Medjugorje –Proof that it’s Dangerous
  
Has the Virgin Mary, under the title of Our Lady, Queen of Peace been appearing in Medjugorje in the former Yugoslavia since 1981? Six young people have reported these visions and have been subjected to tests. The authenticity or otherwise of the apparitions is a matter of great debate in the Catholic Church.
 
Wayne W Dyer - see Wishes Fulfilled, Hay House, London, 2012, page 4 tells us how he took a group to Medjugorje to experience the miraculous.

Some who promote subtle forms of occultism, such as Dyer, do that. They report the same miracles and sense of peace and good fruits as the real Catholic pilgrims do. Page 8 has Dyer giving us Brenda Babinski's testimony to seeing Dyer turn into St Francis of Assisi! The letter-writer reported an apparition of a little old lady who was saying spiritual things and telling her she was an angel. The lady disappeared. Dyer doesn't know who she was. But could it have been an apparition of the Virgin taking the form she would have had when she died at 60?
 
THE MEDJUGORJE DISGRACE
 
Tycoons and lunatics and travel agencies have a lot at stake in relation to the Medjugorje phenomenon. There it all started with alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1981. Medjugorje believers tell loads of lies. One lie is that Pope John Paul II believed in the apparitions. While the pope could have praised the return to communion and confession that takes place at Medjugorje this does not imply approval of the visionaries or visions. Also popes can have whatever private opinions they want about apparitions and his opinion would not infer that he was giving official approval.
 
Bishop Zanic was bishop of the area when the visions started. He disapproved of the apparitions and used his authority to try and stop them. And when he retired Pope John Paul replaced him with Bishop Peric though Peric is far more opposed to the apparitions than his predecessor. Medjugorje believers have never been able to produce official Vatican statements to show that the pope accepted the apparitions.
 
Medjugorje believers ignore the fact that the Church has condemned the apparitions as bogus. They say the Church cannot finally decide until the apparitions come to an end. But does the Church really need to wait until the end? Why not examine the several years of visions at Medjugorje that have already happened?
 
Regardless of the scepticism of the Church and the bans, the visionaries go about saying that it is Mary who is appearing to them and they invite and encourage people to believe that. They never say, "We believe that it is Mary who is appearing to us. Everybody must make up their own mind and wait for the final judgement of the Church." Proof of this can be found in the video/DVD called Vicka: Her Story by Finbar O Leary available from Finbar O Leary, Ravensdale, Church Road, Douglas, Cork, Ireland. He interviewed her and no mention of the rule that the Church must decide if Mary is appearing there before people can go about saying she is was made. Vicka can be taken as supporting his conviction that Mary is appearing there. The plug for the Video/DVD goes "the fullest account yet given, of her story and experiences with Our Lady" which is on the back cover. It is certainly inconsistent to take ones beliefs about Mary on the authority of the bishops and the Church and then to proclaim an apparition to be authentic regardless of what the Church may decide.
 
It is easy to meet Catholics who went to Medjugorje and came back no holier than before. If Medjugorje gets people to confession it could still be the Devil's work for Satan only fears permanent change. He doesn't mind if he accidentally produces some saints as long as the overall damage is worth it.
 
The most irritating thing about Medjugorje devotees is how they ignore all criticism and scepticism of the apparitions and bleat, "But look how Medjugorje brings people back to the Church and to Our Lady, the Rosary, Mass and Confession. It must be Mary who is appearing there." Such reasoning is an insult to the hard work of Church and secular investigators who see that whatever is happening in Medjugorje is deceptive and dangerous. It is trying to prevent their voice from being heard. It is really an admission that one doesn't care if the truth is that the apparitions are false. If the apparitions are producing that kind of false devotion then Satan is on to a winner in Medjugorje if he is orchestrating the apparitions.
 
Some Catholics believe that there were real apparitions of Mary at the start but now the visionaries have gone over to the Devil or are using psychic powers to see the Virgin. If there is power at Medjugorje then it is certainly not down to the current apparitions. The Church says too that beneficial spiritual effects come from the prayer, Eucharist and confessions that take place at Medjugorje and that people may be mistaking these effects as the work of the apparition. So the good fruits are possibly fruits of the praying and devotion and the sacraments not the apparition.
 
If there was no proof that bad rivets were used in the Titanic the following would happen. Some people would say that bad rivets were used. Their critics would say, "But the ship was produced by the best ship building minds in the world. Impossible!" But it really happened - bad rivets were used. The critics are just as bloody-minded as Medjugorje fans.
 
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, November 1996

Regarding the circulation of texts of alleged private revelations, the Congregation states:
 
The Interpretation given by some individuals to a Decision approved by Paul VI on 14 October 1966 and promulgated on 15 November of that year, in virtue of which writings and messages resulting from alleged revelations could be freely circulated in the Church, is absolutely groundless. This decision actually referred to the "abolition of the Index of Forbidden Books" and determined that --- after the relevant censures were lifted --- the moral obligation still remained of not circulating or reading those writings which endanger faith and morals.

In should be recalled however that with regard to the circulation of texts of alleged private revelations, canon 623 #1 of the current Code remains in force: "the Pastors of the Church have the … right to demand that writings to be published by the Christian faithful which touch upon faith or morals be submitted to their judgment".
 
Alleged supernatural revelations and writings concerning them are submitted in first instance to the judgment of the diocesan Bishop, and, in particular cases, to the judgment of the Episcopal Conference and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
 
Any apparition that breaks this rule, and the Medjugorje Virgin commands that her messages be distributed as they are received, is not a Catholic apparition or concerned about Catholic orthodoxy. The bishops are the official Catholic teachers not apparitions. The vast majority of modern visions break the rule and so are themselves disobedient apparitions.
 
THE IRISH CATHOLIC
 
Irish Catholic, Thursday, January 15 2009:
 
"Vatican to Tackle Alleged visions
 
People who claim they have seen the Virgin Mary will be forced to remain silent about the apparitions until a team of psychologists and theologians have fully investigated their claims under new Vatican guidelines aimed at stamping out false claims of miracles. The new guidelines approved by Pope Benedict XVI, may have grave implications for alleged visionaries such as Christina Gallagher and her controversial Achill House of Prayer. According to the directive, anyone who claims to have seen an apparition will only be believed as long as they remain silent and do not court publicity over their claims. If they refuse to obey, this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false. Ms Gallagher has consistently refused to integrate her work into the local Church. An ongoing investigation into Ms Gallagher's claim that she receives visions of the Virgin Mary has found no evidence. Local Archbishop, Michael Neary, has consistently pointed out that the Achill organisation has no Church backing and insisted that Ms Gallagher's work does not enjoy his confidence".
 
Despite the directive, the Medjugorje visionaries continue to give messages from Mary and court publicity. They are in effect accusing the Roman Catholic Virgin Mary of disobeying the pope despite her messages that the pope is her Son's representative on earth and to be obeyed! If these visions are miraculous then they show that we should not regard apparitions as reliable sources of truth or doctrine. It is obvious that since the Roman faith is fairly complicated and there is supposed to be a very clever Devil influencing people, that no genuine Catholic would give a message supposedly from Heaven without first having it looked over by the Church and found to be compatible with and supportive of Catholic doctrine.
 
The Medjugorje Virgin never directed the visionaries to have the messages checked by the authorised representatives of the Church before they were delivered to the people. They indeed never made any effort to do so. This was certainly a very dubious thing to do - they were more concerned about pleasing people, they were more concerned about an apparition and they were more concerned about the glory of being thought to be messengers of Mary than the purity of the Catholic faith. The Catholic faith teaches that it is the Church that holds the word of God not visions which are supposed to only draw attention to the Church's authority to teach instead of assuming an authority of their own. 
 
UNDERSTANDING MEDJUGORJE, HEAVENLY VISIONS OR RELIGIOUS ILLUSION? Donal Anthony Foley, Theotokos Books, Nottingham, 2006
 
To Order Understanding Medjugorje visit http://www.theotokos.org.uk or write to Theotokos Books, PO Box, 8570, Nottingham, England
 
Videos
 
VISIONS ON DEMAND, Network 5 International, 1997
DIVINE OR DECEIVED? COVER-UP, Network 5 International, 1998
 
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