MONEY AND MEDJUGORJE VISIONS
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 tests were not very convincing. Are the apparitions hoaxes? The interest in money says YES!
Note the last commission on the alleged visions said the monetary and economic activities of the visionaries were a matter of grave concern.
Here is a good account of what is going on financially.
22 Thursday Nov 2012
Posted by John Gerardi in Catholicism
I had an interesting Thursday evening last week. I learned from a friend that
Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti, one of the “seers” of the alleged Marian apparitions
taking place regularly for the last 31 years in Medjugorje, was coming to the
Joyce Center at Notre Dame (our roughly 10,000-seat basketball arena) to have a
Marian apparition, and the public was invited to pray with her and watch the
apparition happen. And guess who was called in to be the special investigative
reporter for one of the student newspapers. Yessiree bob. Yours truly.
Now, let’s get this out of the way. I think the apparitions at Medjugorje are totally fake. In fact, they anger me because I think a lot of
it is motivated by getting money off of foreign devotees who are being deceived
into believing in the apparitions. I think this for a number of reasons.
First, every single local bishop from the Diocese of Mostar, where Medjugorje is
located (Medjugorje is a small town in southern Bosnia-Herzegovina), agrees with
my skepticism. Not one of them has given any sort of positive approval to the
alleged apparitions, ever since they began in the early 80’s. The Church has
given the apparitions no approbation whatsoever; in fact, some of the local
bishops have argued that nothing supernatural whatsoever is taking place there.
Secondly, the “seers” all have financial stakes in the operation. All of them
have made a good deal of money off of international speaking circuits wherein
they talk about, promote, and actually receive the apparitions in front of
audiences like this one. All of them have ownership stakes in hotels and hostels
where pilgrims can stay during their visits to Medjugorje. An entire travel and
pilgrimage industry has been built up locally around the apparition sites, which
has resulted in many people making a lot of money, including some unsavory types
who one time kidnapped the local, disapproving-of-their-cash-cow bishop. Marija
herself has a financial stake in the thing; in addition to her international
talks, she owns a retreat center and residence in the back of her property for
pilgrims to rent out. That’s kinda like how Lourdes’ St. Bernadette and Fatima’s
Lucia acted after their apparitions, only the exact opposite. They both took
vows of poverty as nuns.
Third, the whole thing has become a battlefront for some very weird, very local
churchy politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Basically it boils down to a
longstanding conflict that the local Franciscans (who have served the people in
the region for a very long time, almost exclusively) have had with the
imposition of a regular diocesan and secular-clergy structure. In 1975, the Holy
Father issued a decree for how parishes in the region would be divided up
between the bickering Franciscan and secular clergy. This document was (ahem)
not well received by some of the Franciscans. Some of them felt they should have
a larger role in this region where they had so long labored.
The supposed apparitions became a front for certain Franciscans to engage in
rebellious activity against the local diocesan bishop. The “spiritual directors”
for the seers were all Franciscan priests, and the churches and shrines around
which most of the activity of the seers is focused are run by the Franciscans.
In association with their promotion of the apparitions, some of these
Franciscans have done insane stuff like hostile takeovers of parishes from the
diocesan clergy. As a result, the Holy See stripped some of these Franciscans of
their faculties and removed them from the clerical state, while their Franciscan
superiors in Rome kicked them out of the order. These rebellious priests draped
themselves in the apparitions as a cloak of legitimacy to justify their
unwillingness to submit to lawful authority.
Fourth, the people in charge of these events are pretty disingenuous about the
apparitions’ level of approval. They basically suck people into thinking the
apparitions are “approved” by means of a few, not-well-substantiated,
off-the-cuff, and highly unofficial quotes from Bl. John Paul II and/or Bl.
Mother Theresa. On the program of this very event at Notre Dame, they had a
whole page of such quotes, none of which carried any sort of official weight for
the purposes of the Church’s approval. I would also note that Bl. John Paul and
Bl. Mother Theresa are people who (in the Church’s estimation) displayed heroic
virtue; this does not mean that they always displayed accurate judgment in
evaluating whether something was a hoax or not (Exhibit A-Z: Marcial Maciel of
the Legion of Christ, who duped JP2 for his entire life. Thankfully, he didn’t
dupe Josef Ratzinger one bit.).
Fifth, and most importantly, there’s no way that Mary has said some of the
things these people claim she has said. Apparently, Mary has encouraged
disobedience to the local diocesan bishop some 13 times. Given that the most
famous things Mary ever said were 1. silence, and 2. “Let it be done to me
according to Thy will,” I’m guessing that disobedience to lawful authority isn’t
generally her cup of tea. Also something Mary probably wouldn’t do: threaten a
local bishop. Apparently she threatened that she and her Son would punish the
local bishop if he didn’t approve the apparition. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. The
Medjugorje seers seemed to wise up after these “declarations” received bad
press; they then began publishing messages from Our Lady that tread much safer
ground: e.g., that Mass, the Rosary, the Eucharist, and Confession are Good
Things. Wow, thanks Mr. Obvious!
I could go into other stuff. For example, during their ecstatic visions, the
seers are allegedly unable to sense anything else going on around them. In one
of these visions, someone waved a hand in front of one seer’s face, which caused
her to be startled. She explained her jump by claiming that, in her ecstatic
vision, Mary almost dropped the baby Jesus–that’s what she jumped at. This makes
sense because–as we all know–Mary sure can be a real clumsy oaf sometimes when
she, the IMMACULATE MOTHER OF GOD AND MOST HOLY QUEEN OF HEAVEN is holding THE
SECOND PERSON OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY in her arms.
Nevertheless (if that enormous heap of steamy BS wasn’t enough to convince you)
the most simple argument against being involved with Medjugorje is simply that
it (drumroll) IS. NOT. YET. APPROVED. BY. THE. CHURCH. So why bother with it?
Why get so emotionally whipped up about it, only possibly to find out in a year
or so that maybe it isn’t authentic (which may well happen, since the Vatican is
investigating it currently)? There are plenty of approved Marian apparitions,
including a lot of apparitions that people don’t really read a lot about. Here’s
a whole list of them. Go (Our Lady of) Knock yourself out! (That started out as
an inadvertent pun, and it became a lot more advertent in the second draft of
this piece.)
“But Johnny, I know a priest who went over to Medjugorje and he said he found his
vocation there and it changed his life forever and there are so many good
fruits! How can you just dismiss the devotion these people have?! You ought to
be ashamed of yourself. Ya irreverent little smartass.”
Well, look, I’m not unaware of the fact that a lot of good has come out of
Medjugorje. It has changed lots of people for the better. I’m pretty skeptical about
the reports of miracles out there (lots of unsubstantiated talk about people’s
rosaries turning to gold isn’t going to sway me), but it’s clear that good
things happened and are happening there.
How to explain it? Well, first of all, Christ’s expression that “[b]y your
fruits you shall know them” is not, nor was it intended to be, a universally
true statement in each and every scenario in each and every time everywhere.
Yes, it tends to be true. St. Ignatius of Loyola was a good guy; he produced a
lot of good fruits. His order also produced a lot of not-so-great fruits, IF ya
know what I mean (thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week). We’ve seen a
number of times where bad fruits came out of well-intentioned efforts (e.g., the
Crusades where the good motive of keeping the Holy Land free from Muslim
conquest resulted in killing innocent civilians in Jerusalem and
Constantinople), and where good fruits came from rotten efforts (e.g., the
Legion of Christ, which produced a lot of holy priests and helped a lot of laity
grow in holiness, but also were led by a corrupt, power-hungry child molester).
Basically, you’re going to have good fruits whenever well-intentioned people are
going to Mass a lot, adoring the Blessed Sacrament a lot, going to Confession a
lot, and praying the Rosary a lot. Hence, the conversions, the spiritual fruits,
etc.
I don’t wish to demean the people who believe in Medjugorje. Almost all of them are
well-meaning, devout Catholics; as I walked into this event at the Joyce Center,
I saw a lot of people I knew, some of them there with their large, Humanae
vitae-following families. I even saw a few people who are devoted to the
Traditional Latin Mass–odd, since trads generally view Medjugorje with outright
disdain. I have nothing but respect for people who have found something
inspiring and beautiful from Medjugorje; nevertheless, their sincerity does not
make them immune to deception.
Anyway, I walked into the Joyce Center at about 5:55pm with a friend of mine,
whose identity I will protect by calling her LaSaundruh. LaSaundruh and I walked
to some seats, surrounded by about three or four thousand faithful–the Joyce
Center was somewhere between 1/3 and 1/4 full. Although the event was held at a
college campus, I did not see a ton of college kids or single young adults. Most
of the crowd seemed to be younger married people, their children, and a large
number of senior citizens. Near the middle of the basketball court a dais was
set up; on the right side was a crucifix, on the left side was a podium, and in
the middle was a large statue of Our Lady. To the left side of the dais was a
piano which someone played in order to lead the people in singing hymns. In
front of the dais, in the center, was a prie-dieu set up for Marija to kneel
during her vision.
The organizer of the event greeted us by letting us know that we would pray a
rosary, and then Marija would talk a bit, lead us in a few prayers, and then go
into her vision. He also noted that there was going to be another event in the
Joyce Center around 8 or so, and that they had promised the Joyce Center people
that the crowd would depart by 7:45.
This small scheduling bit actually seemed like the most significant part of the
night, to me. Exactly how, I pondered, is this seer able to schedule when Mary
will appear around the availability of the Joyce Center? I’ve never heard of
this concept of Mary “appearing” to someone via an extraordinary, ecstatic
vision at the seer’s very whim and command. I cannot comprehend how anyone would
think that the very Mother of God, the Theotokos herself, the Queen of Heaven
and Earth, would give a flying rip about another event occurring in the Joyce
Center at 8pm. I’d imagine that, generally, with authentic apparitions, the
apparition-er is dictating the whens and wheres of the apparition to the
apparition-ee. Apparently, this is not the case with Our Lady of Medjugorje, who can
appear at the seers’ command, and can appear at essentially any public event
that they schedule.
Anyway, there was nothing else particularly noteworthy about the event itself.
We prayed a rosary, with Marija (a modestly dressed, middle-aged woman with
bleached blonde hair and a thick European accent) leading two decades of the
rosary in Italian and her native Croatian. We then all knelt down in
anticipation of Marija receiving the apparition; in Croatian, she led the crowd
in a series of Our Father’s, Hail Mary’s, and Glory Be’s, until she suddenly
stopped in the middle of one of them. This was the big moment. The apparition
had begun.
Everyone knelt silently for about five minutes. Eventually, she made the sign of
the cross and stood up to address the people. Apparition over. The whole thing
felt almost like a liturgy, very well-scripted, with Marija acting as though she
had done all this a thousand times before.
Well, I’m not sure if I’m just ascribing my own disappointment to everyone
else’s expectations, but…she didn’t talk about what happened in the apparition.
She didn’t say what Mary had told her. She did not mention the apparition at
all, in fact. She thanked everyone for inviting her, she talked about how so
many wonderful Catholic things had been going on at Notre Dame, and…yep, that
was about it. I mean, I was miffed, and I don’t even think she was having an
apparition. I’d have to imagine everyone else was at least slightly
disappointed. Anyway, after that, the event was effectively over.
Well, almost. It was then noted that the organizers were wondering if people
would be willing to “donate” money to Marija to cover the costs of her flight
out. Not for any of the churches over in Medjugorje, not for some charitable
organization, but to cover her flight. A couple hundred check books came out. Ah
ha. No wonder she was able to build that big retreat center.
At any rate, I think I’ve had my fill of Marian apparitions for now. I hope the
Holy See can finally give some clarity to this mess, which stewed for almost the
entirety of Bl. John Paul’s pontificate without resolution.
I just pray that the people attached to Medjugorje have more faith in the Church
than in these apparitions. You don’t need Medjugorje, or even Lourdes or Fatima,
to be an authentic, believing Catholic. You do need the Church. The Holy See
established a commission to investigate the Medjugorje question, and this
commission (led by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, a longtime friend and confidant of
Ratzinger) will soon issue a ruling on the matter. I fear that a negative ruling
from the commission could be a cause of scandal and possibly even loss of faith
for people who have become devoted to these apparitions. I pray that the
supporters of the Medjugorje movement will respond with humility and submission
of their wills to Holy Mother Church, no matter what she decides.