For thirty years, a tiny group of “visionaries” have asserted that the Sanctified Virgin Mary has appeared twice every month in the city of Medjugorje, on the southwestern edge of Bosnia and Herzegovina.Many of holiday makers come here hunting for some Medjugorje hotel where they stay often two weeks. While the alleged apparitions have attracted an approximate 30 million travellers since they commenced on June twenty-four, 1981, 2 successive bishops of the diocese of Mostar-Duvno, in which Medjugorje lies, have ruled that the phenomenon is not confirmed to be of supernatural origin (non constat de supernaturalitate) and have tried to limit pilgrimages to the site. Their judgment has been supported by the Bishops ‘ Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which issued an official statement in April 1991 that Vinko Cardinal Puljic, the archbishop of Sarajevo, recalled in Nov 2009 when he declared that “The doctrinal issue of the Medjugorje phenomenon is resolved.”
Cardinal Puljic nonetheless , acknowledges that the phenomenon has “pastoral significance,” because “The Medjugorje phenomenon isn’t just gathering trustworthy from Bosnia, but from all over the world, and in places where folks gather to offer up prayers God gives his blessing.” That does not mean that the purported apparitions are real but simply that wise bishops need to deal with the effects of the alleged apparitions in a pastoral manner.
Their efforts to do so nonetheless , have continually been difficult by forces from outside the area who assume the purported apparitions to be real. His Excellency Ratko Peric, the existing bishop of Mostar-Duvno, highlighted one such case on January 2, 2010, when he released a statement with regard to a visit by Austrian cardinal Christoph Schnborn to Medjugorje.
And now, another respected voice has weighed in : Fr. Gabriele Amorth, often called “the Vatican’s exorcist.”
Pop Amorth has received much PR since his publication in 1999 of An Exorcist Tells His Story (compare prices) and its 2002 sequel, An Exorcist : More Stories (compare prices). An exorcist for the diocese of Rome (not technically , therefore , “the Vatican’s exorcist”), Dad Amorth seems a particularly holy and brave man. His actions as an exorcist place him on the front lines of the spiritual battle with the forces of evil , and that remains true whether or not he has, occasionally, exaggerated the amount of exorcisms he has performed. (Father Amorth claims to have performed seventy thousand exorcisms between 1986 and 2010, or roughly eight each day, a week per week, 365 days a year.)
What his actions as an exorcist do not do nevertheless , is give him a special comprehension of what is or isn’t happening at Medjugorje, let alone a special expertise to communicate about it, a lot less the proper authority to make pronouncements on the veracity of the apparitions.
That authority lies, as it always has, with the local bishop, and his judgment remains the canonical statement on the events at Medjugorje, unless and till the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which convened a special commission in March 2010 to look at the alleged apparitions, pronounces otherwise.
In other words, anything Pa Amorth says about Medjugorje has as much weight as anything I’d say about it. He may believe that the local bishop is wrong in his judgment, but the Church claims it’s the local bishop, and not Dad Amorth or I, who has got the authority to make that judgment.
And the Church does so for excellent reasons : Catholics who start distrusting / mistrusting the Church and trusting instead in the allegations of non-public revelation are treading on really perilous ground. And that ground, alas, is ground that Father Amorth knows all too wellwhich makes his comments much more misplaced, and so disturbing as reported tagza.com.
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