RINGLEADER OF THE MEDJUGORJE HOAX IS FATHER RENE LAURENTIN
Dr. Gagliardi: "We could not ascertain the sincerity of the seers, but on
the synchronicity of the ecstasies they were lying. They said they had the
same vision at the same time. We deliberately staggered some clocks so that they
displayed a five minute difference between them and observed two of the seers in
different rooms. Well, Marija came into ecstasy five minutes before Ivan and
finished five minutes before. Strange, isn’t it?"
Despite the official statements from the Catholic
hierarchy that has studied the alleged apparitions of Our Lady in Medjugorje in
the former Yugoslavia that nothing supernatural is happening at the site, many
mavericks have tried to provide evidence to the contrary. The ringleader is the
dangerous manipulator Fr Rene Laurentin known as the world’s foremost
mariologist, that is theologian of Mary.
In Laurentin’s book, The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today, 1990
edition, he quotes the locutionist, Fr Gobbi, giving a message from Mary in 1987
where she says that that year some of the great events she predicted at Fatima
will happen (page 153). She said she told this to the young people of Medjugorje
and said she appears there (page 153). Laurentin admitted that 1987 passed by
and the prophecies of Fatima and Medjugorje did not get fulfilled but tries to
argue that this was not a false prediction nonetheless for predictions tend to
be awkwardly expressed making events far away seem to have been predicted as if
they were around the corner! All this despite the lady saying, “Already it shall
be this year that my Fatima predictions will be fulfilled”. He is twisting the
facts. He is not an honest person.
Laurentin accepts that the bishop of a diocese should be the one to decide if
devotion to an alleged apparition should be allowed or not (page 41) and yet he
argues that supernatural things happened at Garabandal Spain in the sixties
(page 146, The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today) despite four
official statements from successive bishops of that place clearly stating that
everything allegedly supernatural had been checked out and explained as natural
(The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today, page 145). This does not
sound like great devotion to the authority of the apostles invested in the
bishops. The fact that the Garabandal children were locked out of the Church to
stop them having visions there and they went and had them at the Church door
shows no respect for the authority of the clergy of the Catholic Church. The
real Virgin would not have appeared under such conditions because she would
respect the fear of the clergy that letting her appear in or near the Church on
consecrated Church grounds might be a sacrilege in case she is not the real
Mary.
The Medjugorje apparition manifested in the presence of Father Zovko in the
parish Church on 2 July 1981. The next day, the same thing happened. Crowds were
in the Church on both occasions. Father Tadija Pavlovic was among them and
stated the visionaries declared that they would have no more visions. They
changed their minds later and visions have been reported ever since! An
apparition appearing in a Church is simply very problematic. Even if the Church
accepts the apparition as from God, the Church admits the possibility that some
occult or demonic force was at work. That is why even the real Virgin would not
appear in a Church. It would be encouraging the people to accept something
appearing there that maybe should not be there.
Laurentin believes in the visions of Fatima. Sr Lucia the only surviving
visionary said that Mary told her Russia would be converted if Russia was
consecrated by the pope and the bishops. Pius XI and John XXIII ignored her
request. But Pius XII, Paul VI and John Paul II did the consecration eight times
and she kept complaining that as Russia remained godless that they didn’t do it
right and haggled with new suggestions of what to do. She changed the precisions
she wanted for she didn’t spell out the same details to the popes when they
asked her to tell them what Mary wanted (page 47, The Apparitions of the Blessed
Virgin Mary Today). It was simple and Lucia couldn’t get it right and yet
Laurentin makes excuses for her. She was a fantasist and we know from other
sources she regularly contradicts herself – the hallmark of a dishonest person.
That Laurentin didn’t have or want to have the discernment to see that is
worrying.
Laurentin said that Mama Rosa the visionary of San Damiano was a very holy woman
though he implies that she may have been guilty of fraud when he says Mary asked
her to collect money to build her a city of roses that never came to be and that
many people suspected her (page 147, The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Today). She had enough money made to bequeath it to the pope who refused it. Yet
Laurentin says that Mama got involved with traditionalist priests who persuaded
her that communion in the hand was a sacrilege and surprise surprise she soon
had the Virgin saying the same thing in 1969. If so, she was clearly making the
messages up. This message made the Church oppose the visions as the sacrilege
suggestion implied disobedience to the Church which began to accept communion in
the hand again just like it was done in the early Church. Mama Rosa wasn’t that
angelic after all.
Laurentin’s approved of the bishop of Lourdes having argued in the decree of
recognition of the apparitions there as authentic, that the big crowds at
Lourdes showed Mary really appeared there (page 28, The Apparitions of the
Blessed Virgin Mary Today). That is frighteningly unscientific and
anti-Christian for Jesus said that throngs of people would run after satanic and
false miracles. Yet this very argument might have been what made the bishop
decide to approve! What value then can we attach to his irrational decree? God
didn’t guide him so God himself didn’t think much of the Lourdes visions!
Laurentin should have realised that when an artist tried to reproduce the
colours of the Medjugorje Virgin’s dress, which is grey, silver and bluish and
the visionaries said he couldn’t make anything like it (page 32, The Apparitions
of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today) that that was a warning sign. Why? Because if
you can see it we have the paints and the technology to reproduce whatever is
seen. We can make paints shine and make glowing pictures. The visionaries were
just copying St Bernadette who said much the same thing.
Yet Ivan said on the documentary Apparitions of the Virgin Mary stated that he
sees Mary like an ordinary three-dimensional person and stated that he talks to
her just like he talks to his interviewer (Galaxie Productions, Amaya Films,
2000).
He says that the ears and eyes of the visionaries of Medjugorje respond to
sounds and lights when they are having their vision but they pay no attention to
them (page 49, The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today) but just focus
on the apparition. Sounds like good yogic concentration rather than a miracle to
me! So he says also (same page) that the EEG shows that the children give no
reaction during the EEG and their attention is focused only on the vision.
Significantly, it bears no trace that an invisible person is speaking to the
children. You would expect sounds that didn’t exist in the room but which were
made by the vision to show up in the EEG. They don’t. The tests don’t prove that
they are communing with an invisible person at all. Quite the opposite.
He states that visions are false if they add to the gospel of Christ (page 18,
The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today) even though Medjugorje has
given 10 secrets and many other revelations that are not in the gospel. For the
Virgin to stand up for priests like Vego is as much an addition to the gospel as
would adding a line saying Judas was homosexual to the gospels would be. There
is no difference in practice where it counts.
Laurentin says he approves of the Church having done away with the Canon Law
forbidding the promotion of unauthenticated apparitions. But it is obvious that
the Church cannot endanger its authority and let people publish without
permission for apparitions can easily lead people into separation from the
Church and heresy. But according to Laurentin such publication is fine!!
People who can be proven to be religious liars are responsible for the
popularity of Vassula Ryden. She claims that entities from Heaven write through
her hand and appear to her in visions. Laurentin promoted her though she
was known to have had messages fixed and then presented to the gullible as real
messages from Jesus and who was given the honour of a condemnation by the
Vatican (page 196, The Medjugorje Deception). He covered up for how
Vassula whose first marriage broke up and who had remarried against Bible
teaching by saying her first marriage was found to be invalid. It was not
investigated even so how could it be null? (Medjugorje the Untold Story II, page
25).
Medjugorje supporters such as Father Michael O Carroll and
Archbishop Franic were as bad though her heresy and absurd messages not to
mention her use of the mediumistic technique of automatic writing to get
messages from Jesus whose handwriting was very odd were shameless.
Laurentin became aware that if too many of the claimed
visionaries were related it might cause problems or suspicion about their
honesty or objectivity. So according to Laurentin in 1984 they were not
related at all. Writer Mary Craig claimed that too in 1988. (Craig 1988:
18; Laurentin and Rupčić 1984: 25. But they are liars and Laurentin knew
they were in fact related. The Ivankovic visionaries are in fact first
cousins! Dragicevics are as well. Marija Pavlovic and Jakov Colo are cousins
too. Claverie (2003: 371–3.).
The book Our Lady of the Nations could be thinking of Laurentin when it says,
"Medjugorje presents a problem for research, as no thorough academic and
objective treatment has been published in English." It says the problem
with Zimdars-Swartz' work on the subject is that she depended too much on
devotional books. Naturally this would refer to Laurentin who appears in her
bibliography.
Laurentin tampered with the transcripts of the tape recordings recounting the
early appearances. Fr Ivo Sivric noticed that he left items out and took
liberties with the text to make the apparitions sound more convincing and
plausible than they were. A lot of books on the subject of Medjugorje were
shifted on the back of his lies.
Without Laurentin, the bogus apparitions would not have gained the influence and
prestige they have done in the world. People would not have been fooled or have
wasted money to be with an Our Lady who was not there.
He may have seen the light a bit later on. More than two decades after the visions he stated, "I have never expressed a positive judgment on the authenticity of the Medjugorje apparitions." Caution at last when it was too late!
