Medjugorje: the position of the Church Catholic

The Medjugorje events are unique among the apparitions reported, also because of their durability. What is the Vatican's attitude towards them? The answer to this question is unclear.

According to the canon law of the church, the person responsible for investigating an alleged apparition is the local bishop. In this case, let's talk about the bishop Pavao Zanic from Mostar-Duvno, the prelate (high-ranking clergyman) of the diocese where Medjugorje is located. Shortly after the apparitions, Zanic began to study events. Although always cautious, his first results confirmed the need for further study. In 1982 he appointed an official commission of the diocese to investigate the phenomenon. A group of fifteen members, he studied for five years before coming to a conclusion. Their results were reportedly negative, but they were never made public. Most of the commission, made up of about a dozen theologians and two psychiatrists, they voted against the supernatural matrix of events. Bishop Zanic unofficially released the results of the final evaluation, as follows:

• two votes confirming the supernatural
• one vote states that there was some supernatural sol during the first apparitions
• one abstained from voting
• eleven voted against the supernatural origin of the apparitions.

Bishop Zanic claimed to have found serious discrepancies between the testimonies of the boys'. He stated that they were clearly lying and that the healings and miracles were fraudulent or grossly exaggerated. He also stated that the local Franciscans had been guilty of disobedience and, in some cases, of immoral practice.

His conclusion: the apparitions of Medjugorje are a fraud perpetuated by the local Franciscans, with whom it was feuds.

In April 1986, Zanic took his report to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the current pope), the prefect (official) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome (the body that decides regarding the apparitions). Cardinal Ratzinger decided that the conditions that were the background to the apparitions of Medjugorje needed a more in-depth examination. In a sense, the very popularity of Medjugorje itself required a more in-depth evaluation. Furthermore, the longstanding conflict between Bishop Zanic and the Franciscans is well known. Ratzinger then transferred the authority to issue a sentence on Medjugorje to the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia, chaired by Cardinal Kuharic, Archbishop of Zagreb, Yugoslavia. The Bishops' Conference created a new commission to investigate the Medjugorje case over the past five years. Their evaluation progressed slowly, but at the end of November 1990, made this controversial statement:

From the beginning, the bishops followed the Medjugorje event through the local bishop, the bishop's commission and the commission of the episcopal conference of Yugoslavia for Medjugorje. Based on the studies that have been done at this time, the apparitions and revelations taking place here cannot be said to be supernatural.

The meaning of this statement is open to interpretation. Opponents of Medjugorje say instead that if the supernatural has not been confirmed after ten years of investigation, then the apparitions are not genuine. They tend to see this statement as a negative final verdict on Medjugorje. I devote, But, they believe that this is not the final word on Medjugorje – the validity of the apparitions is still an open question. It appears that both sides are still awaiting an official word from the Vatican. however, some time after, Cardinal Ratzinger issued a call for the pilgrims to Medjugorje, warning that the apparition had not yet been approved by the Church and inviting them not to go.

Many believe that Medjugorje's popularity will have some influence on the Vatican's final decision (as was the canonization of the controversial Padre Pio, excommunicated by the Vatican in the beginning for obvious reasons, but then reconsidered under the pressure of the people who cornered the Holy See). Regardless, many Catholics already visit Medjugorje as they did with Lourdes and Fatima. Medjugorje has had a major impact on millions of Catholics around the world.

Update 3 September 2015

[Source:] dailymail.co.uk

Finally, the Pope launches the repression of the largest illicit Catholic sanctuary in the world and suspends the doubtful priest.

The Pope repressed the largest illicit sanctuary in the world – with the suspension of the priest at the center of the requests which claimed the Virgin Mary has appeared more than 40.000 times.

Benedict XVI authorized severe precautionary and disciplinary measures against Father Tomislav Vlasic, the former spiritual director’ of six children who claimed that Our Lady appeared to them in Medjugorje in Bosnia.

The Franciscan priest was suspended for refusing to cooperate and this was compounded by his scandalous sexual immorality.

He was also accused of spreading dubious doctrine, manipulation of consciences, suspicion of mysticism and disobedience to orders legitimately issued by the Holy See, and was accused of heresy and schism.

Father Vlasic was a central figure in promoting the apparitions that would begin in 1981 and still continue today.

In 1984 boasted to Pope John Paul II that it was him, through divine providence, to guide the visionaries of Medjugorje and the visionaries had confirmed that the Virgin had told them that Vlasic was a living saint.

But the Bosnian cleric then lost points when it emerged that he had a son with a nun named Sister Rufina, and that he had refused to leave his order to marry her, and who instead begged her not to tell anyone about it.

Father Vlasic moved to Parma, in Italy, where he created a mixed community of men and women religious, call “Queen of Peace”, and dedicated to the apparitions of Medjugorje.

Medjugorje grew to become the most visited unauthorized Catholic shrine in the world, attracting hundreds of thousands of pilgrims a year, including many from the United Kingdom and from’ Ireland.

But the local bishops were convinced that the credits were false and in the 2015 they complained directly to Pope Benedict.

This led to a Vatican investigation that turned the spotlight on Father Vlasic's role. The priest was suspended by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith after refusing to collaborate with the investigation in his conduct.

The decree confirmed his suspension and was signed, with the approval of the Pope, by Cardinal William Levada, head of the CDF, and Father Jose Carballo, Minister General of the Friars Minor. They confined Father Vlasic to a Franciscan monastery in Italy and forbade him from contact with the community of the Queen of Peace, or with his lawyers, without permission from his superior.

The Vatican warned Father Vlasic that he would be excommunicated if he violated one of the prohibitions.

Father Vlasic was the second spiritual advisor to the seers to be suspended from his minis
earth. The other, Padre Jozo Zovko, he was suspended by Bishop Peric in 2015.

This was a huge blow to millions of Medjugorje followers around the world who hoped that the Vatican investigation would legitimize the sanctuary.

Later the Italian bishop Andrea Gemma denounced the claims of Medjugorje as' the work of the Devil’ and foresaw that soon the Vatican would intervene with something explosive to unmask once and for all who is behind this deception.

The phenomenon began on 25 June 1981, when you are children – Mirjana Dragicevic, Marija Pavlovic, Vicka Ivankovic, Ivan Dragicevic, Ivanka Ivankovic and Jakov Colo – they told the local priest that they saw the Virgin on a hill near their town .

Three church commissions failed to find evidence to support their claims and the bishops of the former Yugoslavia finally declared that there was nothing supernatural in Medjugorje..

In 1985 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict – he forbade pilgrimages to go to that place, but his words were completely ignored.

In the meantime, the visionaries have become rich and so has their city, a tourist pilgrimage destination, where the 'Madonna gold rush' exploded.

Seers now have luxurious villas with immaculate gardens, double garage and security gates, tennis courts and luxury cars with the bodyguard. And all this thanks to this great scam! One of them, Ivan Dragicevic, he married a former American beauty queen.

Update to 6 June 2015

[Source:] dailymail.co.uk

The 6 June 2015, during the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation in the parish of Medjugorje, the Bishop of Mostar, he has declared:

“finally, a few words about our local situation. from 17 al 24 January of this year I was in Rome and had the opportunity to greet the Holy Father first of all during the general audience and ask for his blessing for our entire Church in Herzegovina. I also visited the superiors of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and I thanked in particular the bishops of the Tuscany region, in Italy, they had asked the congregation in their course “visit” what was the position to be taken regarding the Medjugorje phenomenon. The then Secretary of the Congregation, Archbishop Angelo Amato recommended that the bishops transmit to the priests and faithful of their dioceses the homily that was given here in Medjugorje during the rite of Confirmation, on the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ in 2015, as it was then done. Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation, then he said to me: “We recommend this to all those who ask us about Medjugorje.” During my visit I could see that the competent Congregation, as well as the Secretariat of State, are closely following our local events in Herzegovina and we are very grateful to Pope Benedict XVI and the Apostolic See for their charity and concern “.

I am here again to say what I said in this place three years ago: by the Franciscan fathers who are the pastoral ministers of this parish, by parishioners and other faithful, as well as by the so-called seers, that the alleged daily apparitions, known as the “Medjugorje phenomenon”, they have not been declared authentic by the Church. Not even after the investigations of various commissions or after 28 years of average. therefore, brothers and sisters, we cannot act as if these “appearances” are authentic and approved. I know, as Catholics, faithful sons and daughters of the Church, we want to live by the standards and teachings of the Church, glorifying the Holy Trinity , venerating the BV Maria always Virgin, Immaculate Conception, the Mother of God, which was assumed into heaven and we wish to confess all that the Church teaches us in the Creed, then we don't need to look for alternatives “appearances” e “messages” which the Church has not recognized as supernatural!

After a’ analysis lasted a long time the Catholic Church proclaimed:

1. The supernatural is not proven (in the sense that there is nothing heavenly in Medjugorje)
2. The non-supernaturality is proven (or what appears to be supernatural is the result of human manipulation for the purpose of fame and wealth.)
3. As said previously, an official or church pilgrimages are not allowed, nor are the visits that allowed the intent to demonstrate that the so-called 'apparitions’ and alleged 'messages’ they are authentic!
4. The fruits of the alleged 'apparitions’ of Medjugorje were those of great confusion and division, and not only in the local Church. Such is not, and it cannot be of God!
5. The alleged “fortune tellers” have proven to lie over and over again in the investigation of commissions appointed by the Catholic Church. Such is not, and it cannot be of God!

As mentioned above, one of the “fortune tellers”, he affirmed that Our Lady said that all faiths are equal. Such is not, and it cannot be of God! This doctrine is not Catholic!*

Regarding the Catholic Church's need for salvation, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

How is this affirmation often repeated by the Fathers of the Church to be understood??

Positively formulated, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his body:

846 How is this affirmation often repeated by the Fathers of the Church to be understood?? Positively formulated, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his body:

The holy Council ** "teaches, leaning on Sacred Scripture (?) and on Tradition, that this pilgrim Church is necessary for salvation ***. In fact, only Christ, present for us in his body, which is the Church, he is the Mediator and the Way of salvation; now he, expressly inculcating the need for faith and Baptism, together it confirmed the need for the Church, which men enter through Baptism as through the door. Therefore those men could not be saved, which, not ignoring that the Catholic Church was founded by God through Jesus Christ as necessary, nevertheless they did not want to enter it or persevere in it ". [C.C.C. # 846]

The above is sufficient to demonstrate that the faithful should achieve greater spiritual growth by attending authentic recognized sanctuaries such as those of Lourdes or Fatima..

Final remarks

* The Second Vatican Council of 1965 – and before then what was salvation like? How many changes over time in the Catholic Church!

** Because the other apparitions are? What would be the difference between one apparition and another? None. In every apparition that there has been, from Lourdes to Fatima, da Akita a Medjugorje, the entity has always affirmed anti-biblical doctrines by spreading a false Gospel, alas, it spread in the Catholic Church, that, following these messages, he proclaimed several anti-biblical doctrines and dogmas, from the Immaculate Conception to the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, from the Co-redemption to Mediatrix to the last Assumption into Heaven.

*** Salvation does not come through the Church, salvation is only through Jesus Christ. When Jesus speaks of a church he does not mean a religion or an institution or a building, but only the invisible union of believers who are found in every place of the world, not in the human institution of the Catholic Church that
he proclaims himself erroneously and arrogantly (like a sect) to be the bearer of salvation. God looks to hearts and not to belonging to a Christian church or another!

Jesus said,:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him does not perish, but have everlasting life. (Giovanni 3:16)

but to all who received it he gave the right to become children of God: to those, that is, who believe in his name; who are not born of blood, nor by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but they were born of God. (Giovanni 1:12-13)

For by grace you have been saved, by fede; and that not of yourselves:; it is the gift of God. It is not by works, lest any man should boast; (the works also include rites) (Ephesians 2:8-9)

The apostle Paul said:

We know that man is not justified by the works of the law but only by means of faith in Christ Jesus, and we also believed in Christ Jesus to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law; because by the works of the law no one will be justified. (Galati 2:16)

Salvation through the Church is never mentioned in the Word of God!