Medjugorje inquiry completed

22 January, 2014

Pilgrims peruse religious articles in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 2011. Photo: Paul Haring, CNS THE VATICAN has confirmed that the international Vatican commission investigating the events at Medjugorje is ready to submit its findings to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Rome-based Zenit news agency has reported. In a statement last Saturday, the director of the Holy See Press Office, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi confirmed that the four-year old commission “held its last meeting on 17 January”. The commission, created by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and headed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini “has reportedly completed its work and will submit the outcomes of its study to the congregation”. Once the congregation has examined the commission’s findings, they will be given to Pope Francis who will have the final say. There is no indication how long it will be until a final decision is known. The commission, formed in 2010, is made up of an international panel of cardinals, bishops, theologians and other experts. Their investigation covers mainly the first phase of apparitions that began in 1981. The apparitions are claimed to continue regularly to the present, attracting hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year. It was opposition from the local hierarchy in Bosnia where the apparitions are alleged to take place which prompted the Vatican to carry out the investigation. Pope Francis met Bosnian Cardinal Vinko Puljic, Archbishop of Vrhbosna, Sarajevo, in private audience last week. Although many conversions have been witnessed in Medjugorje and countless people helped in their faith, the authenticity of the apparitions has remained highly contentious. Last November Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, unsettled devotees of the pilgrimage destination when he issued an instruction to US bishops warning against allowing ‘seer’ Ivan Dragicevic to go on a speaking tour of the country. Donal Foley, an expert on Medjugorje and author of Medjugorje Revisted – 30 Years of Visions or Religious Fraud, told Zenit on 20 January that it is “very difficult” to know exactly what the Pope’s ruling will be. “There have been some signs that a negative verdict, of some sort, may well be forthcoming,” he said, noting Pope Francis’ recent comments, in particular that Our Lady is a Mother “not a postmaster of the post office sending out messages every day”. But he added that a “compromise verdict” is still possible that could allow Medjugorje to continue to be a place of pilgrimage without approval. The Vatican currently does not forbid anyone visiting Medjugorje, but visitors are asked not to engage in public celebrations that take for granted the authenticity of the apparitions. Some have argued that the Vatican cannot complete an investigation on apparitions that are still continuing. .... Taken from: http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=1&subclassID=3&articleID=13182