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.
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.
Have they discovered Google yet at the Vatican?
I got an e-mail today from catholic-hierarchy.org, that helpful web site that tracks the appointments, transfers, and retirements of bishops, using the announcements from the Holy See as their data source.
The news is that a coadjutor bishop has been appointed for the see of San Diego. That should be good news.
But when I looked up the name of the new bishop with a web search, this article appeared near the top of the listing:
“Cirilo Flores Rarely Pursued Discipline of Molesting Priests While Serving on Important Church Board”
Now, from reading the piece, it’s clear that the article isn’t written from an unbiased perspective, and it doesn’t give both sides of the story. But the existence of such an article means that the new coadjutor is guaranteed to get bad press at the least; at worst, he might not be a suitable appointment.
So it deserves investigation before he gets appointed to San Diego. It makes me wonder whether the responsible parties of the Congregation for Bishops are even thinking to run an internet search before they send a name to the Holy Father.
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.)