Apparently “Dateline NBC” is doing a story on the Medjugorje phenomenon. I received the following email:
On Wednesday evening May 18th, “DATELINE”, NBC @ 8:00 pm Eastern will air a one hour presentation on the apparitions in Medugorje. ” DATELINE” joined us at Infant Jesus Church in Nashua, NH to record visionary Ivan Dragicevic’s apparition of Our Lady in the church & also his talk to the congregation on the messages of Medugorje. Ivan was additionally interviewed by “Stone Phillips” of “DATELINE” They also interviewed Ivan’s wife Laureen & Artie Boyle regarding his healing of cancer in Medugorje. Also, on Tuesday, May 24th @ 8:45 am, FOX NEWS will air an interview with Ivan regarding Ivan’s apparition of April 2 at St. Patrick & Joachim’s Church in NH.
I actually know Artie Boyle. He and I were on Cursillo together and he comes across as a very nice, very normal guy. He has a very big family and is very orthodox and very deep into his faith. That’s a lot of “verys” but it’s true.
Many wonderful, very fine Catholics believe in Medjugorje. That’s what makes the whole thing so sad.
If you still believe in Medjugorje after reading Dr. E. Michael Jones’ book The Medjugorje Deception, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you…
Jones’s book and Medjugorje: A Warning by Michael Davies convinced me that the whole thing is either a man made hoax or a satanic one.
Maybe ya’ll are right, but I would be wary of E. Michael Jones also. I subscribed to his magazine “Culture Wars” for about a year and then stopped because it was so full of anti-Semitism.
Usually a lurker, but had to join in on this thread. Medjugorje was the means God used in my “re-version” to the Catholic faith. I was a nominal Catholic at best, but through the messages of Medjugorje I grew in love for the truth and beauty of the Catholic Church and for Jesus and Mary.
I believed in it for the first couple of years, but had to acknowledge that it just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
(Shameless self-congratulation:)
Eventually, I set up the first critical web site about the events, Answers about Medjugorje, with articles, essays, and official statements from the first twenty years of the alleged apparition.
Even some Medjugorje promoters are starting to acknowledge that there are problems: for example, those of the disobedient and suspended Fr. Jozo Zovko, OFM, whom the messages of the “Gospa” once described as “a saint”.
“I believed in it for the first couple of years, but had to acknowledge that it just doesn/wp:comment_date_gmt>
“Many folks that point to the local bishop to support their suspicions about Medj are often the same folks who spend the bulk of their time trashing and mocking (mostly American) bishops for their comments…”
Assuming there’s a comprehensive list of detractors being kept to make this point, it does not change the authority of the local bishop on the matter in question.
Even inauthentic apparitions inspire some people to make authentic conversions, so the existence of “good fruits” isn’t a reliable indicator. Some people became better Catholics after they got involved with the Bayside “apparition”, for example.
The claim of supernatural apparitions and messages has to be examined and judged based on the content of the messages and the credibility of the alleged seers.
But the seers have admitted lying on some occasions, as documented in the 1981 audio transcripts in Fr. Sivric’s book.
And the claimed messages of the “Gospa” sometimes endorsed disobedience—illicit Masses said by Franciscan priests barred from ministry. (This in spite of a 1975 papal decree settling the disputed question!)
These are not merely “bad fruits” that can be dismissed as peripheral: they touch directly on the credibility of the alleged seers.
o/t
Phyllis,
Nice to see you on St. Bloggs! I hope you are well.
Here’s a link to a great article concerning the Church hierarchy and the historical interest of the Holy See in that part of the world….About a third of the Franciscans in Hercegovina today are without faculties…
http://members.iinet.net.au/~raphael/leo_xiii.html
Veronica Lueken of Bayside claimed to have had a visit from St. Therese of Lisieux in 1968 followed by apparitions of the Virgin Mary under the title uthor_url>
152.163.100.72
2005-05-20 00:48:54
2005-05-20 04:48:54
I donm
http://manwithblackhat.blogspot.com
205.130.230.13
2005-05-20 09:49:38
2005-05-20 13:49:38
I believe Mark Miravelle should choose his words more carefully when the camera’s rolling, as people can come away with the impression that this is for real, and that he’s in a position to know. While the news program did mention the local bishop’s decision, it suggested that it could change. What they don’t say is that, while the few messages of Fatima took two or three decades to investigate, there have been well over ten thousand messages from Medjugorje, and there are already problems with both the messages, and the behavior of many of those involved.
But does Mr Miravelle mention that?