Pope Francis: decision on Medjugorje coming soon

From Catholic News Agency: 

When asked by a Bosnian journalist about the status of his decision on the Marian apparitions in Medjugorje on his flight from Sarajevo to Rome, Pope Francis said that after a lengthy study, a decision could be coming soon.

“We’re at this point of making decisions … and then they will be announced,” the Pope told journalists on board his June 6 flight from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina to Rome.

Bosnian Croat journalist Silva Tomasevic brought the topic up to the Pope during his brief in-flight news conference in route to Rome following his June 6 apostolic visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

When Tomasevic noted that there is a great interest in Bosnia regarding his judgment on the authenticity of the apparitions, the Pope responded by recalling how Benedict XVI created a commission to study the reports surrounding the alleged apparitions.

Presided over by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, emeritus vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, the commission was created by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2010 under Benedict XVI, and was composed of an international panel of bishops, cardinals, theologians and various experts.

It was established to further investigate “certain doctrinal and disciplinary aspects of the phenomenon of Medjugorje.”

Pope Francis said that commission “made a study and Cardinal Ruini came to me and consigned the study to me after many years. I don’t know, three or four years, more or less.”

He said the commission “did good work,” and revealed that Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the current prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told him that “he would do a ‘feria quarta,’ in these times.”

A “feria quarta” is a once-a-month meeting in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during which current cases are examined.

“I believe that (the feria quarta) has been done the last Wednesday of last month, but I’m not sure,” Francis said, explaining that a decision could be made soon and that “some guidelines will be given to bishops on the lines they will take.”

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