So long story short: a lot of people have, for the 40ish years that this has been promoted (mostly against the censure of the Church), have reported fruits connected to Medjugorje. That's it.
All the many concerns and problems of the alleged apparitions and messages remain present and unresolved. And the apparitions are still not declared Marian in origin, the messages are still not approved, and some visionary writings still remain on the Index of Forbidden Books. Or am I reading this wrong?
Just a clarification on terminology: "Supernatural" in common parlance would refer to entities such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, etc. In strict theological terms as used in this note, "supernatural" refers solely to the action of God. So a message of the BVM, strictly speaking, would not be considered to be of "supernatural" origin in and of itself. However, of course it is impossible to imagine Mary operating apart from God.
Wasn’t the Index discontinued in the 1960’s? If not, which specific writings are Forbidden by this Index?
Medjugorje has been the place of (nearly) unbelievable conversions of many, many people. I say nearly unbelievable because for a long time I simply didn’t believe the stories until I heard them from people who had been radically transformed by God’s grace in Medj and I have no other reasonable explanation. Private revelation is complicated but for some reason, God has chosen to pour a waterfall of graces on this place, and I don’t think it’s good for us to keep such a skeptical attitude. I say “us” because for a long time I thought it was a bunch of bunk. And yes, technically, we as good Catholics can think that Lourdes, Fatima, Champion, Knock, and Medj are all not supernatural and that’s fine. I’m ranting but I think that your post gives off the wrong perspective, I apologize if I am being too harsh.
The Index is long gone but that didn't automatically "sanitize" works that were on it. Two modern visionary writings that, in my opinion, ought to stay condemned are the Divine Will "revelations" of Luigia Piccaretta and The Poem of the Man-God by Maria Valorta. The latter got a huge international audience via Medjugorje. A canonization cause has been opened for Piccaretta and there are people who would like to do the same for Valtorta. Anna Catharina Emmerich was beatified by simply ignoring her writings.
Some Individual recent "seers" were found to be frauds (ex.:Theresa Lopez) or simply judged non-supernatural. Vassula got an individual warning from Cardinal Ratzinger at the CDF. I read a lot of apparitionist literature back in the 1990s and sat through presentations by Vassula and Nancy of Conyers. Much of it was pious bibble-babel from women with overactive imaginations (Cyndy Cain), some was flatly ludicrous (Patricia Talbot). But the eagerness of the public for such questionable stuff reveals a hunger for direct access to the supernatural that they weren't getting elsewhere. In the most extreme cases, "seers" function as an alternative Magisterium. Look at the histories of Necedah and Bayside.
Read Emmerich the way one reads The Proto-Evangelium or other pious legends. Her books are cozy and sentimental wherein Jesus and other personages speak and act with dignity. But they are most certainly not accurate accounts of life in New Testament Times! (ex: the Apostles baptize their early converts by loading them in skiffs and poling out the the center of the pentagonal Pool with Five Porticoes where their heads are sprinkled with water spurting from a fountain! This "proves" NT witness for Catholic baptismal practice but has nothing to do with primitive Church ritual or the actual Pool.)
Personally, I would place the "revelations" in the same general category as the "high and holy meditations" of Margery Kempe. Anna Catharine was beatified on the basis of her personal virtue and positive impact on other people, but the process put aside her writings. It isn't possible to distinguish what she composed and what was embellished by her secretary, Clemens Brentano, a leading Romantic poet and editor.
Brentano's only polished work is The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, basis of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.. But his notes were re-worked by Fr. Carl Schmoeger as The Life of Christ and Biblical Revelations, which are replete with so many ridiculous and impossible elements, it's a wonder the Beata's friends don't try to suppress or disown it. (ex: the Prophet Elias awaits the end of the world in the Early Paradise atop Mt. Everest where albino woolly mammoths gambol.) But Schmorger also records elsewhere a pre-Brentano statement by Emmerich claiming that a Jewish woman's soul in Purgatory told her that the Blood Libel was real.
I did a long article about Emmerich decades ago but Google can't find it. Maybe I can get someone to republish it.
The Cause for Luisa Piccarrreta has been stopped, because her writings have been thoroughly discredited by the Dicastery for the Cause for Sainthood. Piccarreta has sunk without trace and her weird, ridiculous writings are out with the garbage. Good riddance. But her tenacious followers will continue to hold prayer meetings and find some twisted reason to defend her, just as Father Gobbi's fans continue with their cenacles, even though he was told in a letter by the CDF to stop saying his silly predictions (none of which eventuated) came from Our Lady. It's easy to see the devil's horny claw in all these false visions, etc" he wants Catholics to do the very thing he cannot hide in himself: disobey the lawful authority of the Church.
I'm relieved to hear that Piccarreta's cause was stopped. Her writings are indeed ridiculous. Most of Fr. Gobbi's "messages" are unobjectionable meditations that I think came from his own mind. But then there are ventures into prophetic numerology and fears of "ecclesiastical Freemasonry" that are embarrassing. Back in a 1988 article for the National Catholic Register, I pointed out that Fr. Gobbi's prediction that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart would be "complete" by October 1988 had not happened. Six months later, the paper was still publishing angry letters to the editor attacking me for saying this.
I know lots of lovely, devout Catholics who get snarky if you tell them their favourite apparitions/seers have been discredited by the local Ordinary or by the Holy See. This is a huge victory for the devil, who wants nothing more than for Catholics to be disobedient to the lawful authority of the Church. I fear that when they die, they will be enticed into hell by demons disguised as Fr Gobbi, or Piccarreta or the mad Valtorta, etc. They have no trust or respect for the bishops because of the various false seers who always plant the seeds of doubt and rebellion. My hope is that people whose faith is reignited at Medj is because they have made good confessions or have become devoted to Our Real Lady, but have lost interest in the messages of the "Gospa" because they are interminably boring and mostly silly and repetitive.
Except he's not. The garrulous galloping gospa is not Our Lady, but as Patrick Madrid described this phantom/fantasy "The most boring and loquacious woman in the world". However, I know many devout, prolife practising Catholics not only devoted to Medg, but also other even more dubious apparitions and 'messages". We have to see this in context: the cancerous, dreary and ubiquitous pseudo spirituality known as Modernism has robbed Catholics not only of the truth, but the evidence of miracles. How often do you hear about Our Lady of Guadlupe, Lourdes, Vallankani or Fatima in the classroom or from the pulpit? Give Cdl Fernandez some credit for his very smart, Jesuitical solution to this phenomenon. If the Holy See came out with they all know - there is no Virgin Mary appearing at Medjugorje - probably the Church would lose most or at least many of Her faithful sons and daughters.
“Evaluating the abundant and widespread fruits, which are so beautiful and positive, does not imply that the alleged supernatural events are declared authentic.”
-This has been my view of Medjugorje since I learned about it years ago.
I am in firm belief that either:
1) The seer's are complete frauds who have been taking the faithful for suckers to enrich themselves
2) The first few visions are authentic and the seer's have subsequently spit in our Lady's face by using that gift to enrich themselves
Either one of those being true, it still leaves the wonderful things that happen at Medjugorje intact. It is biblical and firmly within tradition that where the faithful gather in love, worship, and supplication you will find Christ. The intercession of his mother, and our mother, is very present in the increase in devotion, love, miracles, and conversions at Medjugorje. This is a wonderful thing.
The hang up I am left with is the acrimonious attitude from some of the pilgrims whenever the authenticity of the seer's is brought up. We are told over and over again that God can bring great, beautiful, and good things from the evil and wrongdoing conducted by our fellow humans. But some (yes some, not all by any stretch) pilgrims take any objection to the seer's as an affront to the good they experienced there, as if the grifting of the seer's being exposed will discount their experience and leave their spiritual life in waste. The metaphorical rocks and arrows slung at me is astonishing, because I believe that the fruits and the latter day "messages" can be divorced from each other, when there are so many instances in our history of good being found where evil sought to leave it's putrid stain.
Not that I'm a Medjugorje believer, but if the holiness (or lack thereof) of the seers is no indication of the veracity of the visions, than I very much doubt that a charitable or acrimonious attitude of the pilgrims is either. We like to think that an encounter with God will change us. Typically, an encounter with God is an opportunity for us to start cooperating with grace so that we will eventually be changed. We're still free not to, and even when we do, it typically takes time.
That said, I think I'm in the same boat as you regarding the visions/seers.
That's nice for the people who still want to go there I guess.
My impression of people from US traveling to go to Medj is that they go because they think Mary is still appearing there to the hinky "seer" on a regular basis, not because they want to practice devotion to Mary. There are at least two officially approved apparition sites (Guadalupe and Champion) right in North America, numerous other officially approved sites in Europe, but none of them purport to offer appearances/ messages of Mary weekly, or so it seems.
Perhaps if I lived close enough to Medjugorje to reach it within a day's travel, I might stop by, but I'm not going to make a long pilgrimage to visit what in my mind is a questionable scenario.
If I want to go to a "who knows, maybe" site I drive 20 minutes to Our Lady of the Parkway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_the_Blessed_Mother or two hours to Canton Ohio https://rhodawise.com/ and I imagine probably anyplace in the US is two hours from someplace extremely unimpressive that the Blessed Virgin or Our Lord might have appeared to someone. So, yeah, I would drive two hours. I can do that round trip in a day.
I make a pilgrimage to Our Lady's altar in any number of parish churches. I just need to do it more often. I need to join my intentions to the Intentions of His Sacred Heart. I don't need to get on a plane - I need to desire His will.
Shoutout to NE Ohio for having some awesome Catholic churches and shrines (both Latin and Eastern) to visit. It's crazy how beautiful the art and architecture in Cleveland/Akron are.
Many well informed commentators have noted that the new norms for discernment were prepared specifically for Medjugorje, so it is not surprising to see them issue this so soon. Honestly they probably could have done Medjugorje the day they released the new norms, the standards are so directly tied to the concerns as well as the benefits about that phenomena.
That is, the discernment standards are keyed to the orthodoxy and evangelical usefulness of the phenomena, rather than it's essential nature (ie rather than if it is "real" or not).
This doesn't change the way I think about Medjugorje: personally I don't believe it, but at the same time I know people who have gone there and it has changed their life.
Same here. I am very skeptical about its authenticity, but I know several people that have been there and it seemed life changing for them and said many other pilgrims reported similar things. Fr. Donald Calloway has a very crazy and interesting conversion story (including drugs, crime, involvement with the Yakuza, etc...) and his conversion was largely started by reading a book about Medjugorje. It's a strange conundrum.
I love the way the Almighty is using the hunger for Our Lady's love for us, her children, to bring loads of priests to Medj to hear confessions and say Mass. They are the true source of miracles, granted by God out of pity for the hordes of ignorami in the Church. How can they know what they don't know, these days?
Rome wanted very much to say something, but clearly gave zero thought in what they should say, so released an incoherent mess likely to please nobody.
It is a maxim of politics that if a compromise pleases nobody, it is a good compromise. Yet this is why the Church should not be a political organization
I understood it perfectly. In the light of abysmal ignorance among most Catholics, and their hunger for the mystical, Cdl Fernandez authored a masterpiece. To proclaim Medj as fraud, which it is, would be to break the bent reed and throw cold water over the flickering lamp.
Yes, there are any number of shrines of Our Lady around the world, some associated with visions and/or miracles and some sites of very long time devotion. I have been to many deliberately. But I especially recall the shrine in Carey, Ohio which I had never heard of. I discovered it purely by accident in 1999 while driving through en route to Wooster for a Year 2000 computer testing assignment.
And I have the recreation of a medieval shrine 15 minutes walk from my home 40 miles west of London. But there were hundreds of such shrines across England in the Middle Ages. It is still a focus for local pilgrimages.
There is always the totally free alternative of praying the Rosary by yourself, with your family and friends or with your fellow parishioners in your parish's Lady Chapel if you want to make a mini pilgrimage. But these don't boost the Medj tourist trade.
Am I convinced about the authenticity of the apparitions ? No. But does it matter? We are never required to believe in any of these "private revelations." No new doctrines are ever given. But if they boost people's faith (and there is no doubt that Medjugorje has) then that's a good thing. I feel like it's gotten so big, that no matter what the church says, not much will change.
Hopefully this new ruling will take some of the wind out of the persecution complex that I’ve seen from some of the truly nutty devotees of Medjugoje. I’m skeptical of the ‘ongoing’ nature of the apparitions but I’m willing to concede that the initial apparitions may have some merit and sincerity. I have very little interest in the minutiae however, and I’m happy for the people who’ve had genuine conversion experiences that they can have a clearer conscience about the source. These things take time to sort out and it’s difficult to do so when the seers are still alive and able to humanly sabotage their credibility. Or succumb to devilish temptations for that matter. For what it’s worth, there was plenty of nonsense around Lourdes in its day too and it took time to sort out as well.
I read a comment this morning--linked on Starting Seven-- that claimed that God didn't want Medjugorje approved, lest the institutional Church take it over and spoil it. Giving wiggle room to the "messages" does bother me. Maybe when the "seers" are all dead and their precious "secrets" and "sign" haven't come true, their role may be discredited. But I wouldn't bet on it there or at Garabandal.
I appreciate the "on the one hand, on the other hand" semi resolution, because it's important to warn people off the alleged visionaries, but it's also been the case that there have been real miracles linked to the pilgrimages. It seems like what began in error bore fruit anyway when people came in good faith seeking God and He went out to meet them.
Why not apply the same "nihil obstat" to the faithful that attend TLM Mass and seek out TLM parishes? There is no doubt that spiritual fruit is obtained by the faithful who do so. It makes no sense to restrict the faithful from attending TLM parishes and restrict priests from celebrating the TLM Mass while endorsing pilgrimages to Medjugorje. If the Vatican acknowledges that spiritual fruit can be had from a dubious and likely false apparition site, why does it not acknowledge that spiritual fruit can be had from priests wishing to celebrate the Mass in the same way that Padre Pio, St Francis of Assisi, the Cure of Ars, St Maximilian Kolbe and countless others all said Mass daily?
I came into the comments to make this exact point. I don't understand why the Vatican falls over itself to write up a long, nuanced "note" about an apparition site with a questionable history and dubious claims that they themselves acknowledge, but "TLM bad, hard stop". In the note, the DDF even points out that the seers are probably working to benefit themselves in some of these apparitions! That implies there is a danger that pilgrims are being taken advantage of! And they still give it a nihil obstat! But the TLM gets heavily restricted, never mind all the good fruits that flow out of that.
I think there are two reasons and both are related to the American TLM community:
a) Some members of TLM community are very bitter and acid when they criticize Pope Francis. I’ve read a tweet, from one very well known member of TLM community, calling Pope Francis a drunk man. I don’t know where is the evidence for such declaration;
b) Members of TLM community are far from any leftist agenda.
Personal insults and being conservators are too much and so the Vatican issued strict regulations.
I personally don’t agree with the bitter criticism from some members of TLM community in US and I think the majority of TLM attenders don’t appreciate that bitterness as well.
Because the Latin Mass has been well and truly weaponised by traditionalist Catholics heading fort the precipice of schism. I've witnessed this many times. It's not the fault of the old mass, just of the people who are disobedient to the Church.
I cannot undesrtand this caveat by Cardinal Fernández, Prefect of CDF: “In this case we are talking about married people with children, people working in society, people living in the midst of the world subjected to temptations like everyone else, and not protected by the religious context of a convent.” Aren't we all Christians (laymen or laywoman, married or not, priests, religious, ecc) called to sanctity as Vatican Council II sanctions. For sure no one can be declared saint until his death, not even a Cardinal neither a Prefect of the CDF. So what?
and then there's this: the Holy See, in Rome is Vacant. Wonder who the next Pope will be? But my little bout of doubts? I decided to keep praying for the Pope and the Spirit will deliver the graces to the man who will be selected in time.
So long story short: a lot of people have, for the 40ish years that this has been promoted (mostly against the censure of the Church), have reported fruits connected to Medjugorje. That's it.
All the many concerns and problems of the alleged apparitions and messages remain present and unresolved. And the apparitions are still not declared Marian in origin, the messages are still not approved, and some visionary writings still remain on the Index of Forbidden Books. Or am I reading this wrong?
Just a clarification on terminology: "Supernatural" in common parlance would refer to entities such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, etc. In strict theological terms as used in this note, "supernatural" refers solely to the action of God. So a message of the BVM, strictly speaking, would not be considered to be of "supernatural" origin in and of itself. However, of course it is impossible to imagine Mary operating apart from God.
Yes, a preternatural vs. supernatural distinction, roughly.
Wasn’t the Index discontinued in the 1960’s? If not, which specific writings are Forbidden by this Index?
Medjugorje has been the place of (nearly) unbelievable conversions of many, many people. I say nearly unbelievable because for a long time I simply didn’t believe the stories until I heard them from people who had been radically transformed by God’s grace in Medj and I have no other reasonable explanation. Private revelation is complicated but for some reason, God has chosen to pour a waterfall of graces on this place, and I don’t think it’s good for us to keep such a skeptical attitude. I say “us” because for a long time I thought it was a bunch of bunk. And yes, technically, we as good Catholics can think that Lourdes, Fatima, Champion, Knock, and Medj are all not supernatural and that’s fine. I’m ranting but I think that your post gives off the wrong perspective, I apologize if I am being too harsh.
The Index is long gone but that didn't automatically "sanitize" works that were on it. Two modern visionary writings that, in my opinion, ought to stay condemned are the Divine Will "revelations" of Luigia Piccaretta and The Poem of the Man-God by Maria Valorta. The latter got a huge international audience via Medjugorje. A canonization cause has been opened for Piccaretta and there are people who would like to do the same for Valtorta. Anna Catharina Emmerich was beatified by simply ignoring her writings.
Some Individual recent "seers" were found to be frauds (ex.:Theresa Lopez) or simply judged non-supernatural. Vassula got an individual warning from Cardinal Ratzinger at the CDF. I read a lot of apparitionist literature back in the 1990s and sat through presentations by Vassula and Nancy of Conyers. Much of it was pious bibble-babel from women with overactive imaginations (Cyndy Cain), some was flatly ludicrous (Patricia Talbot). But the eagerness of the public for such questionable stuff reveals a hunger for direct access to the supernatural that they weren't getting elsewhere. In the most extreme cases, "seers" function as an alternative Magisterium. Look at the histories of Necedah and Bayside.
So, Anna Catharina Emmerich writings are not to be trusted?
Read Emmerich the way one reads The Proto-Evangelium or other pious legends. Her books are cozy and sentimental wherein Jesus and other personages speak and act with dignity. But they are most certainly not accurate accounts of life in New Testament Times! (ex: the Apostles baptize their early converts by loading them in skiffs and poling out the the center of the pentagonal Pool with Five Porticoes where their heads are sprinkled with water spurting from a fountain! This "proves" NT witness for Catholic baptismal practice but has nothing to do with primitive Church ritual or the actual Pool.)
Personally, I would place the "revelations" in the same general category as the "high and holy meditations" of Margery Kempe. Anna Catharine was beatified on the basis of her personal virtue and positive impact on other people, but the process put aside her writings. It isn't possible to distinguish what she composed and what was embellished by her secretary, Clemens Brentano, a leading Romantic poet and editor.
Brentano's only polished work is The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, basis of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.. But his notes were re-worked by Fr. Carl Schmoeger as The Life of Christ and Biblical Revelations, which are replete with so many ridiculous and impossible elements, it's a wonder the Beata's friends don't try to suppress or disown it. (ex: the Prophet Elias awaits the end of the world in the Early Paradise atop Mt. Everest where albino woolly mammoths gambol.) But Schmorger also records elsewhere a pre-Brentano statement by Emmerich claiming that a Jewish woman's soul in Purgatory told her that the Blood Libel was real.
I did a long article about Emmerich decades ago but Google can't find it. Maybe I can get someone to republish it.
Thank you! I didn’t know any of that!
The Cause for Luisa Piccarrreta has been stopped, because her writings have been thoroughly discredited by the Dicastery for the Cause for Sainthood. Piccarreta has sunk without trace and her weird, ridiculous writings are out with the garbage. Good riddance. But her tenacious followers will continue to hold prayer meetings and find some twisted reason to defend her, just as Father Gobbi's fans continue with their cenacles, even though he was told in a letter by the CDF to stop saying his silly predictions (none of which eventuated) came from Our Lady. It's easy to see the devil's horny claw in all these false visions, etc" he wants Catholics to do the very thing he cannot hide in himself: disobey the lawful authority of the Church.
I'm relieved to hear that Piccarreta's cause was stopped. Her writings are indeed ridiculous. Most of Fr. Gobbi's "messages" are unobjectionable meditations that I think came from his own mind. But then there are ventures into prophetic numerology and fears of "ecclesiastical Freemasonry" that are embarrassing. Back in a 1988 article for the National Catholic Register, I pointed out that Fr. Gobbi's prediction that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart would be "complete" by October 1988 had not happened. Six months later, the paper was still publishing angry letters to the editor attacking me for saying this.
I know lots of lovely, devout Catholics who get snarky if you tell them their favourite apparitions/seers have been discredited by the local Ordinary or by the Holy See. This is a huge victory for the devil, who wants nothing more than for Catholics to be disobedient to the lawful authority of the Church. I fear that when they die, they will be enticed into hell by demons disguised as Fr Gobbi, or Piccarreta or the mad Valtorta, etc. They have no trust or respect for the bishops because of the various false seers who always plant the seeds of doubt and rebellion. My hope is that people whose faith is reignited at Medj is because they have made good confessions or have become devoted to Our Real Lady, but have lost interest in the messages of the "Gospa" because they are interminably boring and mostly silly and repetitive.
Only Tucho could tell Our Lady off for being insufficiently synodal.
Except he's not. The garrulous galloping gospa is not Our Lady, but as Patrick Madrid described this phantom/fantasy "The most boring and loquacious woman in the world". However, I know many devout, prolife practising Catholics not only devoted to Medg, but also other even more dubious apparitions and 'messages". We have to see this in context: the cancerous, dreary and ubiquitous pseudo spirituality known as Modernism has robbed Catholics not only of the truth, but the evidence of miracles. How often do you hear about Our Lady of Guadlupe, Lourdes, Vallankani or Fatima in the classroom or from the pulpit? Give Cdl Fernandez some credit for his very smart, Jesuitical solution to this phenomenon. If the Holy See came out with they all know - there is no Virgin Mary appearing at Medjugorje - probably the Church would lose most or at least many of Her faithful sons and daughters.
“Evaluating the abundant and widespread fruits, which are so beautiful and positive, does not imply that the alleged supernatural events are declared authentic.”
-This has been my view of Medjugorje since I learned about it years ago.
I am in firm belief that either:
1) The seer's are complete frauds who have been taking the faithful for suckers to enrich themselves
2) The first few visions are authentic and the seer's have subsequently spit in our Lady's face by using that gift to enrich themselves
Either one of those being true, it still leaves the wonderful things that happen at Medjugorje intact. It is biblical and firmly within tradition that where the faithful gather in love, worship, and supplication you will find Christ. The intercession of his mother, and our mother, is very present in the increase in devotion, love, miracles, and conversions at Medjugorje. This is a wonderful thing.
The hang up I am left with is the acrimonious attitude from some of the pilgrims whenever the authenticity of the seer's is brought up. We are told over and over again that God can bring great, beautiful, and good things from the evil and wrongdoing conducted by our fellow humans. But some (yes some, not all by any stretch) pilgrims take any objection to the seer's as an affront to the good they experienced there, as if the grifting of the seer's being exposed will discount their experience and leave their spiritual life in waste. The metaphorical rocks and arrows slung at me is astonishing, because I believe that the fruits and the latter day "messages" can be divorced from each other, when there are so many instances in our history of good being found where evil sought to leave it's putrid stain.
Addendum because Bridget asked in the 9/17 Starting Seven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCqDdsZY7RA
Not that I'm a Medjugorje believer, but if the holiness (or lack thereof) of the seers is no indication of the veracity of the visions, than I very much doubt that a charitable or acrimonious attitude of the pilgrims is either. We like to think that an encounter with God will change us. Typically, an encounter with God is an opportunity for us to start cooperating with grace so that we will eventually be changed. We're still free not to, and even when we do, it typically takes time.
That said, I think I'm in the same boat as you regarding the visions/seers.
That's nice for the people who still want to go there I guess.
My impression of people from US traveling to go to Medj is that they go because they think Mary is still appearing there to the hinky "seer" on a regular basis, not because they want to practice devotion to Mary. There are at least two officially approved apparition sites (Guadalupe and Champion) right in North America, numerous other officially approved sites in Europe, but none of them purport to offer appearances/ messages of Mary weekly, or so it seems.
Perhaps if I lived close enough to Medjugorje to reach it within a day's travel, I might stop by, but I'm not going to make a long pilgrimage to visit what in my mind is a questionable scenario.
If I want to go to a "who knows, maybe" site I drive 20 minutes to Our Lady of the Parkway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_the_Blessed_Mother or two hours to Canton Ohio https://rhodawise.com/ and I imagine probably anyplace in the US is two hours from someplace extremely unimpressive that the Blessed Virgin or Our Lord might have appeared to someone. So, yeah, I would drive two hours. I can do that round trip in a day.
I make a pilgrimage to Our Lady's altar in any number of parish churches. I just need to do it more often. I need to join my intentions to the Intentions of His Sacred Heart. I don't need to get on a plane - I need to desire His will.
Shoutout to NE Ohio for having some awesome Catholic churches and shrines (both Latin and Eastern) to visit. It's crazy how beautiful the art and architecture in Cleveland/Akron are.
Many well informed commentators have noted that the new norms for discernment were prepared specifically for Medjugorje, so it is not surprising to see them issue this so soon. Honestly they probably could have done Medjugorje the day they released the new norms, the standards are so directly tied to the concerns as well as the benefits about that phenomena.
That is, the discernment standards are keyed to the orthodoxy and evangelical usefulness of the phenomena, rather than it's essential nature (ie rather than if it is "real" or not).
This doesn't change the way I think about Medjugorje: personally I don't believe it, but at the same time I know people who have gone there and it has changed their life.
Same here. I am very skeptical about its authenticity, but I know several people that have been there and it seemed life changing for them and said many other pilgrims reported similar things. Fr. Donald Calloway has a very crazy and interesting conversion story (including drugs, crime, involvement with the Yakuza, etc...) and his conversion was largely started by reading a book about Medjugorje. It's a strange conundrum.
I love the way the Almighty is using the hunger for Our Lady's love for us, her children, to bring loads of priests to Medj to hear confessions and say Mass. They are the true source of miracles, granted by God out of pity for the hordes of ignorami in the Church. How can they know what they don't know, these days?
Rome wanted very much to say something, but clearly gave zero thought in what they should say, so released an incoherent mess likely to please nobody.
It is a maxim of politics that if a compromise pleases nobody, it is a good compromise. Yet this is why the Church should not be a political organization
I understood it perfectly. In the light of abysmal ignorance among most Catholics, and their hunger for the mystical, Cdl Fernandez authored a masterpiece. To proclaim Medj as fraud, which it is, would be to break the bent reed and throw cold water over the flickering lamp.
Yes, there are any number of shrines of Our Lady around the world, some associated with visions and/or miracles and some sites of very long time devotion. I have been to many deliberately. But I especially recall the shrine in Carey, Ohio which I had never heard of. I discovered it purely by accident in 1999 while driving through en route to Wooster for a Year 2000 computer testing assignment.
https://www.olcshrine.com/about
And I have the recreation of a medieval shrine 15 minutes walk from my home 40 miles west of London. But there were hundreds of such shrines across England in the Middle Ages. It is still a focus for local pilgrimages.
https://www.ourladyandstanne.org.uk/
There is always the totally free alternative of praying the Rosary by yourself, with your family and friends or with your fellow parishioners in your parish's Lady Chapel if you want to make a mini pilgrimage. But these don't boost the Medj tourist trade.
Am I convinced about the authenticity of the apparitions ? No. But does it matter? We are never required to believe in any of these "private revelations." No new doctrines are ever given. But if they boost people's faith (and there is no doubt that Medjugorje has) then that's a good thing. I feel like it's gotten so big, that no matter what the church says, not much will change.
Hopefully this new ruling will take some of the wind out of the persecution complex that I’ve seen from some of the truly nutty devotees of Medjugoje. I’m skeptical of the ‘ongoing’ nature of the apparitions but I’m willing to concede that the initial apparitions may have some merit and sincerity. I have very little interest in the minutiae however, and I’m happy for the people who’ve had genuine conversion experiences that they can have a clearer conscience about the source. These things take time to sort out and it’s difficult to do so when the seers are still alive and able to humanly sabotage their credibility. Or succumb to devilish temptations for that matter. For what it’s worth, there was plenty of nonsense around Lourdes in its day too and it took time to sort out as well.
I read a comment this morning--linked on Starting Seven-- that claimed that God didn't want Medjugorje approved, lest the institutional Church take it over and spoil it. Giving wiggle room to the "messages" does bother me. Maybe when the "seers" are all dead and their precious "secrets" and "sign" haven't come true, their role may be discredited. But I wouldn't bet on it there or at Garabandal.
I appreciate the "on the one hand, on the other hand" semi resolution, because it's important to warn people off the alleged visionaries, but it's also been the case that there have been real miracles linked to the pilgrimages. It seems like what began in error bore fruit anyway when people came in good faith seeking God and He went out to meet them.
More time, more time, more time. Sounds a bit like procrastination. Open ended statement, once again (shrug).
Why not apply the same "nihil obstat" to the faithful that attend TLM Mass and seek out TLM parishes? There is no doubt that spiritual fruit is obtained by the faithful who do so. It makes no sense to restrict the faithful from attending TLM parishes and restrict priests from celebrating the TLM Mass while endorsing pilgrimages to Medjugorje. If the Vatican acknowledges that spiritual fruit can be had from a dubious and likely false apparition site, why does it not acknowledge that spiritual fruit can be had from priests wishing to celebrate the Mass in the same way that Padre Pio, St Francis of Assisi, the Cure of Ars, St Maximilian Kolbe and countless others all said Mass daily?
I came into the comments to make this exact point. I don't understand why the Vatican falls over itself to write up a long, nuanced "note" about an apparition site with a questionable history and dubious claims that they themselves acknowledge, but "TLM bad, hard stop". In the note, the DDF even points out that the seers are probably working to benefit themselves in some of these apparitions! That implies there is a danger that pilgrims are being taken advantage of! And they still give it a nihil obstat! But the TLM gets heavily restricted, never mind all the good fruits that flow out of that.
I think there are two reasons and both are related to the American TLM community:
a) Some members of TLM community are very bitter and acid when they criticize Pope Francis. I’ve read a tweet, from one very well known member of TLM community, calling Pope Francis a drunk man. I don’t know where is the evidence for such declaration;
b) Members of TLM community are far from any leftist agenda.
Personal insults and being conservators are too much and so the Vatican issued strict regulations.
I personally don’t agree with the bitter criticism from some members of TLM community in US and I think the majority of TLM attenders don’t appreciate that bitterness as well.
I also don’t agree with those strict regulations.
Because the Latin Mass has been well and truly weaponised by traditionalist Catholics heading fort the precipice of schism. I've witnessed this many times. It's not the fault of the old mass, just of the people who are disobedient to the Church.
I cannot undesrtand this caveat by Cardinal Fernández, Prefect of CDF: “In this case we are talking about married people with children, people working in society, people living in the midst of the world subjected to temptations like everyone else, and not protected by the religious context of a convent.” Aren't we all Christians (laymen or laywoman, married or not, priests, religious, ecc) called to sanctity as Vatican Council II sanctions. For sure no one can be declared saint until his death, not even a Cardinal neither a Prefect of the CDF. So what?
This Declaration ( I thank God for it) states the obvious: 50 million people have been in Medjugorje and have received spiritual fruits!
and then there's this: the Holy See, in Rome is Vacant. Wonder who the next Pope will be? But my little bout of doubts? I decided to keep praying for the Pope and the Spirit will deliver the graces to the man who will be selected in time.