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MEDJUGORJE:
Some Reasons for the Bishop's Decision
by Leonard Athanasius
This article is not intended to denigrate nor disparage anyone whose faith has been
edified by their experience at Medjugorje, or by the tales they have heard from
others who have gone there. The Church teaches that God permits evil so that good may come of it. If good came of it for you, good for you; but the fact remains
that the apparitions at Medjugorje are nothing more than a Satanic caricature of
our Lady's true message at Fatima. They have been condemned by the proper Church
authorities as false and dangerous to our Faith.
There are far more false apparitions than true ones. At the time of Lourdes there were at least 10 false apparitions in that region coming from unstable or dishonest people claiming to have seen Our Lady and to have received messages from her. Time and the judgment of the Church proved them to be deluded or deceivers. Some of these apparitions were accompanied by startling signs. On one occasion a young child spoke a foreign language perfectly that it could not have learned, and on another occasion two seers levitated through the skylight of the room in which they were in the presence of credible witnesses. The more such preternatural signs and wonders accompany a false apparition the more its author is identified: not Mary, but her archenemy. A measure of the importance of Fatima in 1917, gratefully accepted by the Church, is that there have been more than 220 apparitions to confuse the issue, 220 false apparitions which the Church and the passage of time have proved to have been no apparitions at all.
Given that the devil can himself appear as an angel of light, and that in the last times there will be false prophets working signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect, the whole business of visions, ecstasies, and prophecies is a minefield in which the ordinary Catholic is incompetent to judge, a minefield through which we need a sure guide. It is obvious that in this area the Church must have been given an infallible means of knowing the true from the false. Otherwise, there would have been twenty centuries of confusion. The Church would never have been able to discern the spirit involved. The Church would not have been led into all truth by the Holy Ghost. In the resulting confusion the true and vital message of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary about devotion to the Sacred Heart and the reign of love ultimately in the world and all the ancillary messages of our Lady leading to that triumph of Christ, all these vital messages would have been lost in endless confusion and debate.
The Church knows from her history and experience that the one to whom God has given the power to discern true from false apparitions is the local bishop. Thus, Guadeloupe was authenticated by the local bishop of that area. The bishop of Paris authenticated the Miraculous Medal. Lourdes was authenticated by the local bishop. It is the local bishop who declared the supernatural quality of Akita. Always it is the local bishop, after an ecclesiastical commission has done its work, who pronounces the last word whether or not the faithful should believe that Our Lady has truly visited us to teach us something important. In this matter, faithfully following the guidance and usage of the Church, the local bishop is in fact infallible. The local bishop knows the local people, their language and mentality. He has the authority to examine the seers under oath, the authority to commission the wisest and soberest local priests and experts. But more than that, he alone as bishop is the divinely appointed shepherd and teacher of those people. To do that task he must receive from God the power to distinguish the true from the false. Otherwise how could he lead and teach? In the law of the Church he is the judge of spiritual happenings in his diocese.
Msgr. Zanic is a bishop who has visited Lourdes eight times and led pilgrimages there. He has gone for strength and wisdom to our blessed Lady at Rue de Bac.
Bishop Zanic knows and loves Our Lady. In the early stages of Medjugorje he was delighted. He would have loved a genuine Lourdes in his diocese to strengthen his people in the midst of atheist pressure. At first he hoped that Our Lady had come to solve his greatest problem: the Hercegovina problem.
In the bitter days of Turkish rule Hercegovina has been entrusted to the Franciscans who had done great work. With the restoration of the hierarchy the Church wanted to normalize the setup with the Franciscans staffing some parishes but with the rest staffed by diocesan secular priests. It was admitted by the majority of Franciscans that this needed to be done and that in the doing of it Msgr. Zanic was more understanding and compassionate than his predecessor. Despite this, some Franciscans rebelled against him, especially over the division of the cathedral town of Mostar. For fifteen years there was bitterness and strife. This quarrel made the Church the laughingstock of the communists. Good people like Msgr. Zanic prayed that it would end.
One friar who really hated the bishop was the parish priest of Medjugorje. He was arrested in August of 1981 and interrogated by the judge. The court record shows that even the communists were suprised by his hatred of the bishop. He told the judge, "The bishop is a false prophet and a wolf. He should be a true pastor, but he is a Pharisee and a wolf." If he spoke like this about his bishop to the communists, what was he not saying among his own fellow friars and to his own people? He was parish priest of Medjugorje for 9 months before the "apparitions." He was a fervent Charismatic and had introduced a high-powered Charismatic prayer group into this rural area. More than an ordinary Charismatic prayer group seeking the gifts of speaking in tongues, prophecies, and healings, he had added encounter psychological techniques like the public confession of sins, like milling round staring into one another's eyes, and other group techniques designed in America by the psychiatrist Carl Rogers to break down reserve and change pre-existing values. These Rogerian techniques of group psychology are the latest step in the science of human manipulation. They are, of course, immoral. Charismatic prayer groups and encounter psychology and hatred of the bishop was a very heady if not explosive mixture to give to a rural parish of deep piety harassed by an atheistic communist state. What made these people even more susceptible was a prophecy of a Charismatic theologian speaking in Zagreb. He prophesied that God had chosen Yugoslavia for a very great miracle in the near future.
In May 1981 at the Charismatic leaders' conference at Rome, Franciscan Father Thomislav Vlasic had gone to each leader in turn asking them to lay hands on him and pray over him for his church. During that session two more prophecies were given. A nun saw a mental vision in which from Fr. Thomislav's chair flowed rivers of living water, meaning that his teaching would go out to the world. This prophecy was followed by one more explicit, by a priest who prophesied that God would send His Mother to Fr. Thomislav's parish.
Ever since Corinth the Church has been plagued with enthusiasm which is the seeking of sensible encounter with God rather than by living the faith handed down by the institutionalized Church Jesus founded on Peter.
Such is the nature of the fallen human condition that we would prefer to have direct religious experience at the level of healing to the religion of Faith. Msgr. Ronald Knox wrote the definitive work on enthusiasm and he points out that again and again in times of enthusiasm, that is, in times when Christians seek direct experience of God rather than the obedience of Faith, daily duty, and the sacraments, in such times of enthusiasm prophecies of Divine intervention always fulfill themselves.
On Wednesday, the 24th of June in 1981 some adolescents from Medjugorje saw Our Lady on a mountain. They were seized with panic. They all shouted and made faces. Asked why they had gone on the mountain, they said they had gone for a smoke. Later they said they had gone to round up stray sheep. Later again they said they had gone to pick flowers.
The next night some of them saw her again. Ivan, the older of the two boys who had seen her the previous day, didn't bother to go back thinking that just to go back and see the vision again was somewhat childish. On that second occasion the lady signaled them to approach, and they felt themselves pulled rapidly up the mountain. They asked about Ivanka's mother who had died two months before. The lady said she was allright, she was with her, and that Ivanka was not to worry. Ivanka's deceased mother had no reputation for being a saint, so it is surprising that there is no mention of praying for her soul in purgatory.
During an apparition Ivanka asked Mirjana, "What's the time?" "Quarter past three." "What do you mean quarter past three? Have you got your watch on the wrong way round?" In fact, the number 12 had changed into the number 9, a sign that something miraculous was taking place, thought the children. After 10 to 15 minutes the oracle rose in the air saying, "Go in the peace of God." The bystanders see nothing but were terrified.
On Friday the 26th of June (1981), after strange light phenomenon, they saw her again and asked about Mirjana's grandfather. "He is allright." Asked whether Ivanka's dead mother had left any message, the oracle said, "Obey your grandmother and be good with her because she is old and cannot work." "Why have you come here? What do you want?" "I have come here because there are many true believers here. I desire to be with you in order to convert and reconcile the whole world. I shall come back. Go in the peace of God." During this apparition the heat and pressure of the crowd was unbearable for the children. Ivanka, Mirjana, and Vicka fainted several times. The apparition lasted 30 minutes. On the way home Marija had a separate vision of a colored cross. The lady said, "Where are the other girls? Peace, peace, peace, be reconciled, go in the peace of God." Much later this initial message became "Peace, peace, peace, nothing but peace, man must be reconciled with God and among themselves. For that it is necessary to believe, to pray, to fast, and to go to confession." This more elaborate form, which has become the standard and main message, is not mentioned by Marija, the seers, or Fr. Vlasic in the first two months.
On Saturday the 27th of June Marija saw the virgin and rushed up the hill, but then saw nothing. The other seers joined her and began to sing and pray. The lady appeared, but the seers said that each time the little children pressed around and drawed on her veil she disappeared. The lady would not suffer the little children to come to her so close that they might tread on her veil. Finally they formed a cordon to keep the children away and then the lady re-appeared and stayed with them. She said, "I am the holy Virgin Mary. Let the Franciscan brothers of the parish believe firmly." She left without saying "And go in peace." Halfway home she re-appeared and said, "You are my angels, my dear angels." Ivan had been kept home by his parents. The lady said to the other children, "Where's that boy?" At the same time during the apparition on the mountain the lady appeared to Ivan, who had just stepped out of his house. She encouraged him and told him to be in peace and take courage.
On Sunday the 28th of June one of the Franciscan friars testifies to having seen Marija and Jakov literally propelled up the hill from bottom to the top. The seers repeated their conversation with the oracle into a tape recorder: "Dear holy Virgin, what do you expect of us?" "Faith and respect for me." "Dear holy Virgin, what do you desire for our priests?" "That they believe firmly." "Dear holy Virgin, why do you not appear in the church so that everyone can see you?" "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed." "Dear holy Virgin, will you come back?" The lady acquiesced with a nod of her head. "Dear holy Virgin, do you prefer that we pray or sing to you?" "Do both. Sing and pray."
The seers asked, "Dear holy Virgin, do you want this crowd to be gathered here?" She smiled and said, "Let them believe as though they had seen. She disappeared. The seers continued praying. Suddenly, "There she is again," they cried. They sang a hymn to Mary. She said, "My angels, my dear angels, go in the peace of God."
On the 29th of June, 1981, they asked, "Dear holy Virgin, for how many days will you be coming to visit us?" "For as long as you like. Are you already so tired of seeing me?" "Dear holy Virgin, what do you want of these people?" "There is only one God and one faith. Believe firmly." This time again the apparition disappeared and reappeared.
On Tuesday the 30th of June, when the crowds were on the hill at the time of the apparitions the children were on a trip. On the roadside the lady appeared to them. Questioned by Mirjana, was she angry that they were not on the hillside but have gone elsewhere? She said it didn't matter to her. Would she be angry if they went to the church rather than to the hillside for the apparitions? (This was Fr. Vlasic's suggestion.) The lady hesitated but told them she would not be angry. The seers declared this day that the lady would come back only 3 more days up until Friday the 3rd of July 1981.
On Friday the 3rd of July the children announced definitely that that had been the last apparition. There have been more than 2,000 since then. The friars attended the apparitions from the 28th of June. On the 30th of June, after a conversation at the parish house with the Franciscans, the children emerged to tell the crowd that from now on the Virgin will be appearing in the church. On Wednesday the first of July the parish priest told the congregation at a special service that the apparitions were true. The parishioners naturally believed their parish priest. The priests all say that they did not know the children before, and yet within one week, and after only 3 meetings with the children, who could have been impostors, communist plants, or even worse, and without any sign of a miracle, these children had their visions approved by the church in a public liturgical ceremony. They had the visions before the 6 o'clock Mass and their messages were preached to the people during a homily at that Mass. Also many Franciscans from surrounding parishes came to lend more solemnity to this evening Mass. From then on the children saw the lady several times in every conceivable place and the excited crowds saw preternatural signs everywhere.
On the 2nd of August the lady allowed herself to be touched by the crowd. The seers guided their hands over saying, "Now you are touching her veil, her head, her hand, her robe." This lasted 15 minutes. As the lady left her robe was blackened because of the touch of sinners. These touching episodes were repeated on several occasions. In a further apparition that day the lady said to Marija, "The devil is trying something big. I do not know how things will turn out, whether the devil will succeed or not, and just how far he will go.
Through the following years such signs and messages followed one another. The lady asked for charismatic prayer groups in every parish in Yugoslavia. She said, "Friday abstinence was not fasting. Real fasting is 24 hours bread and water on Friday and even on Wednesdays, too. A person should try this for 2 months before recommending it." Most people find that the deprivation makes them irritable, unable to function, and even ill. It is an unreasonable command. It is a different Mary that emerges, not the one who gives grace herself through her own hands as on the Miraculous Medal or as at Fatima, but one who can only pray on our behalf to God, who says, "I cannot cure you, God alone can heal. I shall pray with you. I shall help you as much as lies in my power to help you."
At Lourdes Our Lady only joined St. Bernadette in the Glory Be prayer in the Rosary. At Medjugorje she says the Our Father and the Hail Mary in their prayer groups, praying not to be led into temptation but to be delivered from evil, and calling herself a sinner in need of help now and at the hour of her death. In praying like this the woman is effectively denying the Assumption, the Immaculate Conception, and her universal mediation of all graces. She is not omni potentia suplex of the Memorare, she is, in fact, a Protestant Madonna.
Early on a great visible sign was promised very soon after which the apparitions would stop. Years later now there is no sign, so the apparitions must keep going on and the Church's hands are tied. It is a new faith that appears. She says, "In God's Eyes all religions are equal. You do not believe if you do not respect other religions, Muslim, Serbian. You are not a Christian if you do not respect other religions. Each one's religion must be respected and you must preserve for yourselves your own for yourselves and for your children."
During the 19th of December 1981 and the 29th of September 1982, as recorded in Vicka's diary, the lady spoke 8 times on the Hercegovina problem. She encouraged the rebels to stay on. She said the bishop was wrong and unjust, even though they were excluded from their Order, released from their vows, and suspended from sacred functions. They remained on at Medjugorje saying Mass and hearing confessions. It was obviously impossible for the bishop to resolve the difficulty and bring peace to his diocese while the lady was leading his priests and his people against him.
When the bishops saw these messages against him in transcripts taken from the diary, bishop Zanic asked Vicka to visit him and bring the diary. Three times she denied that there was a diary. Eventually she presented four diaries, that gaps corresponding to the relevant messages. Fr. Vlasic swore on oath that there was no diary, not once but twice. Vicka's lies to the bishop and to the commission make her an impossible recipient of a divine message. Ivan, too, has unquestionably been found out in deliberate lies to the bishop and to the commission.
On the 14th of January of 1985 during the evening apparition, when the seers are in ecstasy seeing God and our blessed lady, and therefore totally oblivious to what goes on in the world, on this particular occasion the apparition was videoed. While the children were in ecstasy, gazing toward this apparition invisible to everyone else, a certain French man named Jean-Louis made a sudden startling movement towards Vicka's eyes. She immediately started back. After the vision was over, the seers retired with a suspended Franciscan rebel friar, and after conversation with him Vicka returned to say, "I did not see Jean-Louis, nor his hand. I saw the Virgin. She had the Child Jesus in her arms. The Child slipped, and was going to escape. I simply made a movement to stop Him falling, that is all." This is a series of lies, including the fact that Vicka did not move forward with outstretched hands to catch the Child but in fact moved away.
Now certain that the apparition could not be from God, Msgr. Zanic ordered the propaganda to cease and the affair to be warmed down. He appealed to the rest of the Church not to come in pilgrimage to Medjugorje. The propaganda continued. Evil and negative aspects were concealed. Disobedience to the local bishop became practically universal. Lying and disobedience are not marks of Our Lady's interventions. 47 other people in the area claim to have had similar visions. 56 of the supposed medical miraculous cures were examined by the medical bureau at Lourdes, which is the highest critical body inside the Catholic Church for such cases, and the whole dossier was returned as worthless.
Often during the apparitions the seers would burst out laughing. Jakov often provoked the others to laugh during the apparitions by the questions he asked the lady. They say that the lady herself burst out laughing.
On the 25th of May, 1984, the oracle reveals that the lady's birthday is the fifth of August and not the eighth of September as celebrated in the Church. It is, in fact, a new church which is emerging. The lady said she would like the children to become priests and sisters but it was up to them. None have responded to the lady's call. Ivanka now works as a barmaid at her brother-in-law's pub opposite the church. What finally decided Jakov against joining the Franciscans was a revelation on the 28th of November 1985 that 9 years previously, in January 1977, an ex-Franciscan sister bore Fr. Tomislav Vlasic's child. The pair of them had been an experimental community in the 1970's. After 18 years as Sister Rufina she had left the convent to have the child in Bavaria, from where she wrote letters to Fr. Tomislav expecting him to leave the Franciscans and marry her. Fr. Vlasic never denied her story. This sad story has been an all-too-frequent tragedy in post-conciliar Catholicism, but what isimportant here is that the priest in question, whose conscience and loyalties were so divided, took control of the apparitions within the first week, was the daily mentor of the seers, and through his high international Charismatic connections mobilized the world-wide Charismatic movement behind Medjugorje from the very beginning. Biased propaganda became incessant. The truth was never allowed to come out. Such worldwide support had never happened to any other apparition, true or false.
For 6 years Msgr. Zanic alone kept silent on the subject of Medjugorje. At the end of these 6 years, in July 1987, he spoke out. He said, "It is a falsehood that the Virgin is appearing in Medjugorje. It as all a fraud and a crime against the truth. It is a tragic situation. The propagandists spread lies, but the bishop should be silent? She is not speaking in Medjugorje. That is the invention of Fr. Tomislav Vlasic, who is in a state of open rebellion against his Father Provincial and against me. The medical commission invited by the defenders of Medjugorje has declared Vicka to be hysterical. There hasn't been a single miracle. There have been many faked photographs. Neither the pope nor Cardinal Ratzinger believe in the Medjugorje apparitions. Huge sums of money are piling up. Journalists, theologians, and propaganda are all bought. I am absolutely sure that everything concerning the apparitions is a lie, a fraud, and a falsehood, and I cannot speak against my conscience; I would rather die."
On the 27th of August in 1987, on the occasion of the confirmations in the parish church, the bishop solemnly as bishop to these people said the following: "My brothers and sisters, I can tell you that I have spent 6 years praying, studying, and I have kept silent. There are two others who have prayed, and I am most grateful to them. In each of my Masses I have included an intention for Medjugorje. Everyday in praying my Rosary I have begged Our Lady to obtain God's light for me. I have also prayed to the Holy Spirit. This has greatly helped me to gain a strong and sure conviction concerning all that I had heard, read, and seen. In this place there are many who fast and pray much, but it is all done in the conviction that these events are supernatural. To preach to the faithful untruths about God, Jesus Christ, and Our Lady is deserving of the bottommost pit of hell."
On the 27th of August in 1987, on the occasion of the confirmations in the parish church, Bishop Zanic solemnly as bishop to these people said the following: "In all my work, prayer, and study I had only one aim in mind: to get to the truth. To this end I set up a commission of four members in 1982. Then later I enlarged the commission to fifteen members, and with the help of other bishops and provincial superiors the commission members are drawn from nine theological faculties, from seven dioceses, from four provinces, two of whom are eminent psychiatrists. The members were, of course, able to consult with their other colleagues. The work took three years. The Holy See has been kept regularly informed of this work as well as of events. At the present time the commission set up by the Yugoslav bishops' conference is continuing to work on the question. In the meantime, however, some have rushed forward and have anticipated the Church's judgment. They have proclaimed miracles and supernatural events even from the altar, a thing which is never permitted until the Church recognizes such private revelations as authentic. That is why various authorities have ordered an end to the organization of pilgrimages whilst awaiting the Church's judgment. The commission for Medjugorje gave the first warning on the 24th of March 1984, but unfortunately without result. Then in October of the same year the bishops' conference stated that the organization of official pilgrimages to Medjugorje was not permitted. By official is meant all pilgrimages made up of faithful who set out and arrive together and who do exercises here in common. But that was also useless."
On the 23rd of May 1985 the Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith addressed a letter to the Italian Bishops' Conference asking them to discourage organized pilgrimages from Italy and every form of propaganda. Again all this was without effect. Finally, when the second commission was set up, bishop Zanic made a public declaration in the name of the Yugoslav Bishops' Conference on the 9th of January 1987 saying consequently it is not permitted for pilgrimages to be organized or for other manifestations motivated by the supernatural character supposedly attributable to the events at Medjugorje.
From the very first news announcing extraordinary events in Medjugorje, the bishop's office has carefully followed and picked up anything which could help in searching for the truth. Bishop Zanic left the seers and the pastors of the parish in complete freedom. He even defended them from attacks in the press and in political circles. For three years the fifteen member commission formed of theology professors and doctors went through the recorded dialogue and much written material, chronicles, diaries, letters, documents, with the following results: two members of the commission voted in favor of the apparitions being supernatural, one abstained, one other noted that perhaps there had been something at the beginning but then... The other eleven members voted against the apparitions being supernatural. Bishop Zanic is profoundly aware that all the commission members worked conscientiously and examined everything that could help in their search for the truth.
The Church cannot risk her credibility. We know of similar cases where the Church has carefully examined such events and deterred the multitudes from gathering at places where the events were found to be not supernatural. We call to mind Garabandal in Spain, San Damiano in Italy, together with many other places in recent years. At Garabandal the visionary said that Our Lady had promised a big sign for all the world to see. 25 years have passed and still no sign. Here likewise if Our Lady had left her sign everything would have been clear.
Any serious person with respect for Our Lady is bound to ask, "O Blessed Virgin, what have they done with you?" Bishop Zanic is pastor, teacher, and judge in matters of faith in the diocese where Medjugorje is located by divine law. Since the events of Medjugorje have caused tension and division in the Church, some believe and others do not. And since all this has escaped the Church's control, and since all the recommendations of the aforementioned tribunals, the commission, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Yugoslav episcopal conference have remained without effect, Bishop Zanic, responsible before God for discipline in his diocese repeated and ratified all the previous decisions of the Church's tribunals and he forbids all priests who organize pilgrimages to this place attributing a supernatural character to the events there to celebrate Mass in his diocese.
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