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August 13, 2001
Two interesting articles about apparitions from Our Sunday Visitor, July 22, 2001
Medjugorje Revisited
Twenty years after the Virgin Mary allegedly began appearing in Medjugorje, Church officials still have questions and doubts about what exactly has taken place there.
The first reports of apparitions in the quaint village in Bosnia-Herzegovina came June 24, 1981, when six local children claimed to have seen Mary on a nearby hill.
Soon after, Medjugorje became a popular pilgrimage spot - albeit with a drastic slowdown during the more recent years as wary raged in the Balkan nations - with devotees among Catholics around the world.
Two considerations in particular have made ecclesial approval of the apparitions difficult: some questionable conduct onthe part of the Franciscans who directed the visionaries' parish in Medjugorje and the quantity and character of the messages attributed to Mary.
Three of the original visionaries, who are now all adults, claim Mary still visits them daily.
To date, neither the diocese nor the Holy See have formally approved or disqualified the apparitions.
In 1991, the bishops of what was then Yugoslavia declared, after their own investigation of the reports from Medjugorje, that "it is not possible to affirm that these are supernatural apparitions or revelations."
In September 1998, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noted in a letter to a French bishop that the Yugoslavian bishops' conclusions do not judge the apparitions as false - which leaves open the option for personal belief in the visions.
Although Archbishop Bertone confirmed that "official" pilgrimages to Medjugorje are prohibited, "private" pilgrimages are still permitted - with the stipulation that they not be regarded as authentication of the events, "which still require an examination by the Church"
Our Lady of Rwanda
Was Mary trying to tell us something again?
A Rwandan bishop has said the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his diocese in the early 1980s
were a warning about the 1994 ethnic genocide in the country between rival Hutus and Tutsis in which 500,000 people were killed.
Bishop Augustin Misago of Gikongoro issued a declaration June 29 formally recognized the apparitions, which took place in the town of Kibeho.
"Yes, the Virgin Mary appeared at Kibeho on Nov. 28,1981, and in the course of the following months. There are more reasons to believe than deny it," the bishop said in an excerpt published by the Vatican. The full 23-page text was to be released in mid-July.
"The messages focus on the urgency of conversion and the need for prayer," Bishop Misago told reporters. "They say the world is going badly, therefore, people must convert as soon as possible. They also speak of the salvific value of suffering and of the Cross."
The bishop - who has been tried and acquitted on charges related to the genocide - said he believes Mary was using the three women visionaries to warn Rwandans about what could happen if people did not repent of their sins.
"In my opinion, yes, the messages are related to what happened later in Rwanda," he said.
The point, he added, "was not to frighten but to give hope, underlining the "need for prayer and conversion."