Medjugorje
More than once in recent years the Vatican has said that dioceses or parishes should not organise official pilgrimages to Medjugorje. But it has also said Catholics are free to travel and that, if they do, the Church should provide them with pastoral...
More than once in recent years the Vatican has said that dioceses or parishes should not organise official pilgrimages to Medjugorje. But it has also said Catholics are free to travel and that, if they do, the Church should provide them with pastoral services.
Bishop Ratko Peric, whose diocese, Mostar-Duvno, Bosnia-Herzegovina, includes the village of Medjugorje, said the Church had not accepted, either as supernatural or Marian, any apparition said to have been witnessed by persons from Medjugorje.
Bishop Peric's views, and those of his predecessor, Bishop Pavao Zanic, who also opposed the claims of the Medjugorje visionaries, are supported by the Pope. Three Church commissions failed to find evidence to support the veracity of these Marian apparitions. Besides, in 1991, the bishops of the former Yugoslavia declared that it could not be affirmed that Medjugorje matters concerned supernatural apparitions or revelations.
The position of the Church to date has not changed. This was declared by Bishop Peric himself last June. He added that it is illicit for priests to express their private views contrary to the official position of the Church, especially during Mass, in acts of popular piety or in the Catholic media.