Medjugorje

José Maria C.S. André

The Holy See issued, last week (September 19, 2024), a note about the devotion to Our Lady in Medjugorje, a small town in Bosnia Herzegovina, in former Yugoslavia.

The story goes back to June 24, 1981, when two girls, Ivanka Ivanković and Mirjana Dragičević, walked on a path near Crnica Hill and, unexpectedly, one of them, Ivanka, saw Our Lady. A few hours later, six young people, Vicka Ivanković, Ivan Dragičević, Ivan Ivanković and Milka Pavlović, Marija Pavlović and Jakov Čolo, saw Our Lady with the Child in the same place.

The bishop of the diocese, Bishop Pavao Žanić, met the seers the following month and was convinced that they were telling the truth.

The apparitions continued and, a year later, the same bishop sent the Vatican a confidential note stating he no longer believed that these apparitions of Our Lady were genuine. Yet another year and, in view of the uncertainty, the Yugoslav Bishops’ Conference decided to ban official pilgrimages. Meanwhile, Our Lady continued to appear in Medjugorje to several boys and girls.

After a few years, the diocesan commission in charge of studying the matter came out against the authenticity of the apparitions, but the Pro-Nuncio in Belgrade disagreed with the diocesan commission. The Vatican asked the Yugoslav Bishops’ Conference to make a statement, but the Yugoslav bishops replied that they did not know if the apparitions were true, but only that the crowds who came to Medjugorje need to be attended to. Because it was becoming clear that many pilgrims returned from Medjugorje transformed. Even those who had come out of mere curiosity, who weren’t even Catholics or who lived away from the Church, surprisingly, decided to go to confession and change their lives. Quite a few felt God’s call to a specific vocation and decided to enter the seminary or follow the path that God’s grace inspired in them.

On the other hand, the apparitions went on and on over the years and, although we know that Almighty God can perform every conceivable miracle, the ecclesiastical authorities wondered if such a strange sequence was authentic. Some thought that the first apparitions were true, but the following ones were invented; others were inclined to believe in everything; others questioned everything.

The events were certainly unusual, but the conversions were more and more abundant. If this was a mystification by the devil, how could one explain people coming to God and repenting of their sins?

In 1995, John Paul II wanted to go to Medjugorje, but the bishop of the diocese objected, and the Pope gave up the trip.

The bishop of the diocese continued to reject the pilgrimages and declared that the apparitions were false, but in 1998 the Vatican countered that it was not known if they were false and therefore the pilgrimages were not forbidden nor given official status.

The Yugoslav bishops couldn’t agree and, in 2008, Benedict XVI appointed a commission, chaired by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, to study the matter. They worked for six years and came to the conclusion that the apparitions deserved credit, at least the first ones. However, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith considered it more prudent not to publish that study without consulting more experts. And the opinion of these new experts was negative.

Surprisingly, the apparitions, true or false, continued…

In 2015, Pope Francis decided to take direct charge of the issue and change his approach. His primary concern was to help those who go to Medjugorje to really convert, to make a good Confession, to give a new impetus to their life. If the fruits of the pilgrimages are so positive, it’s a sign that God is at work. We may not know if the seers are accurate in their accounts, or if they lead a holy life, the important thing is that God’s grace is at work. This is, in a nutshell, what the Vatican stated in the note “The Queen of Peace”, published yesterday.

One of the last paragraphs of this note quotes a phrase that Our Lady allegedly said to the seers in 2018: “Dear children, (…) I call you to my Son. (…) The more you know Him, the closer you get to Him, the more you will love Him, because my Son is Love. Love transforms everything, it makes beautiful even that which without love seems insignificant to you.”