For his birthday today, 65-year-old Cardinal Schönborn has given an interview to a friendly local church-news outlet. Kath.net is also friendly to the alleged Medjugorje apparitions, and in fact sells videos of the Cardinal’s recent “pilgrimage” there. In the interview, he confirmed a bit of news from a Petrus article that appeared here on January 12: that Pope Benedict will soon create a new commission to evaluate the controversial site of alleged apparitions.
My translation:
KATH.NET: In the past few days, you visited Pope Benedict XVI. Did you tell him about your positive experiences of Medjugorje? Did he express any opinion about it?
Cardinal Schönborn: It’s not customary to talk about audiences. But I can naturally say this much: that Medjugorje was a topic in Rome during those days, due to the public awareness of my pilgrimage. I reported about my impressions in Rome. And I am very confident that the Commission, which the Holy Father is setting up to examine the events of Medjugorje, is very good and will work very conscious of its responsibility, and that the result will certainly be good. And I am confident that it will proceed with great prudence and great sensitivity to a phenomenon that has attracted about 30 million pilgrims and brings very many good fruits, but certainly also some open questions.
As a skeptic about the phenomenon, I didn’t appreciate his recent highly publicized visit there, but I am glad to see the Cardinal acknowledge that there are some, ahem, questions to be examined.