Problems with Medjugorje?
By Paul Baylis. A response to a letter by Anthony Gonzales published on
http://www.stjosephsmen.com/letters/medu.htm
NOTE: Anthony's writing is in ordinary BLACK font, my replies are in RED font.
An Explanation about Medjugorje
With all of the provocative answers that Fr. Malachi Martin gave to the questions that I asked him, (detailed in the November '95 issue of The Hammer), the one that provoked the most controversy was his response, "I believe Medjugorje* is a Satanic hoax." I have had several readers write to me because they were upset by this answer. Not only had this but they wished further explanation of why Fr. Malachi would say what he did. I have, therefore, written to Fr. Martin asking him for a more detailed explanation of his position on the subject. I am bothered by the fact that no one seemed to be disturbed by his answers to the really important questions. Until we hear from Fr. Martin I will give 3 reasons why the supposed "apparitions" in Medjugorje should present grave problems to any informed Roman Catholic.
*(For my readers who do not know about Medjugorje, it is a small village in Bosnia/Herzegovina where alleged apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary have been taking place to a group of young men and women since 1981. There has been controversy because of different events surrounding these alleged visions and sayings attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.)
Let me begin by stating emphatically that as far as I am concerned authentic private revelations in and of them are merely interesting side notes to the really necessary issues concerning the Church. The Roman Catholic Church contains the Fullness of Faith and the Fullness of Grace; it needs nothing more than this. Christ Our Lord has, at various times, in various places, to a very select few, revealed Himself or has allowed His Blessed Mother or the saints to reveal themselves for the edification of certain individuals or to deliver a prophetic message such as at Fatima. Nonetheless, these visions and revelations (even when belief in them is permitted and recommended by the Church) are not necessary to the Faith and should never be given more weight in the scheme of things than they deserve.
Just be careful here. If God deems it worthwhile to send Mary or a saint to earth to deliver prophetic messages, I would say we need to be "all ears".
It is, therefore, very important that belief or disbelief of purely private revelations should never be a source of division or contention within the Catholic community. We, as Roman Catholics, do not rest our faith upon anything but the revelation of Jesus Christ given to the Church and protected by the Church through the activity of the Holy Spirit. No mere private revelation should cause anyone to reject or have disdain for any other Catholic.
The ideal of not causing division rolls off the tongue easily, but in fact the division has been caused by those who would not let the Vatican's process complete its course. And I'm sorry to say that this began with the original Bishop of Mostar. If not for this man, it is likely that many more souls would have converted by now and perhaps Mary wouldn't have had to be here so long. But, his work has been carried on by numerous others including this writer. You cannot preemptively debunk Medjugorje and hope that it won't cause division in the Catholic Church. George Bush tried this approach with Iraq and we know it doesn't work.
Whether they have weighed all the evidence or just have a predisposition that inclines them to reject all alleged private revelations out of hand - this is perfectly within the rights of any Catholic. No Catholic is required to believe anything other than the official teachings of the Magisterium of the Church nor should anyone be forced or coerced to do so.
Coercion has always been the weapon of the detractors with time on their hands. Believers just want to pray and be good Christians. The writer borrows information from quarters of the media that use a far more direct form of coercion by using rumour, innuendo, false witness, outdated inaccurate information which influences people to stay away from Medjugorje. This is not as harmless a scenario as he might like to imagine. Firstly, atheists and non-believers have been very much attracted by Medjugorje and would have liked to go there. I have talked to many atheists on sites such as IIDB.org about miracles and Medjugorje. Most have read the untruths and innuendos and simply stay away. Secondly, as you will see further down the page, the writer complains about how long these apparitions have gone on for. If he would simply update his website with facts and help to spread the facts instead of lies, he might help stop the bleeding, allow more people to be converted and make Mary's job quicker and easier. If anyone doubts that the media would deliberately smear and attempt to destroy Medjugorje, take a look at this article which shows the media at its worst.
It is very important that we as loyal Roman Catholics should have the same attitude of the Church in regards to private revelations.
The hypocrisy is oustanding and the writer doesn't realise he has his foot in his mouth. If everyone had the same attitude as the Church, nobody would be writing or saying anything negative about Medjugorje, people would be patiently waiting for the Vatican's final pronouncement and getting on with their lives. As I've said, the division has been caused by the detractors and troublemakers. And we know where this has originated. Old ugly will show up whenever anything important is going down, you can guarantee that.
Every private revelation that has not been officially investigated by the Church should first be looked upon with grave suspicion by every Roman Catholic and should be assumed false before being proved true.
Suspicion is one thing, but publishing gossip, innuendo and arriving at all kinds of false conclusions is completely another. The Vatican prudently and quietly goes about its investigations. There is another investigation coming. All the while it has not declared ANYTHING except that the apparitions cannot yet be proven true. But, we have hundreds of websites already calling Medjugorje a false and dangerous apparition and influencing the salvation of thousands of souls in the process. If the Vatican does not pronounce these things, where do people get off doing so. I repeat, the division and problems have been caused by these gun-jumpers. We have another commission beginning soon. Watch this space.
This is the wise attitude of the Church. Throughout history these things have occurred, and many if not the majority has been found to be less than genuine.
And there have been many that have been approved apparently falsely, if you buy into the opinions of Unity Publishing who claim the Rwanda apparitions shouldn't have been OK'd by the Vatican. So, the general impression I get is that it is 90% guesswork most of the time. The point therefore becomes "If you're not sure, at least don't mess with the fruits". Detractors who think they can do a better discernment job than the Vatican are simply stumbling blocks, preventing a harvest from being gathered in possibly very legitimate apparitions. The biblical "millstone around the neck" keeps popping into my mind when I consider what could unfortunately be waiting for such individuals.
The burden of proof always lies with the one claiming the revelation. If an investigation has been conducted our attitude should be to follow the conclusions of that investigation. Stubborn clinging to a mere private revelation and resistance to legitimate Church authority, especially after a proper investigation with negative conclusions, is spiritually dangerous. To resist legitimate Church authority for something this unnecessary to the Faith and to continue to promote it as if it were authentic borders on mortal sin.
Does the writer KNOW what the conclusions to the investigations so far have been? He appears to patently NOT KNOW. The Zadar Declaration stated essentially that it cannot be proven that anything supernatural is taking place at Medjugorje. Informed people know that "supernatural" in this context means "of God". Very few people dispute that something "not of this world" is happening. Science is speechless. None can explain such extraordinary happenings (see scientific investigation). The only potential spanner in the works is that it is of Satan, not of God. The fruits say categorically otherwise, but still the absolute proof is missing and we still await the promised big sign.
The upshot of the Zadar declaration was to:
- Leave the door open for future investigations
- Allow Catholic pilgrims to travel freely to Medjugorje, as long as they didn't try to promote the visions as being authentic before the Vatican had confirmed it.
- Provide for pastoral care for said pilgrims travelling to Medjugorje, i.e. to adminster the sacraments etc.
So, yes, let us please follow closely the conclusions of the Church. There is a new commission forming as I write. Let's see and let's resist the temptation to cause any more gun-jumping pre-emptive damage to the salvation potential of lost souls! it is no joke. There are souls that will probably die unconverted because of some irresponsible detraction article from some uninformed idiot that couldn't keep his mouth shut.
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