sounds at least as if the followers of Vassula are to be denied Holy Communion until they desist.
I wish Ms. Pio all the best in dealing with this legal harassment from the Vassula camp.
Bp. Perić defends Žanić from “collaborator” accusation in Medjugorje case
A 2011 book by four pro-Medjugorje journalists accused the late Bishop Pavao Zanic of collaborating with the Communists in Yugoslavia against the claimed apparition: an outrageous charge.
The current bishop reviews the accusation and points out that Zanic’s position on the case was consistently the exact opposite of the Communists’ position. When he was favorable, they were against; when he was against, they were favorable! So they weren’t very good at getting him to collaborate, hm?
Tsk, tsk, these Communists were so incompetent!
(Note: the English version published on the Mostar diocesan web site is my translation.)
Donal Foley’s powerful case against Medjugorje
I finished reading religion writer Donal Foley’s updated book on the Medjugorje phenomenon today; it’s called Medjugorje Revisited and I recommend it to everyone concerned about the affair.
Compared with the vast array of books promoting the shady apparition, there is only a handful of critical works. And I do mean vast: a list made in 2004 counts 646 works favorable to the alleged visions and messages. Offhand, I can think of just 13 critical books, and even after a little web-searching, I’ve only brought the count up to 14.
But no matter: while the stream of favorable propaganda flows on, and the production of boringly predictable “messages” is endless, Foley’s thorough research in Medjugorje Revisited is enough to expose the lies and deviations for what they are.
He walks through the case patiently, taking up topics as if they were exhibits in a gallery, presented in chronological order. Several of the early chapters are devoted to what the visionaries said in June 1981, when their interviews with Fr. Jozo Zovko were tape-recorded. This is material few of the promoters’ books ever deal with.
In that first week, the phenomenon was radically different from what it became later. At that time, the visions took place on the Podbrdo hillside, not in the parish church and not at sites on the visionaries’ speaking tours. Back then, the entity they saw had not given them any message to take to the world or even to the parish: in fact, Fr. Zovko made a public statement to that effect on the sixth day of the visions.
Moreover, when the seer Vicka asked the apparition what the “Gospa” wanted to happen on the Podbrdo hillside, the Vision “didn’t know”. Fr. Zovko responded to this: “What kind of Gospa is it who doesn’t know? Then she is smaller than a child.”
Such an answer — “I don’t know” — is absurd for Our Lady, who sometimes makes herself known on earth through marvels, but only for a reason. In the historic apparitions approved by the Church, there is a mission, a purpose, a divine plan. But at Medjugorje in June of 1981, there was an aimless “Gospa” making pointless appearances. This is not of God.
Image via Wikipedia
It’s impressive to see how much more material Donal has assembled and examined in just the past five years since he published his previous work on the subject. The new edition has grown about 40% and it now has almost 700 footnotes. Although I try to follow the case closely, it included quite a lot of material that was new to me!
The book is available direct from Foley‘s little publishing house or on-line from the big bookseller.
If you want to sort out what happened at Medjugorje, this book is essential.
