medjugorje musings

Jim Delaney, a friend of mine in England told me recently that he'd heard the Pope was not well disposed towards claims that people are seeing visions of the virgin Mary in the town of Medjugorje.

Medjugorje is culturally Croatian but is located in Bosnia.

Jim may be right about the Pope.

I know Vatican investigations are ongoing.

The supposed visionaries are due in Rome in September where I expect they will be asked some serious questions.

Personally I've been much drawn to the possibility something is happening at Medjugorje.

Ireland's most successful ever magazine editor (in terms of sales and revenue) Heather Parsons, claims she had a most striking conversion experience there, during which she was favoured with a vision of the risen Messiah.

That is to say, she claims she saw Jesus in his glory in the sun.

My Uncle Jim has been there and also attests to seeing some sort of manifestation involving the sun.

Some moderately interesting books have been written about Medjugorje.

To date the best writing about the claimed supernatural phenomena is to be found in a book called The Miracle Detective by Randall O'Sullivan.

Randall O'Sullivan is a contributor to the generally atheistic Rolling Stone magazine.

At Medjurgorje he too claims to have encountered certain direct mystical experiences.

Randall O'Sullivan has supposedly become something of  a Christian though I'm not sure he'll ever jump as far as Rome.

I myself have tried to figure out how the Medjugorje apparitions could have been faked.

The visionaries don't act like liars.

Personally I don't think they are liars.

The only vaguely tenable postulation for fakery, that I can come up with is that a faction within the Catholic Church might have gone rogue and for whatever reasons convinced the young people they were seeing visions.

The Franciscan Order in that region has heroically and courageously ministered to the people there during centuries of Muslim rule.

Is it possible that while isolated from the main body of the Church, elements within the Franciscan Order could have become corrupt, and involved themselves with Mesmerism, conjuring, or some other form of hypnotism?

Is it possible that some renegade Franciscans might have hypnotised the Medjugorje visionaries into thinking they were having visions?

Certainly the personalities who have come to the fore among the Franciscans of Medjurgorje do not appear to be flawless people.

But this is no evidence at all.

God has never just called flawless people to serve him.

Almost always for the big jobs, he calls sinners.

Father Tomislav Vlasic and Father Jozo are the two Franciscans who attract the most media speculation with regard to their bona fides.

Father Tomislav is no longer a priest.

There is general agreement, that if the thing was faked, it was down to these two.

I am reluctant to believe it was faked.

In the past I have included a third priest, Father Slavko, in the fakery hypothesis.

Father Slavko died ten years ago.

He is still remembered today with deep respect by pilgrims and Medjugorje natives.

I was privileged to meet a Croatian priest on holiday in Ireland last month and questioned him about the apparitions at Medjugorje.

He said he would not comment on the visions as he wished to see what the Church herself would conclude from her investigations.

He refused to talk about Father Jozo.

He readily averred that Father Slavko had been a "prayerful man."

The way he said this I understood him to have strong reservations about Father Jozo and to have no reservations at all about Father Slavko.

But this isn't evidence either.

This is just my interpretation of the somewhat evasive answers of one priest to my questions.

I have also recently talked to an Irish priest Father Dave Fleming about his visits to Medjugorje.

Father Fleming told me: "I heard the most incredible confessions in Medjugorje. You wouldn't believe it. I'd be in the confession box for eight hours and people just kept coming. They'd make these really heartfelt confessions. Tears streaming down their faces. You'd see the most amazing conversions."

Father Fleming told me he had not seen any of the miraculous phenomena that some pilgrims report at the site.

The phenomena he had seen were purely spiritual.

And so to September.

The visionaries will go to Rome for their meeting with destiny.

One thing is sure.

Pope Benedict is a tough old coot.

If he thinks Medjugorje is rubbish, he'll say it.