Many people regard Medjugorje as the beginning of their conversion. Is there a theological logic of "good fruits", which allows for conclusions of an experience of grace or the authenticity of the phenomenon?
Fr. Manfred Hauke: Good fruits alone are still no confirmation for the supernatural origin of a visionary phenomenon. In medicine placebo therapy also sometimes brings good results, but they aren't to be credited to the medicine as such. And even at a place, at which trickery happens or even the devil acts, it is possible that divine grace acts and people convert and find God. In the criteria for the supernatural credibility of Marian apparitions the fruits are to be connected with the examination of the phenomenon itself and its confirmation through miracles. In Medjugorje there are, in addition, not only good fruits, but also a whole number of negative consequences that are connected with the phenomenon of the apparitions. One of those is the encouragement given to two Franciscan friars, who were urged by the seer Vicka in the name of the "Gospa" to set themselves against the canonically legitimate directives of the local bishop regarding their pastoral activity. At the repeated exhortations of the "Gospa" to disobedience (13 times), the ordinary at the time, Bishop Zanic, who had been originally inclined favorably to the Medjugorje phenomenon, reacted with very understandable rejection.
In his reaction to Cardinal Schönborn's visit Bishop Peric draws attention to further fruits that are connected with the same exhortation to disobedience: at present there are in the Mostar-Duvno diocese nine ex-Franciscans who were suspended from ministry, but are carrying on in usurped parishes as legal priests; certain Franciscans invited an Old-Catholic deacon in 2001, who presented himself as an "Archbishop" and "confirmed" over 700 young people in the usurped parishes, which a deacon can never validly do; two of the recalcitrant friars invited an Old-Catholic bishop from Switzerland with the request to consecrate them as bishops, which the Old-Catholic bishop, however, declined. Two friars, who were closely connected with the beginning of the Medjugorje phenomenon, were disciplined by the Church: Jozo Zovko (the pastor during the first months of the apparition, June-August 1981) was forbidden by his superiors to have any contact with Medjugorje; Tomislav Vlasic, who worked in Medjugorje from 1981-1988, was released from his priestly duties by the Holy See in 2008. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith gave the reason, among other things, of offenses against the sixth commandment, exacerbated by alleged "mystical motivations". The friar had in fact, at the direction of the "Gospa" and the seer Marija Pavlovic, conducted a "mystical marriage" with a lady from Germany in the framework of a mixed religious community. This unusual connection between personal tendencies and mysticism has a longer back-story: in 1976, and therefore before his involvement in Medjugorje, the friar impregnated a religious sister in a mixed "Franciscan community", sent her with pious exhortations to Germany and denied his paternity. This case became known to Bishop Zanic and Cardinal Ratzinger in 1984. Vlasic himself brought the "word of wisdom" spoken to him at a charismatic conference in Rome (May 6, 1981) with him to Medjugorje: "Fear not, I will send you my Mother." An Irish Charismatic woman [Sr. Briege McKenna, O.S.C. --RC] asserted that from Vlasic streams of living water would flow. The influence of such a figure on the beginning period of the Medjugorje phenomenon poses a great number of critical questions. Grave moral accusations are also placed against Zovko, the pastor in the early months, and long-time spiritual confidant of the group of seers (E.M. Jones, The Medjugorje Deception, 2001).
Medjugorje is often cited as an "oasis of peace" during the civil war at the beginning of the '90s. Yet there are also uncomfortable facts that disturb the harmonious view. When revenue from the pilgrimage industry went down in 1992, there were press reports in the wake of a violent conflict among three family clans that served pilgrimage businesses. In a "cleansing action" about 140 inhabitants of Medjugorje were killed, while 600 others had to flee. "This was all kept secret from the the outside world, since it naturally could not be brought into accord with belief in the Queen of Peace" (R. Franken, "A Journey to Medjugorje", 2000, p, 45). Thus there are not only good fruits to the Medjugorje phenomenon.
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Particularly in the early period of the phenomenon there were several very unusual messages. According to a tape-recording transcript from June 30, 1981, the seers reported, according to the assertion of the "Gospa", the end of the appearances would be in three days (on July 3), but they then went on. At the sixth apparition (June 29, 1981), the "Gospa" announced the healing of a four-year-old boy, but it never happened. Furthermore, the "Gospa" informed them (May 25, 1984) that her two-thousandth birthday would fall on August 5, 1984. Would the real Mother of God propagate a birthday celebration for herself, that sets itself apart from the date of the liturgical feast (September 8)? ... Besides untruths and ridiculous things, some erroneous teachings are also presented alongside them: Fr. Vlasic wrote on May 8, 1982, in the Chronicle he authored, that according to the utterance of the "Gospa" the Saints in Heaven are present there not only with the soul, but also with the body. Here on display is the erroneous teaching, widely spread today, but condemned by the Church, of "resurrection in death", in which awaiting the future resurrection at the Second Coming of Christ is rendered nugatory. In other words: alongside plenty of catechetical platitudes that are found with notably more substance in the Bible and the Catechism, the messages contain elements that speak clearly against a supernatural origin of the phenomenon.
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