Vjera i djela Catholic Portal (Croatia)
August 7, 2026
Italian journalist D. Murgia recently published results of the 2016 deliberations within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), that shed important new light on the Vatican’s handling of the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje.
The International Commission on Medjugorje, chaired by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, had been established in 2010 at the request of Pope Benedict XVI. Crucially, it was not constituted as an independent body reporting directly to the Pope, but within and under the authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Holy See’s official announcement stated that the Commission would conduct its work confidentially and submit the results of its study to the competent authorities of the Congregation. The intention was therefore that the Commission’s conclusions would constitute one stage of a broader doctrinal examination: the CDF, which had already been studying the Medjugorje phenomenon for decades, was subsequently to evaluate the Commission’s findings before the matter was submitted to the Pope for judgment and decision.
The Ruini Commission completed its work in 2014 and transmitted its documentation to the CDF. Its conclusions were comparatively favourable, particularly concerning the possibility of a supernatural character of the earliest alleged apparitions of 1981. Pope Francis subsequently referred the matter to the CDF’s Feria Quarta, its regular deliberative session. The members considered not only the Ruini Report, but also a critical document challenging the Commission’s conclusions and a further response to those objections.
The outcome was strikingly different from the generally favourable impression associated with the Ruini Commission. Thirty-three cardinals, bishops and other senior ecclesiastical figures were asked to give a written and reasoned judgment on whether the Medjugorje phenomenon was supernatural. Twenty-one of the thirty-three — almost two thirds — concluded constat de non supernaturalitate: that Medjugorje was not of supernatural origin. Only nine voted constat de supernaturalitate, while three considered that there was insufficient evidence to reach a definitive conclusion.
This distinction is important. The favourable conclusions frequently attributed to “the Vatican Commission” were not the final judgment of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Commission had been created by the Congregation as an investigative body whose findings were to be submitted to the Congregation for further examination. When that subsequent examination took place, the result was substantially more negative: approximately two thirds of those consulted rejected the supernatural character of the phenomenon.
Pope Francis ultimately did not follow this negative assessment of the CDF. Instead, he effectively set it aside and focused on the conclusions of the Ruini Commission itself, whose position regarding the earliest alleged apparitions was considerably more favourable. He reserved the Medjugorje question to himself, thereby bypassing the negative outcome of the further doctrinal evaluation for which the Commission’s report had originally been intended. The Holy See has nevertheless never formally recognised the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje as supernatural.
Murgia does not disclose how he obtained the confidential documents or identify his source. He does, however, state that he intends eventually to publish the individual votes, explaining that he had made such a promise to “a person very dear to me, who recently died,” and that he felt particularly obliged to honour that promise. The commentary accompanying Murgia’s article on Croatian blog Vjera i djela draws attention to the fact that Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who had chaired the International Commission on Medjugorje and would have been intimately familiar with its work and subsequent Vatican deliberations, died on 16 June 2026.
