Preliminary attempts to spin Medjugorje Finding are Under Way

Here’s what we actually know: Two local ordinaries have said there is no reason to think that anything supernatural has occurred there. The spiritual director of the frauds got a nun pregnant. None of the frauds has entered religious life, a number of them have gotten stinking rich. Their dog and pony show has been forbidden from touring the US.

As to the Commission: it’s taken its Entish time and (here’s the key thing) has not yet released its findings.

And yet the Usual Suspects in the Medjugorje camp are already spiking the ball and declaring victory. Why? Because, as with their steadfast rejection of the local ordinaries, they were never ever going to do anything else. So when an article from a couple of pro-Medj journalists, filled with “apparently” and “possibly” appears in La Stampa, that’s good enough for them and they announce the commission will find in favor of the “visionaries”.

But in fact, here is what we know about the Commission’s findings: nothing. Because they haven’t released their findings yet.

For actual sober commentary, see Diane Korzeniewski’s fine site. Especially this.

My own expectation is that the Ents of Rome will say something along the lines of “Lots of nice people have had fruitful experiences at Medjugorje, thanks to the grace of God, but basically the local bishops were right and you should have listened to them. We’re not going to stick our necks out and call the visionaries frauds since that’s hard to prove and will just upset people, but no, there’s nothing supernatural happening here.” Rome=romanitas, so the statement will be something along those line. Medjheads will continue to declare victory since they are incorrigible. But anybody looking at it reasonably will realize the Church is saying “There’s no There there.”

That’s my expectation. My *hope* is that Rome will do something stronger, like condemn it as the fraud it is, since Medjheads *are* incorrigible and this poison needs to stop. But I don’t always get what I want. It’s all in God’s hands. He will dispose of it as he wills.