Sarajevo Cardinal Vinko Puljic says that the Bosnian church is awaiting new guidelines from the Vatican on the claimed apparitions of Our Lady at Medjugorje. "We are now awaiting a new directive on this issue," Cardinal Puljic said in a Reuters interview.
"I don't think we must wait for a long time, I think it will be this year, but that is not clear... I am going to Rome in November and we must discuss this."
In June, Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar, the nearest city in Bosnia, warned Catholics against uncritical belief in Medjugorje and issued a series of restrictions on the parish.
"Brothers and sisters, let us not act as if these ‘apparitions' were recognised and worthy of faith," he said in a sermon.
Then in July, Pope Benedict defrocked Fr Tomislav Vlasic, the former "spiritual director" to the six visionaries, after a year-long probe into charges he exaggerated the apparitions and had fathered a child with a nun.
Puljic declined to give his own views on the events of Medjugorje, Reuters says.
"People have the right to pray everywhere, including in Medjugorje," he said.
"It is not a sin to pray, it's not a sin to hear confessions, it is not a sin to give penance, this is a good climate. But this phenomena, apparitions or visions, falls to the (Vatican) commission," said the cardinal. "It is a very delicate question."
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