Medjugorje, more problems than it seems

Blessed are those who see, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Those who listen to the visionaries listen to me.

“This was repeated three times… Peter was still perplexed about what the vision he had had would mean…” (Acts 10, 16-17)

After writing the articles “The hidden face of Medjugorje” I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII last year, I was thinking of leaving this subject aside. But I see that some do not stop. I notice a certain intention to turn this phenomenon into something official, a model to follow. If this phenomenon didn't have problematic, and even dangerous elements, I wouldn't even flinch; quite the opposite. But it has them, and many. The truth is not the same as a lie, nor can anything good be built on a falsehood. A good end cannot be justified by bad means.

I will first expose, in a single article, the reasons and facts (I will remember some of the previous writings trying to explain them a bit more, others I will add) why I do not believe in the (divine) supernaturality of the apparitions in Medjugorje, nor The first Bishop Zanic believed, neither the two commissions set up by him, nor the commission of the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia at that time, nor the current Bishop Ratko Peric, nor many other people truly competent to judge the phenomenon. Then I will address the dangers that can result from a lack of judgment in caring for people with a certain fondness for this phenomenon. Finally I will address the only possible solution that fits this embarrassing phenomenon, according to current competent indications.

The lie is dangerous, the same father of the lie uses it for everything he proposes. We must flee from it like the plague, knowing that "The more a contradiction is admitted, what will there be that cannot be legitimized?" (Saint Pius X, Pascendi).

I write with special attention to the priests, in charge of shepherding their flock in the truth and security of the doctrine taught by the Church, especially adhering to what is stated by the "foundation and pillar of the truth" (1 Tim 3, 15) regarding this phenomenon and general criteria for judging these facts. We are not a Church of "apparitionists" where the truth is received and justified, it is received as from an authorized chair through the seers. The Lord can intervene in our history, private revelations have their place in the Church, but always after a serious and critical examination by those to whom Jesus said: "Whoever listens to you listens to me".

I move on to the arguments against:

1. 1. On more than a dozen occasions (thirteen to be precise, although sometimes two different seers, Vicka and Ivan, were involved) the Apparition tells the seers that two rebellious friars, Vego and Prusina, must remain in Mostar against the will of the bishop who asked them to leave the diocese. The Apparition said that the bishop is to blame for the disorders in the diocese. All this six months after the start of the apparitions.

Comment: Something totally new in Catholic mysticism! Or rather, nothing new. When such things happened, it was always known that this is not in a good spirit, that it comes either from fantasy or from the evil one.

We can say that obedience is a fundamental characteristic of the Christian. Through the disobedience of the first parents, sin entered the world. For Saul's disobedience the kingdom was taken from him. And he had not infringed any provision of a "canon law", but the specific order of a prophet of God. By obedience Christ embraced the holy cross. In the first centuries of the Church, when the practice of a strange way of doing penance, remaining on top of a pillar, began, the confused faithful consulted the competent ones in the community, “Is this what you are doing good or bad? bad? Should they be prohibited from this practice or not? The shepherds told them, “Tell them in our name to come down from there; If they don't listen to you, they don't do the right thing, but if they do, in addition to obeying your instructions, it's because they have a good spirit and you can tell them to stay there as long as they can."

In last year's articles I indicated examples of good mysticism; that in which the person in question obeys his confessor rather than his vision, even in cases where this is authentic; What's more, in this way the confessor or the spiritual director verified the correct disposition of the soul that they had to direct. I will put another one, for not continuing. The author of the Mystical City of God, a book written under inspiration, was ordered to burn it; which was accepted. Then it was dictated to him again. It does not matter if it is about consecrated persons, here an essential point is touched on: in the Church those who have been commissioned by the Lord to do so rule and not through apparitions, unless that is discerned as acceptable by the competent ones.

The Medjugorje phenomenon, unfortunately, is characterized by precisely the opposite: the one who commands is the apparition, the others must obey.

Oh, and one thing. In recent years a pro-phenomenon book has come out saying that many conflicting messages came from communist traps. Do not tell me! Maybe I didn't explain myself well last year. It turns out that I was there too. He was one of Fra Vego's friends, a member of more than twenty young people who formed a prayer group that he led, along with another Franciscan, now unfortunately also a former Franciscan, Fra Stanko Pavlovic, who said he would pray to God through from Fra Vego. Fra Vego did not leave Mostar because we saw him, because we ate and went on excursions with him; and he didn't leave because as he told another friend of mine, fra Drago Skrobo, he didn't leave because Vicka said that Gospa tells him not to go. To that Fra Drago said, with impeccable ecclesial logic: "Who do you listen to, Vicka or the bishop?" He ignored it, he stayed and then on top of that he was with a nun who got pregnant; then they got married and went to Italy.

And why did Bishop Zanic want him to leave with Fra Ivan Prusina? Because in 1980, just before I went to the military, and a year before the apparitions, I heard a homily by Fra Vego, accusing the bishop of bad government, of being like a Pharisee, I remember things like these: “in the scribes and the Pharisees sat on the chair of Moses…” The bishop wanted to put into practice the intention still expressed by Leo XIII and formalized by Paul VI. Is the Virgin going to say that she stays in Mostar against that? And on top of knowing what will happen next? When the bishop found out about this at the beginning of 82, he already knew that this cannot have a divine origin; however, he continued with all rigor, entrusting the investigation to a commission of four theologians, which he later expanded to include theologians and doctors from all over Yugoslavia, who could consult whomever they deem appropriate. From the first months he had already communicated to the Holy See the facts, the circumstances and his opinions concerning the phenomenon. Among pro-Medjugorje it was commented that the rigid hierarchy has no tact for “spiritual” things.

1. 2. The question of the great sign that the Virgin is supposed to leave at the end of the apparitions as proof of them.

Comment: At first this sign was announced with great fanfare; The communists did not say it, it was announced from the altar of the parish church of Medjugorje (“It will be soon”, 08/27/1981; “A little more patience”, 08/29/1981; “Just a little more patience ”, 08/31/1981). Then, little by little, they said to themselves that this was not important (“The sign will come, but don't wait for it! The only word he wanted to say to everyone was: Convert! Say that more urgently to all my sons and daughters. It is not hard for me to suffer for you. I will beg my Son not to punish the world. But what you have to do is convert. You can never know what will happen, nor what the Father will command the world Renounce everything!

Thank all my children in all the fasting and prayers. I take you to my Son, so that he can calm his anger towards the sinful world.”, 06/24/1983). Naturally, curiosity was on the surface. When someone came from Medjugorje in those years, they were asked: “Is there something new?” Nothing new under the sun. There won't be. Only some will die waiting for Godot.

The question of the sign is important in terms of verifying the authenticity of the apparitions. It cannot be that something is said over and over again, that there will be, that there will be, in such and such a place, and then... the topic disappears. Naturally it is better that it disappears, because the subject is horny, it has no other name. But don't come telling me one thing, and then like no. And if not, the apparitions cannot be taken seriously.

This topic is very important because the contradictory and significant answers are recorded in front of the same members of the investigation commission, no communist conspiracy. As Father Zovkic, the president of the second enlarged commission, a professor of theology at the Sarajevo seminary, a specialist in the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, said, this issue alone was enough to close the commission's work with a negative verdict. and final. However, they wanted to proceed with all the rigor in this matter and for this reason the following commission of the entire EC of Yugoslavia was convened, which also ruled non constat in 1991.

In short, only one seer, Ivan Dragicevic, left a written record regarding this great sign. Written and contradictory. The others did not want to write or deliver anything to the commission, because they said that the Virgin forbade it. At that time Ivan was studying at the Franciscan minor seminary in Visoko, near Sarajevo. All the visionaries had to receive the members of the commission, according to Bishop Zanic's request, leaving on record in two sealed envelopes all the relevant information regarding the sign: when it will occur and where the sign will be visible. One envelope would be kept in the episcopate, another would be kept by the visionaries. All this in the month of May 1982.

However, five seers declared that the Virgin forbids them to write anything on the envelopes. It was not like that with Ivan Dragicevic. Father Zovkic comments that that day (05/09/1982) of the visit to the seminary, the telephone did not work by chance, so that Ivan could not be notified by anyone about the visit. He said that the Virgin had not forbidden him (or any of the other seers) to write about the sign, so he wrote the requested responses and left them in the envelope. What he had written on his envelope had been lost over time, according to Ivan.

Three years later, in front of the members of the enlarged commission, he declared that there is nothing written on that envelope, “paper like paper”, he said. But once the envelope was opened, he found her statement from 1982: that the Virgin is going to leave a great sanctuary in her honor in that place and that this will happen in the month of June.

From the context it seems that it would be the month of June 1982, but who knows. René Laurentin said that these inconsistencies are due to "the Mediterranean mentality that in difficult moments resorts to words that cover many functions...". So, can they be taken seriously about what they say? Regarding what they say the Virgin supposedly said? No, Father Laurentin, we don't mess things up like that by talking. We are much more direct, to break, to the point. Here you say, for example, that you have to reduce labor costs to be more effective. Bosnia-Herzegovina's trade minister, no less, says that to save you have to eat less. I think our mentality is quite direct. And if not, ask the Bishop of Mostar for the meaning of his words.

According to the other five seers, the Virgin had forbidden them to write or speak on the subject. Undoubtedly, it is a new mystique in which those who have the authority to judge and discern in the Church should not find out about the film. And is it not that all this is a simple story, joke, deceit, mockery?

Padre Pio used to say, with his well-known radicalism from another Mediterranean, that if his bishop ordered him to jump out of the window, he would do it without thinking. Santa Gema is told by his spiritual director, to check her obedience and integrity: "the next time your guardian angel appears, you must spit it out." And this one does, but her saliva turns into a white rose whose petals she wrote "everything pleases me if it's with love." In spiritual things, the Church rules, not the apparition, how many times do you have to say it? It doesn't matter even if you're a layman (as if laymen are exempt from obeying). Only sin cannot be obeyed, but checking, exercised by those who receive the authority for it, if something is from God, has no excuse for disobeying.

Finally, this question of the sign has contributed greatly to the morbidity of this subject and to the unhealthy curiosity. Maintaining the tension while waiting for the final outcome.

All of that is certainly a great sign.

1. 3. The secrets.

Comment: Apparently three are missing. It is not known if these are the same secrets, if some are repeated or if they are all different. There are perhaps 57 different secrets at the moment. And which are they? Nobody knows anything, only that three seers have already received the ten secrets. Here a key characteristic of these apparitions is repeated: the supreme authority belongs to the Apparition. Nothing can be objected to her, there is no possible discernment; You have to obey, period.

Here it is manipulated with a significant religious conviction: how to face the Virgin, how to disobey the Mother of God?, is the question that arises to a pious soul. Just thinking about it, a pious person shudders. But, who told you that it is about the Virgin? The fact that some people say they see it, is that the supreme proof and reason? We see that here we immediately arrive at the need to discern the authenticity of the phenomenon.

A Catholic knows, should know, that this discernment belongs to the Church, which she exercises through people who have the proper authority, not to private individuals. How not to suspect an apparition that keeps its main contents, which affect the faithful so much, under absolute secrecy? Amen that any Catholic has no obligation to give the slightest confidence in such a phenomenon; the secrets not communicated to the bishop, nor to the commission commissioned by him, nor to anyone – not even to a confessor. With this, we find ourselves before a good reason to shelve the whole matter. Because then, it seems to me, the visionaries form a group of faithful with some secrets (which apparently matter to the Church and the world) that they do not want to communicate to the Church, when the Church requests it. Are they some kind of Masons perhaps?

Finally, let's look at the bizarreness of the communication of secrets. Draga Vidovic, cousin of one of the seers, recounts in her book "The Salvation of Humanity": When Gospa entrusted the tenth secret to Mirjana, she gave him a scroll on which all the secrets are written. It is an A4 size object. It's a whitish material reminiscent of paper, but Mirjana says it's more like parchment. It is interesting that such a "scroll" can be folded, crumpled, but not torn. It is indestructible – testifies Mirjana calmly. She says that a long time ago she taught it to a friend and a cousin. That was while I was living in Sarajevo. One has seen the text of a prayer – someone asks someone for something, and the other has seen a prayer addressed to God. At the same time, then, they have seen two different things. When Mirjana received this scroll, she had to choose a priest who will reveal the secrets. He has chosen Fra Petar Ljubičić, who was chaplain in Međugorje for a long time. Hearing that Mirjana had chosen him for that special mission, he thought that someone is playing tricks on him. After a few days he found Mirjana and she confirmed it. Fra Petar has accepted that mission. To this day Mirjana is the only one who can read the text and the content of the secrets written on the scroll, and she has no need to hide it because the written text cannot be read by anyone other than her. He says that for each secret he knows by heart where, when and what is going to happen. Mirjana testifies: “Before the sign appears, warnings will take place, calls for attention to humanity. The warnings will be the events that will take place on earth. Ten days before the event determined by Petar and we must meet and then I will tell him what is to happen. We will spend seven days in prayer and fasting on bread and water. Three days before, Fra Petar has the duty to reveal to the world what he sees on the parchment, what must happen. Fra Petar no longer has a choice, he has accepted the mission and must fulfill it as is the will of God.” (The bolds are mine.)

This is already the auction. The seer chooses the priest. This, minister of God, faithfully obeys her. A mysterious scroll appears on the scene, even if we were Mormons. By the way, this scroll Mirjana did not want to hand over when asked for analysis. Everything is wrapped in a climate of the presence of a mysterious threat that hangs over humanity, which gives a particularly serious tone to this appearance as a unique and very special phenomenon in the world. A whole hustle and bustle based on a mixture of (pseudo)religious feelings and fear.

Of course, I reject it.

4. Everything that happened with Fra Tomislav Vlasic.

Comment: The “official” defenders of the Medjugorje apparitions would surely like ex-fra Tomislav Vlasic to

I would never have been there; or at least that now he himself was totally silent and withdrawn. Yet he is there. In Medjugorje they have a house of prayer run by a community led mainly by him.

It's a kind of modern convent with a hundred beds, no less. Where do you get the money you need for it? (Amen, that community does not have and did not have permission from the bishop to act.) This indicates that there are enough people, enough, of those who support him and his "spirituality", which is a mixture of the spiritual and spiritualist, as we can see on their page where you will find biblical quotes along with the "messages of the Holy Spirit" and other things. Of course, Gospa živi u Međugorju (The Virgin lives in Medjugorje):

And not only that his community is still there, but that he was one of the key figures in the entire phenomenon in its first and decisive years. In a few paragraphs it is not possible to place everything in which this priest was involved. But if I can characterize him with something, it is his absolute faith in the authenticity of the apparitions. The Apparition is the supreme Magisterium. Questions have been asked of the Apparition that are shameful for a Catholic priest to ask: 2Are all religions the same? And the answer was yes, the division is made by people. The Apparition was asked whether to place the air conditioning in the church, the Apparition was listened to in his wishes and requests. In short, it is a spirituality imbued with receiving directly from God the necessary indications for spiritual life.

His unwavering faith in the authenticity of the apparitions possibly came from a meeting with Father Emiliano Tardiff (very shortly before the apparitions), in which he told him not to worry about the situation of the Church in his region, because the Lord will send his Mother to him. Shortly after the phenomenon arose, he was present in Medjugorje, very close to the visionaries. It can be said that he acted as his spiritual director, although the true director was the Apparition. (His role as spiritual director of the visionaries was later denied, but it is obvious that in the Church, especially for the laity, there is no official figure of spiritual director, appointed in writing and published in the official bulletin of the Church.)

According to him, the Virgin wanted them to form the community in question, it was seen as “a plan of God”. The fact that (by the way, a mixed community) the visionary Marija Pavlovic was part of that community, for a year and four months after which she retracted any possible involvement of the Virgin in the gestation of the community and its belonging to it. This caused no small stir in Italy where the apparitions in Medjugorje enjoy great fame.

He was the one who prepared the diary of the apparitions in the first years and on many occasions the intermediary between the visionaries and the bishop, as well as with the members of the first two commissions.

There are good fruits of Medjugorje, but there are also of different colors, exotic and esoteric. Everything related to ex fra Tomislav Vlasic is also a fruit.

5. Circumstances in the Church in Herzegovina.

Comment: Climb Mount Krizevac, which dominates the Medjugorje Valley. From there you will glimpse several parishes taken illegitimately by priests suspended a divinis and ex-Franciscans. There are nine ex-Franciscans in total, certainly not a significant number for one of the most numerous Franciscan provinces (about two hundred religious), but they are not few.

If fra Vego should not leave Mostar by decision of the Virgin, why not take charge of a parish that the bishop claims, according to his right, for the diocesan clergy, his close friend fra Stanko Pavlovic? And if the bishop opposes the grace of God manifested through the Medjugorje apparitions, why not turn to a so-called Old Catholic bishop (of those who do not recognize the First Vatican Council) to confirm some eight hundred teenagers from three parishes? ? (On top of that, the supposed bishop was a deacon who presented himself as a bishop.) If the bishop does not submit to the grace of God manifested in the apparitions, why not dedicate a pamphlet to him called "The Unclean One in Herzegovina", accusing him of heresy, etc etc etc written by one of those nine? And, after all, if it is a heretical bishop, why wouldn't two of those nine come to request the episcopal ordination of Bishop Hans Gerny of the Old Catholics, as reported by the Bishop of Mostar on 1 July 2007? Fortunately, he did not accept it, otherwise we would have a formal schism in Herzegovina.

There are messages of all kinds, from the construction of hotels to the installation of air conditioning, but not a single one referring to these anomalous situations explicitly ordering their fixing. Really, something very strange.

Or not, depending on whether we consider the authorship of the apparitions.

6. The biography of the Virgin written by the visionary Vicka.

Comment: To begin with, I copy here an excerpt from Draga Vidovic's book: Vicka has written three notebooks of Gospa's biography so far and says that one day, when Gospa allows it, she will publish the corresponding book. That will make a priest. Gospa taught Ivanka, according to her testimony, a special script by which she wrote everything Gospa spoke to her. He explained the future of the world and the future and the problems of the

Church, as well as his biography.

Fra Janko asked Ivanka to show it to her at least from afar, which she refused as she did not have Gospa's permission. To some other seers Gospa also spoke about the events of the future of the world.

I have thought a lot about whether to write this what follows or keep it to myself. I finally decided to testify about what happened.

It was Christmas 1984. We went to mass in the village, and at night I was present at the apparition at Vicka's house in her “apparition room”. We were about ten people. I remember very well, Gospa was happy and in his arms he had little Jesus. I honestly don't remember the message. At that time Gospa was explaining to Vicka his biography. At the end of the apparition, Vicka told us the message. I thought that Vicka will go to another room, lock herself in, write down what Gospa told her and then come back to us. Instead, she immediately returned with a large notebook and pencil in hand. He sat next to me on the sofa and began to write. I perfectly remember the situation of the sofa in that room and the notebook covers. I was very surprised because I see that. "It's just that he doesn't hide it at all!" I thought to myself.

At that point I began to wonder if I should look at what I was writing. Is it a sin to look at it? It was so close to her that she can read it. Naturally, that human thing prevailed in me, curiosity. Then I thought to myself: "If she doesn't hide it, if she hasn't locked herself in the room, why couldn't she look?" I turned to my right side, towards her and looked. I know he wrote on the right side of the notebook. I have seen the letters, words, sentences. But I couldn't understand any of it, not a word. When he finished, I regretfully acknowledged what I had done and asked him why I couldn't understand anything. Vicka smiled and told me: “Whenever Gospa wants us to see and understand, we will understand.”

After that I thought a lot: “If this had happened to my mother, or to someone who doesn't understand a foreign language, maybe this wouldn't be interesting. It happened precisely to me, who at that time was finishing high school where I was studying German and English. He also spoke a little Italian, because at that time the first Italian pilgrims began to arrive. If it had been some Slavic language, I could at least have realized it." So I asked myself: “Where could he learn that language unknown to me, if in primary school I only studied German?”

On one occasion I confided that to Fra Slavko, asking him if I sinned because of that, to which he replied: “But I would do the same as you if I were in your place.”

However, I decided to testify about what happened, because I understood that everything that God wants us to know at a given moment, He makes us know. For what he doesn't want us to know, he finds ways to hide it from our sight.

Well that, more of the same. And what do we have in Catholic mysticism so far? Well, we have more than one person, among whom there are of course saints, blessed, or for whom the cause of beatification has been initiated, wrote the biography of Jesus and Mary according to their dictates, according to what they say. All written in their language, communicated and delivered to their respective spiritual directors. There are those writings with all their letters, all in the light of day, without any secret, submitted to the judgment of the Church.

But here, it seems, we have supreme science. In codes. And let no one lean out or judge this privileged knowledge!

Embarrassment and embarrassment.

7. The messages, more than one, do not agree with the biblical Virgin.

Comment: For example, the “Virgin” first refers to herself, then to God or his Son:

“In my eyes and the eyes of God, everything is the same” (08/18/1982)

If Bishop Zanic does not accept or disseminate my messages, that is, "if he does not convert and be good, my judgment and the judgment of my son Jesus awaits him" (06/19/1983)

“I want you to be in ever greater numbers with me and with my Son.” (03/1/1984)

“Because me and my son have a special plan for this parish.” (04/12/1984)

“Because I love you even when you are far from me and my Son.” (05/24/1985)

“Follow me and my Son Jesus.” (10/4/1984), etc.

How far is this from the Virgin of the Gospel!: “Your father and I have searched for you in anguish.” (Lk 2, 48) The Virgin first refers to her husband, then to herself.

Impossible to put here all the theological errors detected, I suppose we will have to trust the opinion of the investigation commissions, or maybe we know more?

8. Proposal for the celebration of the birthday of the Virgin, on August 5.

Comment: The Church has established the festivity of the Birth of the Virgin for the beginning of September. However, here the Apparition proposed, in the mid-eighties (summer of 1984), that her birthday be celebrated on August 5. Word spread like wildfire. We came a lot that day. I remember the homily of Fra Tomislav Vlasic, "I thank you, Lord, because so many have responded to your Mother's call." It is the origin of Festimed, the youth meeting that is held at the beginning of August in Medjugorje.

The Apparition proposes something different from what the Church has established in the liturgy. There is something “more” than what the Church can tell us or offer.

Father Zovkic affirms “paraliturgy for people who like parareligion”.

9. The material situation of the seers.

Comment: They are lined. If we take into account that the material benefit of the seers is one of the criteria to take into account for the approval of an apparition, we are ready. Actually, one can rightly wonder if the Virgin would continue to appear (in the event that this is the case at the beginning) to some people who materially benefit from the phenomenon.

But we only know that it is not ashamed to have as a job to be an “apparitionist” and live from it, in addition to full steam ahead. Does it have any logic to be a psychic and have apartments to rent to those who go to Medjugorje, the so-called "pilgrims"? Bishop and exorcist Andrea Gemma takes the middle path:

In this way, abusing the good faith of poor people. they go there with the idea of ​​meeting the Virgin, the false seers have established themselves financially, they have married and live a rich life, to say the least. one of them, directly from the United States, with a direct economic benefit, organizes dozens of pilgrimages each year. These people do not appear to be very selfless people to me. O: Monsignor Gemma, is there no appeal against the verdict? “Could it be otherwise? These people claim to be in contact with the Virgin, but in reality they are inspired solely and exclusively by Satan, they are creating chaos and confusion among the faithful for the sake of absolutely deplorable interests and advantages. Think, then, of the disobedience that has been nurtured within the Church: her spiritual guide, a Franciscan friar expelled from the Order and suspended a divinis, continues to invalidly administer the sacraments [The interview took place in 2008, before the secularization of Tomislav Vlasic.] and numerous priests around the world, despite the express prohibition of the Holy See, continue to organize and participate in pilgrimages to Medjugorje as their destination. It is a shame! That's why I speak of a mix between personal and diabolical interests: the false psychics and their assistants are pocketing the money, and the devil creates discord between the faithful and the Church, and the most fanatical faithful, in fact, are not listening. to the Church, which - I repeat - from the beginning, warned about the mendacity of the Medjugorje apparitions. “

Well, let's leave the material for a moment and go to the mental. In a recent interview for a Croatian magazine, the visionary Vicka states regarding her daughter on a visit they made to Rome: “Behold, Gospa, above the Pope, behind the window! Daddy, there's Gospa up there, where the Pope is!” And in his village: “I see her too, look, Gospa!” To which the (Mediterranean) bishop comments with his usual middle path style: “As if it were something hereditary.”

At this point, we have to take care of the visionaries with charity. It may not be that they serve to make some feel comfortable having a certain reference to something "divine". You have to think about your mental and spiritual health. Continuing like this, they can end very badly. It is true that his "followers" need him for his particular race of life, but the race is fine for it to end for the sake of the same runner who started it.

Forrest Guuuump is tired. "And where are we going to go? Don't know."

An analysis of the negative effects of the phenomenon:

There is a great danger of provoking the fictitious confrontation between charisma and hierarchy. Good fruits and conversions, which there are, can even serve to view the hierarchy of the Church as unspiritual and insensitive to the things of God. The hierarchy is pro-government, the one that does not understand dialogue and the intimate relationship of people with God.

A faithful can easily believe his own opinion more than the judgment of the competent ones who have more data and also a special order to ascertain the authenticity.

The truth is decided based on mass opinions and not objective criteria.

The subjective and sentimental prevails over the objective data of faith and reason.

Faith can be seen as the fruit of a phenomenon, of a vital experience. With which a purely psychological interiorization of the certain concept of religiosity is produced, in which the criterion of the self prevails over any external criterion.

This reminds me of the description of the religious phenomenon that Saint Pius X makes regarding its construction by the modernists:

But agnosticism is only the negative aspect of the modernists' doctrine: the positive is constituted by the so-called vital immanence. The transition from the first to the second phase of the system is as follows: natural or supernatural, religion, like every fact, requires an explanation. Well then: once natural theology has been repudiated and, consequently, all access to revelation has been closed because the reasons for credibility have been discarded; moreover, completely abolished all external revelation, it is clear that the desired explanation cannot be sought outside of man, and must be found within man; but since religion is a way of life, the explanation must be found in the life of man itself. By such a procedure the principle of religious immanence is established. Indeed, every vital phenomenon, and it has already been said that such is religion, recognizes by first impulse or indigence, and by first manifestation that movement of the heart that we call feeling. For this reason, since God is the object of religion, it follows from what has been stated that faith, the principle and foundation of all religion, resides in an intimate feeling engendered by the need or indigence of the divine. On the other hand, since this indigence only makes itself felt under certain determined and favorable circumstances, it cannot per se belong to the sphere of consciousness; at first it lies buried under consciousness, or, to use a word borrowed from modern philosophy, in the subconscious, where it must be added that its root remains hidden, and in no way understood. Now do you want to know how this indigence of the divine, when man comes to feel it, becomes religion? The modernists give the answer: science and history are enclosed between two limits: an external one, the visible world; another interior, consciousness. Arrived at this limit, it is impossible for science and history to go ahead; beyond is the unknowable. Faced with this unknowable, the same of the one that is outside of man beyond visible nature, as of the one that is in man himself, in the profanities of the subconscious, the indigence of the divine, without any previous judgment, according to the principles of fideism, arouses in the soul, naturally inclined to religion, a feeling of a special character. This feeling has the characteristic of carrying wrapped the very reality of God under the double concept of object and intimate cause, and also, that of uniting man with God in a certain way. Such a feeling is for the modernists faith, and faith thus understood is for them the principle of all religion.

But philosophy does not stop here, or rather, modernist delusions. For in this feeling the modernists not only find faith, but with faith and in the same faith, as they understand it, they affirm the existence of revelation. And indeed, what more is required for the revelation? Do we not already have a revelation, or at least a beginning of it, in this feeling that appears in the conscience, and even to God, who in this feeling manifests himself to the soul, although still in a confused way? But they still add: although it is observed, from the moment in which God is at the same time cause and object of faith, it is shown by the same revelation proceeding from God and falling on God; that is to say, that in the said feeling, God is at the same time revealing and revealed. Hence, venerable brothers, that absurd affirmation of the modernists that all religion is both natural and supernatural, according to the different points of view. Hence the equivalence between consciousness and revelation. Hence, finally, the law that establishes the religious conscience as a universal rule, fully on a par with revelation, and to which everything must submit, even the supreme authority of the Church, in the triple manifestation of doctrinal, cultural, and cultural authority. and discipline. (Saint Pius X, Pascendi dominici gregis, 5, 6)

Bishop Peric complained in 2006, “Even some world bishops come and spend several days in Medjugorje, just over 20 km from Mostar, without showing kindness or solidarity to greet their brother in the episcopate, nor during neither the war nor the postwar period, thus not showing those servants of the Church the proper collegiality or care for all the Churches (1 Cor 11, 28), but perhaps a strange curiosity about what "appears" on the stony ground of Herzegovina. And (that) the bishops and priests pray to God in the canon of the mass every day to "confirm his Church in faith and love" in his earthly pilgrimage.

He adds: “The truth is stronger than the opinion of the masses. The mere multitude of men, even in the case of the faithful, does not create the truth, but in this case perhaps harms it. The Lord was alone, accompanied by his Mother and some disciple in the most difficult moments and in Golgotha. As the only truth in front of an anonymous mass, in front of the large and small priestly caste, in front of the national and international establishment in Jerusalem. When Jesus testified that he is the truth, everyone answered him through Pilate's mouth, 'What is the truth?' (Jm 18, 38), that is, they showed that they prefer their own benefit, the political position! and a momentary victory than any human or divine truth! But although Truth died that Friday, within three days it rose again. The crowd, ergo, is not proof of the truth.

And here the crowd is continually presented as proof of veracity. If there are conversions, there are, thank God, you should not manipulate them. People arrive, for whatever reason, many moved by curiosity, nothing conflictive is presented to them, they are told that the Virgin appeared there, they spend time in a space where they pray, confess and devoutly attend the Eucharist, so it is not uncommon for some people to be moved towards God. In these terms Medjugorje is a kind of spiritual placebo.

But it is not necessary to prohibit people from going there either, if they do it in a totally unrelated way to the phenomenon of apparitions, if they use those days as a kind of spiritual retreat, without going further.

Conclusion: The last paragraph proposes the solution to this phenomenon; a solution already proposed by the Church; At the time, Cardinal Bertone told the Italian bishops that the faithful can go to Medjugorje, as long as they are not official "pilgrimages" that give supernatural value to the apparitions.

However, is this how it is done? It is said that in Medjugorje they confess, pray the rosary, go to mass, worship the Blessed Sacrament,... Only that? If so, there would be no problem. But there is the visionary Vicka who at seven in the morning attends to the "pilgrims" in her paternal house, at the foot of the mountain of apparitions. And in the afternoon the seers speak in the vicinity of the temple, to the "pilgrims". And from time to time, there is an apparition witnessed. It is not like this? While you have all that going on around there, do you feed certain expectations of a phenomenon that neither the first bishop nor the second approved, based on their observations as pastors and the three legitimately established commissions, which ultimately resulted in the unfavorable opinion of twenty bishops from the former Yugoslavia?

Those who could redirect the course, calm the spirits, straighten the matter, are the shepherds who must guide the souls along the safe paths, separating the sheep from unhealthy food and fanciful tales, being as they are, sacred ministers of God and of the Church, and not vicars of the visionaries.

My son, perform your works modestly and you will be loved by those who please God. The greater you are, the more humble you must be, and thus you will obtain the favor of the Lord, because the power of the Lord is great and he is glorified by the humble. Do not claim what is too difficult for you, nor try to investigate what is beyond your strength: reflect on what you have been commanded, because secret things do not concern you. Don't worry about things that are above you: what has been revealed to you is already too much for intelligence. Because many were misled by their speculations and their perverse imagination distorted their thoughts. If you do not have pupils, you will lack light; if you lack science, do not affirm anything. (Eccl. 3, 17-25)