The
Irish Medjugorje Centre has said the Vatican’s instruction to Catholics
not to participate in events where the Medjugorje visionaries promise
Marian apparitions will not affect the huge numbers of devotees that
regularly travel to the Bosnia-Herzegovina shrine.
Spokeswoman for the Irish Medjugorje Centre, Noelle Campbell, told
The Irish Catholic “more and more people are travelling to Medjugorje
every year and I think that number will continue to rise despite the
statement”.
“I know the Vatican’s inquiry into Medjugorje is still ongoing, but I
don’t think this is a signal that they will reject the apparitions. Too
many people are affected very positively by the events at Medjugorje
for that to happen,” she said.
In a letter to the bishops of the United States, dated October, Papal
Nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, insisted on behalf of the
Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, that “clerics and the faithful are not
permitted to participate in meetings, conferences or public celebrations
during which the credibility of such ‘apparitions’ would be taken for
granted”.
The wording of the message is a reminder to Catholics that alleged
events at Medjugorje are still under investigation by Rome, and
Archbishop Vigano’s letter notes that, in the absence of a definitive
judgement from the Vatican’s doctrinal office on Medjugorje, Catholics
should be guided by the 1991 message of the bishops of the
then-Yugoslavia that “on the basis of the research that has been done,
it is not possible to state that there were apparitions or supernatural
revelations”.
It is further reported that, on foot of the nuncio’s letter, two
planned appearances by Medjugorje seer Ivan Dragicevic in the US were
cancelled.
Mr Dragicevic, one of the alleged Medjugorje seers, had been
scheduled to appear at two New England parishes in late October.
However, both events were subsequently cancelled.