It’s official. The bishops of Bosnia-Hercegovina will have a commission study “the effects of pilgrimages to Medjugorje,” and will use a 1972 document on examining authenticity of apparitions as their guide.
First, Church officials are called to assess the phenomena themselves, and the people who report them, looking for evidence of authenticity. Next they are to study any message that is associated with the extraordinary reports, to ascertain whether that message conforms to orthodox Church teaching.
Msgr. Zovkic said that Church leaders are now tackling the third question raised by the document, appraising the pastoral implications of the phenomena, by studying the “fruits” of the reported apparitions.
That’s a good answer to the objections that the bishops have studied the phenomena before and thus there’s no need for a new study. In fact, previous commissions only answered the first question. A study of the other two questions was interrupted by the war in the Balkans and never taken up again.
Now that peace has been restored, and pilgrimages to Medjugorje continue, the Holy See encouraged the formation of a pastoral commission to continue the study, Msgr. Zovkic reported.
Very interesting that the impetus for the study came from Rome. Even so, after all is said and done, it may be a while before a definitive answer is given because the Bosnian priest interviewed for the article said, “The Church is not likely to make any final conclusion on the authenticity of the reported Marian apparitions at Medjugorje ... until the “seers” report that those apparitions have ended.” They’ve been going on for 25 years and there’s no sign of them stopping any time soon.
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