Medjugorje News & Articles

Spanish hockey player Litus Ballbe’s big dream was to play the Olympics, until a visit to Medjugorje gave him the call to be a priest. Now he is studying, but still his first dream has come true: His seminary has allowed him time for hockey, and on Monday he played at the London Olympics.

For any that don’t know Medjugorje is a small village in Bosnia where the Blessed Virgin Mary has allegedly been appearing over the past 25 years with a total of over 35,000 individual apparitions and messages. Millions of people have visited this place (most of whom probably against the Church’s strict teaching, although most likely without realising it).

I’ve written this blog to discuss the Church’s position on Medjugorje and how the faithful should react to it according to the Church’s teachings - if there are errors please correct me and I will be more than happy to make any necessary changes.

I've just returned from a summer retreat in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, with five peaceful days spent in the Marian shrine of Medjugorje. Each time I visit this town, I am stunned into silence by the profound and extraordinary peace that pervades the place, a peace so profound and so penetrating that it silences all doubts. An energy this holy cannot be based upon a lie. Still, I spent some time reviewing the many criticisms and accusations about the alleged apparitions still taking place here, and there are signs of contradiction and causes of concern, intermixed with lies and slanders and deliberate obfuscations. Clearly the Blessed Mother, if she is indeed appearing here (as I truly believe) has decided not to make it easy for anyone to reach a judgement about the place - not without considerable prayer and discernment.

Medjugorje, August 1 – 6, 2012

„Lord, increase our faith”

(Luke 17,5)

Mate Bilic has said "everything good in life happens to me because of Medjugorje". Mate Bilic, is a Croatian footballer who currently plays with Sporting Gijon in Spain. In early June he travelled to Medjugorje.

I was an Anglican priest living in England, in 1985 when I was invited by a group of Anglicans and Catholics to visit Medjugorje. I didn’t want to go. Being a former Evangelical-fundamentalist I wasn’t too keen on apparitions of the Blessed Virgin. I opted out. They insisted. I dug in my heels. They said someone else would pay for it. I didn’t want to go. They cajoled and twisted my arm until I said ‘yes’.

Here are the latest standards (1978) on Marian apparitions. They contain only two formulas: one which acknowledges the supernatural and one which rejects it

A Vatican Insider article dedicated to the work of the Committee on the apparitions of Medjugorje, presided over by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, has provoked some quite varied reactions.

The article stated that in addition to the positive formula (“constat de supernaturalitate”, established as supernatural) and the decidedly negative one ("constat de non supernaturalitate, “It is established that there is nothing supernatural here”), there is also an intermediate formula (“non constat de supernaturalitate”, there is nothing supernatural here). In fact, the latest available standards published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1978, the result of a decision by the former Holy Office discussed four years previously, only covers the first and third formulations set out above. The first case gives an affirmative answer to the question of supernatural events. In the second case ("no constat de ...") the answer is negative.

Mr. Rateb Rabie, KCHS, President of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, spoke with reporters for Radio MIR Medjugorje during his visit to Medjugorje.

Mr. Rateb is a Christian from Palestine, born in Jordan. His parents were forced to leave Jerusalem in 1948 and they had to immigrate to Jordan. He himself immigrated later to the United States where he got married and lived there for 35 years. Mr. Rabie is the citizen of the United States.

by Marco Corvaglia

Even today, proponents of Medjugorje must somehow come to terms with the uncomfortable opposition of him who was Bishop of Mostar at the time when the phenomenon began, Msgr. Pavao Žanić.
And so, hundreds of thousands of people that every year go in good faith to that spot heard this version of events, solely based on rumors: the bishop was initially well disposed toward the visionaries, but at one point the communist government intervened and threatened him, inducing him to become an opponent of Medjugorje.

Actually, it can be categorically excluded that Msgr. Žanić submitted to any pressure from the police, as we shall see. To affirm the contrary is only slander.

On the occasion of the twelfth anniversary of the death of Msgr. Pavao Žanić, the late bishop of the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno and Apostolic Administrator of Trebinje-Mrkan, his successor, Bishop Ratko Perić celebrated the evening Holy Eucharist in the Cathedral of Mary Mother of the Church in Mostar, for the repose of the soul of the deceased bishop. Some of late Bishop Pavao’s assistants concelebrated in the Mass: the pastor of the Cathedral parish Msgr. Luka Pavlović, the Chancellor of the Diocesan Chancery Fr. Ante Luburić, and the choir master of the Cathedral Fr. Dragan Filipović. Bishop Ratko spoke to the faithful on the heroic stance of Bishop Žanić towards communist ideology, thereby disproving the recent attacks against his noble Episcopal character, while also being aware that he must tell the truth about the bishop so that lies and slander not be spread against him!