Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, May 12, 2019 / 07:46 (CNA).- Pope Francis has given Catholics the green light to hold pilgrimages to Medjugorje, a site of alleged Marian apparitions, although the Church has not yet given a verdict on the authenticity of the apparitions.
The pope’s authorization of pilgrimages to the site should not be understood as “authentication” of the alleged apparitions, “which always require examination by the Church”, the pope’s spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said in a statement on May 12.
He added that anyone leading pilgrimages to the site should avoid creating “doctrinal confusion or ambiguity”, including priests who intend to celebrate Mass there.
The provision was made in recognition of the “abundant fruits of grace” that came from Medjugorje and to promote these “good fruits”. It is also part of Pope Francis’ “special pastoral attention” to the place, Gisotti said.
The announcement of the papal authorization was made May 12 by the Vatican’s Apostolic Visitor to the site, Archbishop Henryk Hoser, and Archbishop Luigi Pezzuto, Apostolic Nuncio to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Hoser, a retired Archbishop of Warsaw-Prague, was appointed Apostolic Visitor to Medjugorje by Pope Francis in May 2018. His indefinite directive is to oversee pastoral needs at the site of alleged Marian apparitions .
Hoser’s appointment as an apostolic visitor follows his service as papal envoy to the site in 2017.
In January 2014, a Vatican commission concluded a nearly four-year investigation into the doctrinal and disciplinary aspects of the Medjugorje apparitions and submitted a document to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
When the congregation has analyzed the findings of the commission, it will finalize a document on the site, which will be submitted to the pope, who will make a final decision.
The alleged apparitions began on June 24, 1981, when six children from Medjugorje, a town in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, began experiencing phenomena which they claimed were apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
According to these six “seers”, the apparitions contained a message of peace for the world, a call to conversion, prayer and fasting, as well as certain secrets surrounding events to be accomplished in the future.
These apparitions are said to have continued almost daily since their first occurrence, with three of the original six children – who are now young adults – continuing to receive apparitions each afternoon as not all of the “secrets” intended for them have been revealed.
From their start, the alleged apparitions have been a source of both controversy and conversion, with many flocking to the city for pilgrimage and prayer, and some claiming to have experienced miracles at the site, while many others claim that the visions are not believable.
Pope Francis visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in June 2015 but refused to stop in Medjugorje during his trip. On his flight back to Rome, he reported that the process of investigating the apparitions was nearly complete.
On the flight home from a visit to the Marian Shrine of Fatima in May 2017, the pope spoke about the final document of the Medjugorje commission, sometimes called the “Ruini report”, after the head of the commission, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, calling it “very, very well”, and noting a distinction between the first Marian apparitions in Medjugorje and the later ones.
“The first apparitions, which were of children, the report more or less says should continue to be investigated,” he said, but as to “the alleged current apparitions, the report has its doubts.” , said the pope.
On several occasions, the pope said he was wary of ongoing apparitions: “I prefer the Madonna as Mother, our Mother, and not a woman who is at the head of an office, who sends a message to a certain hour. It is not the Mother of Jesus.
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