The Bishop of Mostar-Duvno could not be clearer

Quoth he:

“The Virgin Mary has not appeared in Medjugorje,” said Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar-Duvno, the diocese in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which includes Medjugorje.

There is no apparition of Mary at Medjugorje. Account for it how you will (I think “fraud” is the obvious explanation), the only important takeaway is that the machine must be unplugged, the claims of apparitions there cease and the tours, pilgrimages and so forth need to end in favor of better uses of time, energy, and money. That’s it. That’s all she wrote.

“But Rome took it out of the hands of the local bishops!”

No. Rome did not. The local bishops handed it off to Rome because the fraudulent visionaries have whipped up a ferment over this among credulous and uninformed people who either don’t know of or refuse to listen to the local bishops and their repeated insistence that Mary is not appearing there. The hope has been that people will listen to Rome since they won’t listen to the local ordinaries and their repeated rejection of this fraud.

It is precisely because Rome has not “taken it out of his hands” that the local bishop is free to say–again–“The Virgin Mary has not appeared in Medjugorje.”

Save yourself anguish and disappointment and, if apparitions are important to your faith, look at approved ones, not at those that local bishops have repeatedly told you are not real. Fatima is celebrating its 100th Anniversary this year. That’s a good one and approved by the Church. Why not venerate Our Lady of Fatima? Or Lourdes?