Catholic and Enjoying It!
Reader Diane writes:
I just want to point you to something very interesting.
Louis Bélanger has offer a thought provoking-post on the very public life of the visionaries of Medjugorje. Louis is not only sitting on a lot of solid information and data on the subject, but has a gift for weaving it all together along with statements made by the Popes and other references.
In this latest post, he shares with us something I had not seen before. It is the closing statement on a report signed by 3 medical doctors and 3 psychiatrists – an international team of professionals who looked at the case of Medjugorje.
It was written in 1986 and recommends very clearly, and for good reasons, that the visionaries have their visions in the presence of responsible priests, and out of the public limelight. They followup with a simple, and reasonable explanation: “….This is, not only to render the spiritual atmosphere more adequate, but also to eliminate any reinforcement of a suggestive type.”
I hope in the future that such a recommendation will become the norm for bishops for anyone claiming to have visions or private revelations. Medjugorje shows, imho, how such a thing can rapidly get away from the Church if safeguards are not put into place. No where, in any of diocese of the former Yugoslavia, are the visionaries permitted to have public events. Yet, we see bishops and cardinals giving them a platform in other countries. This is a radical departure with how such things were traditionally handled. Hopefully, some day, there will be a collective examination of conscience among some members of the hierarchy as to how they could permit things in their dioceses, and in their cathedrals, that are prohibited in the diocese, country, and former country of the phenomena’s origin.
Go read Louis’ post:
Medjugorje, “reality-tele-visions” and the cruel absence of pastoral care.
I think this will only end in tears. Medjugorje just crawls with dodginess the longer I look at it.
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