The Vatican issued a statement Thursday acknowledging that spiritual “fruit” has come from the site of controversial Marian apparitions, but did not explicitly say the apparitions were supernatural in origin.
In June 1981, a group of six young people in Medjugorje, a town in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina, claimed to have experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary, the Associated Press reported.
In a lengthy “memo” published Thursday by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith titled “Queen of Peace,” Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Congregation, and Archbishop Armando Matteo, secretary of the Department of Doctrine, noted that many “positive results” have come from Medjugorje since the apparitions began there in 1981.
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Since the visions began, Medjugorje has become a major pilgrimage site, with over one million pilgrims visiting the town of just over 2,000 people each year.
The Vatican formally approved pilgrimages to the site in 2019, according to the Vatican News website.
Thursday’s report said that in Medjugorje, the pilgrimage has produced numerous spiritual “fruits,” including “large numbers of converts, frequent returns to the sacraments (especially Communion and Reconciliation), and many vocations to the priesthood, monasticism and married life.”
“The church will be best served by promoting a healthy practice of the religious life in accordance with its traditions,” the memo said.
“In the Medjugorje context, this applies both to those who had previously strayed from the faith, but also to those who only superficially practiced the faith.”
In the original vision, this figure introduced herself as the “Queen of Peace” and has since become known as “Our Lady of Medjugorje.”
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Even now, decades later, many of the original seers report continuing to have regular visions of the Virgin Mary.
The messages conveyed during these visions have been catalogued and are available on the Medjugorje website.
In the latest message, published on August 25, visionary Marija Pavlovich Lunetti reported that her prayer for peace had been heard.
Medjugorje has become a somewhat controversial place of worship because of the regular deliveries of messages purported to be from the Virgin Mary, some of which appear to contradict accepted dogma.
Moreover, some visionaries have become destinations of pilgrimage themselves, raising questions about whether this is appropriate.
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Those controversies were addressed in a memo on Thursday, in which Fernández and Matteo wrote that they “strongly encourage” pilgrims to Medjugorje not to meet with so-called visionaries, but to go there “to encounter Mary, Queen of Peace, and, faithful to her love for her Son, to encounter Christ and hear his voice through meditation on the Word, Holy Communion and Eucharistic adoration.”
The Vatican has never said that the supposed apparitions of the Virgin Mary that occurred in Medjugorje are genuine or of “supernatural origin.”
Unlike other famous European pilgrimage sites with reported Marian apparitions – Fatima in Portugal, Lourdes in France and Knock in Ireland – the Vatican has never said the Marian apparitions at Medjugorje are genuine or of “supernatural origin”.
But in a document on Thursday, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith approved a “Nihil Obstat” declaration by Bosnia’s local bishops regarding the purported apparitions in Medjugorje.
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“Nihil obstat” is Latin for “no objection.”
In this case, this means that believers are “authorized to express their faith prudently,” but are not obligated to believe that the apparitions are occurring or are real.
“Nihil Obstat demonstrates that believers can receive positive encouragement in the Christian life through this spiritual proposal and authorizes this public act of faith,” the memo reads.
“Such a decision is possible as long as many positive results have been recognized in spiritual experiences and no negative and dangerous influences have spread among God’s people,” the memo reads.
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However, the notes make it clear that just because good things come from Medjugorje does not mean that the visions are actually from the Virgin Mary.
“Furthermore, the positive assessment of the majority of the Medjugorje messages as edifying does not imply a declaration that they have a direct supernatural origin,” the memo states.
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“Therefore, when referring to a ‘message’ from the Virgin Mary, it must always be kept in mind that it is a ‘questionable message,'” the memo added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.