Heresy and the Queen of Peace at Medjugorje

In 1981, on June 24th, a strange report heralded the beginning of the Medjugorje industry. Six children reported seeing a shape standing up a hill. The next day four of these with a few others went back to the hill and they got a closer look at the figure who said she was the Virgin Mary. Soon the Lady began to appear to them in the parish Church of Medjugorje. The seers are: Vicka Ivankovic, Mirjana Dragicevic, Marija Pavlovic, Ivan Dragicevic, Ivanka Ivankovic and Jakov Colo. She gave them ten secrets which prophesy the future. Only some of the visionaries report seeing the Lady on a daily basis. The Lady stopped appearing to the rest except on special occasions. The visions have been condemned by two diocesan bishops, bishops of Mostar who alone have been declared by Rome and “infallible” Catholic tradition to have the authority to pronounce upon the vision. The bishop in the Catholic system is the successor of the apostles while the pope is the successor of the apostles and also one specific apostle, Peter. The authority of the apostles to run the Church both in discipline and in caring for the faith has been transmitted to the bishops in an apostolic succession that can be traced back to the apostles which is why laypeople cannot ordain bishops.

The Virgin Mary has appeared at Medjugorje countless times. She presents herself as a good Catholic who believes all a Catholic should believe. Many think the visions are really a hoax or delusion. If the vision makes errors in Catholic doctrine then they may have a point.
Let us look at the religious evidence against the apparitions.

In a pro-Medjugorje booklet, “I beg you: listen to my messages and live them,” we find some of it. This was published by Padraic Dunne of Drogheda, County Louth in 1992.

“I have come to call the world to conversion for the last time. Later, I will not appear anymore on this earth” (May 2, 1982). There have been more credible apparitions since for example the apparitions to Maria Esperanza and hundreds of others in Venezuela accepted by the Church as truly from Heaven are more believable though they started before Medjugorje and continued on after it.

The first sentence shows she means the apparitions of Medjugorje will be the last. The Devil might fake Medjugorje solely to draw people away from and scorn upon anybody who has a real vision of Mary in the future. The Virgin is telling the Church not to approve any other apparition and that is wrong when the Church says it is never sure of apparitions but merely permits them. She is obviously commanding that Medjugorje be recognised by the Church. The Church is over the apparition and the apparition is not over the Church. The visionaries say that the Virgin told them that when the visions of Medjugorje stop all other apparitions around the world will stop (page 60, Medjugorje by David Baldwin). There is no point in the Virgin saying this for there will always be people who lie about having visions and who seem plausible if visions are ever plausible. She is declaring that a bishop who does not believe in Medjugorje and who decides to authenticate another apparition after Medjugorje ceases is wrong to do so and has no legitimate authority to do so. But according to Catholic dogma he has for he does not have to believe in Medjugorje even if the Church accepts it so he will feel free to recognise the new apparition. The Virgin has no need to say such things at all. The message is clear: the visionaries are claiming to be the most important visionaries ever. They are also trying to become the only ones that are listened to. This arrogance in them is taken in others as evidence that their apparitions are not from Heaven for they are not making them holy.

Medjugorje claims to be the site of the last apparitions. The threats it makes, make its “good” fruits (which supporters appeal to as evidence that the visitation is from Heaven!) useless because we cannot help suspecting that they are produced by fear and not love. Its desire to prevent its supporters from agreeing with the Church should the Church approve apparitions after its time is a sure mark of inauthenticity. The real Virgin would not say if the apparitions were final and would leave it to the Church to work that out with the help of the Holy Spirit. The Medjugorje Virgin is tying the hands of the hands of the Church and yet she can have no right to authority without the Church. What does that say? The apparitions are not from Heaven!

The Michael Brown website on Medjugorje revealed that the priests were altering the messages. So they were removing heresy and absurdities.  Published messages can be very different from what the vision "said".

http://www.medjugorje-online.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6293

http://www.unitypublishing.com/newswire/compose.html

Catholic teaching is that man and angel are two separate kinds of being so a dead baby cannot become an angel.  Vicka went on a video where she said that Mary told her that aborted babies become angels in Heaven.   http://www.medjugorje.ws/en/articles/video/vicka-her-story/?page=11

Supporters and priests buried that assertion of Mary!

“Every agitation comes from Satan” (August 15, 1983). As if Satan cannot give you good feelings to seduce you and as if God cannot annoy you to benefit your soul! If she is right the Catholic God does not exist.

In the booklet by Fr Tomislav Vlasic OFM (Spiritual Director of the Visionaries), Our Lady Queen of Peace, published in 1984, East Sussex, England, page 7 we read that the Virgin said on the subject of world conversion: “Tell the world not to wait, it needs to convert. When God comes he will not be joking; I tell you that you must take my messages seriously.”

This implies that the punishment is nigh but it has not happened yet.

The Virgin told a group that they could not do their duties for they did not pray enough (page 11). Quantity more than quality again.

In the book, Scientific and Medical Studies on the Apparitions at Medjugorje, page 121, the claim that the Virgin said that all religions are the same is answered. This claim had arisen over the Virgin saying that there is neither division or religion in God. It is said that she only meant that God is not a divisive bigot and loves you for what you are and not because of what religion you belong to. But she never clearly said she meant this. God could love you as you are and treat you differently because of your wrong religion for his purpose which she believed he did do for he does not give the Protestants the Mass so it is unlikely that she meant that. She meant that the doctrinal components of faith do not matter and that God sees neither different faiths or religions.

She did say that men caused divisions and not God. She and the visionaries know that is untrue for God converted the Jews and left the rest of the world to their own devices meaning that error and division were predominant. The Bible itself says that God creates division for God told the Jews to be holy that is separate from other nations and to look down on them and Jesus himself did not go out of his way to convert Gentiles though he easily could have but focused on the Jews. Jesus commanded division from the Jewish leaders even those who seemed decent for he accused them of being actors.

As coherent as ever the Virgin said, “The fact that you belong to one religion or another is not without importance. The Spirit is not equally present in each Church” (page 121). So, she is saying that sincerity is not enough. That is an appalling statement. If you sincerely believe that fire will not burn you and get burnt that does not mean that sincerity should not ideally be enough. Fire may have to burn us in this world but that does not mean that God has the right to go out of his way to hurt us by our sincerity. To say there is one true faith is one thing and you can’t have a religion or a Church without it but to start running down the holiness of other Churches is not on. Wrong Churches can be closer to God than the right one. The Lady is causing division by her silliness. If all religions are equal and the Catholic Church is the holiest then she is saying that doctrine does not matter. She forgets that by appearing she is indicating that it does matter.

The very fact that the visions of Medjugorje are revelations is proof enough that they are false. Revelation implies that sincerity is not enough by merely happening. If sincerity sufficed there would be no need for it to get into Heaven.

The Virgin is really into ecumenism with a vengeance. She stresses reconciliation between enemies and different religions.  That is why she calls herself the Queen of Peace. She commands that the gospels be read and says they are the word of God. Then why does she contradict Jesus in Matthew 18:15-18 who commands division? He says you should send a person who offended you some warnings and if they don’t repent then send them to Coventry and make outcasts of them. He didn’t even say the offence had to be serious! This totally contradicts the Virgin’s teaching that we must warm up our enemies to God by being very kind towards them. She has said on more on one occasion that her main message of peace is in the gospels already. She has reiterated Jesus’ doctrine that we should be praying for enemies and loving them for God sends the same rain as a kindness to the just and the unjust. That is absurd for if God letting war happen does not mean God approves of it then God sending rain on us all does not mean he is kind to the just. He might have to do it and then it cannot be called kindness. The errors in the messages suggest that if the visionaries are seeing anything they are lying about what is going on for infernal or celestial beings would not make blunders for they have too great a store of information available to them and should have perfect memory retention.

Laurentin argues that the Lady gave an apologetic for the Catholic Church when she told the visionaries that her appearing in a Catholic Church should say a lot to them (121). But maybe she just meant she could not be the Devil when she appeared in a Church? She did not say and Laurentin guesses that she meant to imply the Catholic Church was true. Perhaps she was just implying that Catholic Marian devotion was being approved or that the Catholic Church was the holiest Church?

The Virgin and her cronies agree that the message of the apparitions can be summed up in Conversion, Mass, Bible-reading, Prayer, Penance and Confession. The Virgin said that the Bible is the number one book to read for spiritual development. That is untrue because the Bible is full of unsavoury morality and fanaticism and does conjuring tricks with facts. The New Testament is full of commands like be gentle and loving but that is too vague. We need to know what love is and it does not tell us. There are millions of books that are better and more edifying and clearer than the Bible. The vision was a liar or the visionaries are lying for even the Devil would know not to say anything so ridiculous.

Jesus said in the last days that many and even the elect could be deceived by the mighty wonders the false Christs and false prophets will perform – which by the way is one of the reasons the fruits of Medjugorje are not as good as they look for the vast majority of pilgrims have not done the through checking up on the messages and the visions that would be necessary to avoid deception. Their prayers lead them away from God as he is to their own false perception of a God who sanctions their disobedience and carelessness. The fruits cannot be used as evidence that God is really working there.

A great devotee of Fatima and expert on apparitions, Brother Michael of the Holy Trinity had an article in the traditionalist Catholic, St John’s Bulletin on Medjugorje.

Here is a synopsis. My comments are in brackets.

A lady doctor once told the visionaries in 1981 that they were too much into fashion to be real visionaries. Fr Kraljevic said that the apparitions did not make much of a change in Mirjana’s lifestyle.

The visionaries said that the first time they saw Mary on the hill they were there to gather flowers or collect sheep. Laurentin sought hard to cover up their admission to the bishop that this was lies for they went there to smoke. Laurentin’s cover up was more than clumsy. Vicka confessed that they did go to smoke. Laurentin says that they lied because they were afraid to break the oath by telling the whole truth. That is bizarre reasoning and shows that he would do anything to make the apparitions look good. Laurentin tried to say then that it was nothing important but it was when they lied to the bishop.

Vicka and Ivan were terrified at the first vision which suggests they saw something sinister or were in the presence of an evil spirit.  (Who would be afraid of Mary holding a baby? The entity then seems to have persuaded them to say it was the Virgin Mary.)

Laurentin says that the Virgin never told the children she would stop appearing at the end of the week of the first apparitions.

Zanic and the parish priest knew the Virgin did say it.

Vicka was questioned by Bubalo and she said she could not remember if the Virgin said it. That would be impossible to forget. (She could not deny it for they said they heard the Virgin say it and she could not affirm it for she could not say the Virgin was wrong. So all she could do was say she forgot.) She said that if the records say they said that then they must have said it. But she had to be sure they said it.

The miracle of Mirjana’s watch changing time is rightly rejected as too silly and easily faked to be taken seriously. When she would delude herself about something like that she would do anything to promote the visions even lying.

Vicka told Bubalo that people trampled on Mary which is grotesque.

Laurentin ignores the numerous times the visionaries let people touch and hug the Virgin Mary for this claim is too much to believe. Vicka said the Lady’s veil can be dirtied and she saw people leaving marks on her as they touched her so Laurentin can only say it is not important. (That would make him a liar for touching the Virgin would be more than important.) Marinko who was in the middle of a mechanic job was summoned to Mary for a kiss. He felt something like static on his face but not a kiss. (That static is just like what you feel when you think somebody is about to hit you unexpectedly on the face within the next twenty seconds.) The Virgin would do better than that. Vicka got a doctor to feel behind the Virgin and guided his hand (page 116, Scientific and Medical Studies, etc.). This would be most immodest.

The people are so deeply Catholic that they will obey the priests if they tell them to honour Mary of Medjugorje. This obedience rather than the vision is the cause of the good fruits.


God set up one true faith so division from false religion and error is necessary. The Lady of Medjugorje condemns division and says that divisive religion does not exist in God’s sight. She says that division exists because believers separate themselves from one another. The assertion that God doesn’t care what faith you belong to denies the Catholic teaching that God gives all the light to see the truth or at least know that they need to look further into the matter that they feel like disputing to keep the real Church of God together and so anybody who separates from it is breaking away from it and altering the faith revealed by Christ.

Her command to respect other religions is disturbing for there is only one faith that should be respected, the true one. (Michael would believe that you respect persons in other religions but you must hate their beliefs and be nice to them and try to enlighten them because you hate these beliefs. Religion is a faith system and not the people in it so we have to hate wrong religion. It has to be hated because we love the people. Michael Davies teaches that the Virgin is teaching heresy when she commands, “You must respect each person’s religion” for the same reason: page 14, Medjugorje – After Fifteen Years).

Brother Michael is one of Fatima’s greatest fans. He could not approve of Medjugorje which itself approves of Fatima for the Medjugorje Lady has none of the antagonism that the Fatima Virgin had towards communists symbolised by Russia. The Fatima Virgin warned that communists would do much harm to the world if her Immaculate Heart was not consecrated soon. This was done too late and Jesus allegedly told Lucia that. The Med Virgin denies Fatima for she is full of love and kisses towards Marxists and communists and wants Catholics to learn from them. The Communists were so pleased with the Med Virgin that they decided that Medjugorje was a good thing after initial opposition.

Conclusion: The Medjugorje Virgin has made more doctrinal errors and stated rubbish than most other reported apparitions. She is not even smart never mind Jesus' mother. She is a lie or if you believe in witchcraft you can blame it.



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