On the premise that the faithful require the truth, I am still wondering about the authenticity of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother at Medjugorje, especially with how one pope dealt with the cult and how the current pope is dealing with it. At the end of July I posted a question about the possibility of the apparitions being a hoax with the reduction to the lay state of the Franciscan priest who promoted the apparitions. With 30 million+ pilgrims since the messages were revealed, there seems to be some continued interest among the Church, Mariologists, and the faithful. I think we all need the discernment of the Church.The day before the octave day of the Assumption an interview regarding the Medjugoje appearances was posted. Matt Abbott makes some interesting known.
After reading what Abbott's article, I wonder if the lack of a more swift ecclesial judgment on Medjugoje's validity whether this is a good example of justice delayed is justice denied.
The E. Michael Jones interview published by Matt Abbott is pure fabrication from someone who is completely anti-Medjguorje. There are absolutely no references made by Jones to support his allegations that can be verified. If one is going to publish a decent piece of journalism on the topic of Medjugorje, at least present a cogent argument. It is people like Jones who make the anti-Medjugorje crowd look inept and incompetent. For a point-by-point discussion of the Jones interview, see: http://catholic-ecclesia-dei.blogspot.com/
There are a number of things which many lose sight of when discussing Medjugorje, which, if we are to be consistent in the discernment of supernatural events, we have to keep in mind.
First, unless the visions are very obviously fake and a danger to the faith and the unity of the Church, the Church does not pass judgement until the apparitions have finished. The official position of the Church now is 'wait and see'. Unlike the false apparitions in Bayside, New York, where the Church moved in quickly because of the dangers to the faith, the Church has not moved in to officially condemn Medjugorje even though it has had ample opportunity to do so. On the contrary, she permits pilgrimages as long as they are not official Church pilgrimages.
Secondly, those who go to Medjugorje are not being disobedient to the Church or the Pope - re last point, they are allowed to go. The history of apparitions reveals that pilgrims came to the sites during the apparitions and their experiences there helped the Church in her discernment. If it were not for the pilgrims to Fatima during the October 1917 apparition we would not know about the Miracle of the Sun.
Thirdly, we cannot disregard the "fruits" as an element in discernment and investigation as all the critics of Medjugorje have demanded. Why deliberately exclude Medjugorje from the criteria the Church has always used? The bishops of the dioceses in which the apparitions of Lourdes, Fatima, Laus, Knock etc were not keen at first on what was happening, but none of them called on the Church to ignore the Lord's teaching on how to discern. When the events and message can be examined in their fullness, and if they do not hold up as did Lourdes, Fatima, Laus, Knock and other approved sites, then Medjugorje will fall. If we are not prepared to follow the procedures of the Church fairly, then the question has to be asked, why not? What are people afraid of?
Fourthly, Church politics in Bosnia are lethal, and so the apparitions must be discerned without "political" interference. Without the need to take sides, no doubt this is what motivated the then Card. Ratzinger when he removed competance from the Bishop of Mostar to the Bishops' Conference - he saw that the Mostar report was steeped in the politics of the various difficulties between the Secular clergy and the Franciscans. The events will be judged objectively. If they are found to be inauthentic, then the Church can look to see if the motivation was political.
Fifth: the Medjugorje phenomenon is not unique in the Church. There are distinct similarities with the Papally approved apparitions at Laus in France. In Laus Our Lady appeared for about 50 years to the visionary, the Ven. Benoite Rencurel: not every day, but very frequently over those years, with some apparitions lasting hours at a time. The bishop of the diocese was opposed to them and he even assigned chaplains who worked to undermine the shrine, humiliate the visionary, and at one time exclude other clergy from coming to say Mass. Benoite was often accused of disobedience, and, like Blessed Mary McKillop of Australia, she stood up for herself in the face of episcopal warnings - now she close to beatification. The message was similiar to Medjugorje, and Our Lady repeated herself a great deal - "Convert". There are also some differences, but examination of Marian apparitions reveals that each one has unique elements, while the messages tend to be the same. Medjugorje's length, then, is not necessarily a sign that it is fake. However, if the visions are found to be inauthentic by the Church, then those visionaries certainly deserve Oscars!
Sixth, regarding the visionaries and their lifestyles. Visionaries are not saints, they are instruments. The lives of the visionaries of La Salette do not inauthenticate the vision of Our Lady, and their lives were scandalous and disfunctional: looking at them one might wonder why the Church approved the visions. If visionaries become saints it is not because Our Lady appeared to them it is because they, like all the saints, lived lives of heroic virtue. Those who go to Medjugorje tell us that the visionaries are not as extravagent and wealthy as critics maintain they are. One criticism is that Ivan married a former Miss America. Grace Kelly married a prince - was that a scandal? Did that mean she was less a Christian? Perhaps Ivan just met a woman he fell in love with regardless of what she did in her past. There has to be common sense in our examination of the visionaries.
Finally - money. Medjugorje is making money, no doubt about it. However, so too Lourdes, which is a scandalous centre of commercialism - and I mean that. It is tacky and irreligious. The shrine and clergy there take in millions each year in donations, Mass stipends and other income. Fatima, not as bad as Lourdes, still makes lots of money for the people of the area and the shrine and clergy. Knock in Ireland is as tacky as you can get. Laus and La Salette are modest, but the Church has also established means of revenue, earning income from the pilgrims who come. Does all this inauthenticate the visions? No. Our Lady always brought prosperity to the places she visited, perhaps that is one reason why she always comes to the poor. And commercial sharks circling the waters are always on the lookout for business. Many of those who have shops in Medjugorje are in fact Muslims who have come in to make a living for themselves. Locals do open their homes to pilgrims as guesthouses - so they need rooms, hence large houses which are cheap to build and furnish. But this happened also in Lourdes and Fatima. If a negative judgement is to be passed on Medjugorje because of this, then Lourdes and Fatima must be re-examined also.
http://medjugorje1.blogspot.ca/