[Update in Nov 2012: I still get many people landing on this page via search engine so I thought I’d point out that the predictions about a new feast day did not turn out to be true and there is no indication that was anything other than inaccurate information. The other update since then is that the Medj commission at the Vatican is not going to be presenting their report to the Holy Father till some time in 2013 because they wanted to make time to thoroughly investigate and report on the many people who came to Medjugorje and were spiritually helped. Even a very great amount of such “good fruits” cannot guarantee a positive ruling on the Medjugorje phenomenon–besides the other criteria that must be met, don’t forget there have been some real rotten fruits too. But the real good God has done in people’s lives must be valued and respected, and is not nullified even if the alleged private revelations are disapproved.]
Fr George David Byers says today that he’s been told by a Lebanese nun that the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has declared a new universal feast day of Our Lady of Peace [see Nov 2012 Update above]. Feasts of Our Lady under this traditional title are already celebrated locally in a few places in the world, but if Fr Byers is correct, the significance in this instance has to do with the Medjugorje phenomon. Fr Byers was also told that the Pope’s decision on Medjugorje is coming this November [again, see Update above]. We already knew that the Vatican’s Commission on Medjugorje was due to submit its report to the Pope by the end of the year, so this would make sense and it may be that they have already submitted it. There are likely millions of devotees of this doubtful private revelation, so the matter, and its pastoral handling, is intensely delicate.
I think the new feast day, if true (I can find no verification), offers to the many good people worldwide who have been devoted to Medjugorje a sound and truly ecclesial devotion to Our Lady, who indeed loves them as her children and gives peace… they were right about that all along even though not about Medjugorje. The other thing is, August 5 is the “Birthday of Our Lady” according to the Medjugorje apparitions, which they disobediently celebrate with liturgies and a big youth festival, even though the Church already HAS a liturgical feast of the Nativity of Our Lady on September 8th. That would have to stop, and a June 25th feast would supply a totally legitimate alternative celebration of Our Lady. Fr Byers interprets it thus:
The instant I heard that I thought that that means that the decision about Medjugorje will be negative, and that this is a way to demonstrate that our Holy Father and the Church don’t hate our Lady. And… really… they love Jesus’ Immaculate Mother. If it was to be a positive decision, it seems that one would wait for saying something about such a memorial of our Lady.
[…]
I bounced this off a most reasonable, faithful friend, and he said that this absolutely means without any doubt whatsoever that the decision about Medjugorje will be negative. He said no decision can be made positively about any apparitions while they are ongoing. Since the apparitions are continuous, daily, non-stop, this means that the only possible decision will be that the apparitions are not consonant with anything supernatural, or something even more negative than that, but nothing positive, except maybe to say some nice things about conversions that have taken place there, etc., trying to save any good that could have taken place just because so many people were involved from all over the world.
Some readers may need a refresher on what this is about. In 1981, 6 youths in the Bosnian town of Medjugorje (med-joo-GOR-ee-a)began to report that they were having visions and locutions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Every day, in fact, and they’re still at it. In the meantime they’ve grown up and all are married (one to a former Miss America). They and their once-obscure village have become the focal point of a large and lucrative industry, which the “seers” also make their living from, as people come to them from around the world, including very large numbers from the United States. There have been innumerable conversions, priestly and religious vocations and claims of miracles associated with Medjugorje. The alleged visionaries have also traveled the world, to receive “messages from Mary” at scheduled events in the presence of awed crowds in places as varied as the Vienna Cathedral, and, a number of years ago, a parish in the Madison Diocese.
Yet as it stands, the Church’s official ruling on it is that it is not held to be supernatural. Official pilgrimages undertaken on the basis that the occurrences at Medjugorje are supernatural are forbidden, and the local bishop forbids clergy to present it as being supernatural and has forbidden the parish church of St James in Medjugorje to be called a shrine or for the “seers” to have “visions” in there, and forbids the Franciscans there from publishing or promoting the messages. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop them from doing so anyway–disobedience to ecclesiastical authority is a major feature of Medjugorje, with much detraction of the bishop too (even the locutions from “Mary” have detracted from the Bishop or urged disobedience). And there are many uglier things which I will not get into here, but this recent article in Crisis Magazine tells the sad story. For more detailed information, this website full of official documents on Medjugorje is the top resource.
Saint John of the Cross is the Doctor of the Church to whom the Church looks above all others as teacher in regards to mystical theology. This article describes his highly cautionary teaching in regards to private revelations.
If you read the Crisis Magazine article then this document written in 1978 for bishops on criteria for discernment of alleged private revelations, you will understand why many today conclude, to a moral certainty, that Medjugorje will be disapproved. For more insight into Pope Benedict’s traditional thought on the matter of private revelation, see his Theological Commentary on the Third Secret of Fatima at the end of this document, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the CDF. His analysis wasn’t universally well liked by all Fatima devotees, but it truly follows John of the Cross and the other Doctors and I find it some of the best thought on the subject in recent times.
The Holy Father presented a Golden Rose most sweetly before the image of Our Lady in Fatima in 2010:
Our Lady,
Mother of all men and women,
I come before you as a son
visiting his Mother,
and I do so in company
with a multitude of brothers and sisters.
As the Successor of Peter,
to whom was entrusted the mission
of presiding in the service
of charity in the Church of Christ
and of confirming all in faith and in hope,
I wish to present to your
Immaculate Heart
the joys and hopes
as well as the problems and sufferings
of each one of these sons and daughters of yours
who are gathered in the Cova di Iria
or who are praying with us from afar.Mother most gentle,
you know each one by name,
you know each one’s face and personal history,
and you love them all
with maternal benevolence
that wells up from the very heart of Divine Love.
I entrust and consecrate them all to you,
Mary Most Holy,
Mother of God and our Mother.[Prayer of Pope Benedict XVI at Fatima, May 2010]
“This is a way to demonstrate that our Holy Father and the Church don’t hate our Lady.” Really? Who on earth needs evidence that the Catholic Church and the Vicar of Christ don’t hate Our Lady? Only the most fevered practitioners of exotic devotion, and those poor souls need pastoral care and catechesis, not placating.
Rather than add another feast day, I think I’d prefer to see encouragement for more consistent and widespread use of the Saturday votive Masses of Our Lady. That is to say, return to a sound devotion that is already a venerable part of our tradition.
PermalinkI am all for the Saturday Memorials of Our Lady! But the new feast surely is with pastoral intent, my thought is maybe it is like the way the Feast of St Joseph the Worker was instituted to redirect people from/compete with the Communist May Day workers’ celebration, giving people something positive to orient themselves to. I have been praying for quite some time for a happy outcome to the Medj situation and for people’s faith to be spared in the likelihood of it being disapproved. Anything that will help that, I thank God for. I got the month wrong of the alleged new feast day, what Fr Byers said was June 25 (not August) and I will correct that in my post.
Medjugorje may be a deviation but it is a really mainstream type of deviation that has been effective for the devil precisely because it affects a lot of quite sincere good Catholics of sound mind.
If people were “inoculated” by knowing St John of the Cross’ teaching on how to handle these things they would know how to avoid being misled, without refusing ANY of God’s grace. Even some of the best and smartest priests I know have parroted to me that it will be evaluated by its good fruits. Even Fr Robert Barron has a disappointing line of this kind in the “Catholicism” series episode about Mary, giving a truly inadequate impression of how the Church discerns private revelations. For the truth, people have to turn to St John of the Cross and that document of Norms on discerning apparitions for bishops that I linked. I believe Fr Groeschel also points in his book “A Still Small Voice” to Fr Augustine Poulain SJ’s “The Graces of Interior Prayer” as an essential source on that. But typical lay people do not read these things, and rarely do the clergy attempt to teach them. “A Still Small Voice” is one attempt to share this knowledge with the laity, however this book should be updated because Fr Groeschel was on the fence about Medjugorje when he wrote that, and now he says clearly it is inauthentic.
I noticed today that the Holy Father is going to Lebanon in September which gives a plausible reason why a nun in Lebanon could have advance knowledge of a new feast day. If he actually announces the new feast at that time, I would think this will highlight the necessary role of Our Lady in peace in the Middle East etc. There is so much persecution of Christians and THAT may be the more central intent than Medjugorje…
PermalinkSo, allegedly, a Lebanese nun told a priest some secrets about the forthcoming Medjugorje decisions. On what basis is this even credible? And yet it is being propagated like it was an announcement by the Church. This is none-other than secular tactics to use some dubious information to promote a pre-determined position. Worthless information!
PermalinkHi Paul, I’m sorry if it seemed somehow like an announcement from the Church, I actually thought that putting the question mark in the title and from the way I described Fr Byers’ information that this is basically a rumor, together with his (and my) speculation on the meaning. Either the rumors or the interpretations could be wrong, though what he’s on solid ground about is that the ruling on Medjugorje is highly likely to be negative based on what is known of the facts (false prophecies, large amount of disobedience, doctrinal problems, serious moral failings and instances of false mysticism by Franciscans who were spiritual directors to the “seers” early on, etc) and of the CDF criteria for evaluating private revelations.
We do know a member of the Medjugorje commission had stated they were supposed to give their report to the Pope by the end of the year, and I am under the impression that they finished interviewing the “seers” a while back. The decision will either be some sort of negative decision (which can definitely be made while alleged private revelations are ongoing; there have been more than one such instance), or else more wait and see, until the phenomenon concludes and a final decision could be made.
PermalinkOn May 5, 1917, in the midst of WWI, Benedict XV added the invocation “Queen of Peace” to the Litany of Loretto,
PermalinkI think this would be of more significance to Benedict XVI than the controversial Medjugorje.
No one knows what the pope will say regarding Medjugorje. The fact that there will be a feast dedicated to Our Lady of Peace tells you that his decision regarding the apparitions may not be negative. My pa was to Medjugorje three times and he is a believer, I am as well even though I am not constantly paying attention to every little detail. Even I think some people go to far with the whole apparition thing. No one has to believe in any apparition whether it be approved or not. But I don’t think people should knock an apparition that hasn’t been condemmed. I am obedient to Rome and will go along with whatever Rome says. I would suggest that some of you other bloggers look at the good fruits. Maybe do more research and then come to your own conclusion. Whatever you do don’t come to a conclusion after reading one blog.
PermalinkWhatever the outcome of the commission report, the facts of Medjugorje will stand on their own. Can 30,000,000 all be duped? Would God stand aside for over 30 years and let the devil have his way? No, the appearances are real, and that will be proven beyond any doubt (except for those who don’t want to be saved) when the ten secrets start occurring. Wait for it!
PermalinkThe fact is, the “lady” of Medjugorje on various occasions counseled disobedience to legitimate ecclesiastical authority, something Our Lady simply would never do. This is only one of many problems.
Unfortunately, millions of people CAN be wrong. There are well over 2 billion Muslims in the world who believe in a “revelation” from God to “prophet” Muhammed, for example.
You are right to point to the supposed ten “secrets”, since it could be on this that Medjugorje to stand or fall. If the “secrets” really don’t pan out, that does disprove Medjugorje. And if they do work out then people the world over may be very astonished. We already know of some Medjugorje prophecies “from the Gospa” that failed to happen as promised. This is from the Crisis Magazine article:
“On June 29, 1981, the Gospa announced that a four-year-old boy would be healed, but this never happened. A sign from heaven predicted by the visionaries for August 17, 1981, never materialized. Ivan, in a signed statement, on May 9, 1982, said that a sign would appear in six months – a “huge shrine in Medjugorje” in memory of the Gospa’s apparitions. But this also never materialized. In 1983 the visionaries said a “visible sign” would be left at Medjugorje in perpetuity. But this has not happened.
“In September, 1981, the prophecy that “Germany and the U.S. will be destroyed,…the Pope will be exiled to Turkey,” never took place. Nor did peace for Yugoslavia predicted by the Gospa during the 80s. Yugoslavia broke up during the Bosnian war, 1992-95, leading to the violent separation of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from Serbia.”
PermalinkIf Benedict 16 intends to declare a feast day for Our Lady Queen of Peace it is because Benedict 15 added the invocation of
PermalinkOur Lady Queen of Peace to the Litany of Loreto just before or during WW I. Is there not a similarity to our own times where the war drums are beating about the middle east. Don’t you think this would be consistent enough to be characteristic of the Catholic mind. The title predates Medugorje and they don’t have a copyright on it.
People who’ve had a rewarding experience at Medugorje may attribute it to their own faith and that of the people with whom they prayed. God isn’t going to ignore true faith. But that isn’t a validation of the alleged apparitions.
PermalinkNovember has come and gone. Apparently that was not the time for the decision from our Papa so I must have believed a ‘rumor’. Elizabeth is right, millions of people CAN be duped! I do hope Pope Benedict XVI speaks on this soon. It’s such a divisive and disruptive mess for so many in the Church. Would Our Blessed Mother have been doing this for 30+ years? She is a ‘woman wrapped in silence’ and doesn’t drone on with platitudes and most of the messages I’ve ever heard/read are just that. If some of her ‘prophecies’ did not occur, then I find that it’s mostly hype and emotionalism *now* even if it *might* have begun as real. At any rate it surely seems to have developed into quite a money maker for some! Surely those millions of dollars spent on millions of pilgrimages (to an UNapproved apparition site) seems not the most prudent. There are so many APPROVED locations and apparitions of our Blessed Mother to visit, why all this ‘hoopla’ over this particular one?! It ‘puzzles’ me. None that I know who’ve gone to other apparition sites are as rude or as defensive about their pilgrimage and the don’t try to “push” it on anyone. Not so with some who’ve gone to Medj. I must say! A friend told me that one lady she knows of has been there 130 times. REALLY?!!? Could not that money have been better used to help feed the poor and disenfranchised in her own community?!???? Sorry, but per the late Fr. Robert Fox, I’ll “stick with the approved apparitions.” + PAX +
Permalinkhttp://medjugorje1.blogspot.ca/
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