Marian Fraud Spans The Centuries

Posted by Censor Librorum on Aug 19, 2009 | Categories: Bishops, Faith, Humor, Scandals

August 2009: Pope Benedict XVI  laicized a Franciscan priest  who served as a spiritual advisor to the Marian visionaries in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The pontiff, in a document issued “motu proprio” (on his own initiative), returned Father Tomislav Vlasic to the lay state and dispensed him from his religious vows as a member of the Order of Friars Minor. vlasic

Vlasic was confined to a Franciscan monastery in L’Aquila, Italy, in February 2008 after he refused to cooperate in a Vatican investigation of his activities for suspected heresy and schism.

He was also investigated for “the diffusion of dubious doctrine, manipulation of consciences, suspected mysticism, disobedience towards legitimately issued orders and charges contra sextum (against the Sixth Commandment not to commit adultery),” as stated in the interdict signed by Cardinal William J. Levada, perfect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

According to the congregation, all the charges against Vlasic were “in the context of the Medjugorje phenomenon.”

The Medjugorje phenomenon began on June 25, 1981, when six children told a priest they had seen the Virgin on a hillside near their town.   Some of the children also claimed to have received ten secrets from Our Lady. virmar

According to the Medjugorje seers, who currently range in age from 38 to 31 — Marija, Vicka, Ivan, Mirjana, Ivanka, and Jakov — the apparitions of Gospa (as Our Lady is referred to in their native language) are ongoing to this day; 21 years of nonstop messages from Mary, with no end in sight. As one priest who requested anonymity observed, “The Mother of God sounds like a Chatty Cathy doll.” editchatty

Marija, Vicka and Ivan report daily visions from Mary, while others claim to see her at regular intervals; to Mirjana, Our Lady comes on the second of each month and on March 18, Mirjana’s birthday; to Ivanka, on June 25; and to Jakov, on Christmas Day.

The visionaries have received more than 30,000 visits from Mary.

A log of the messages is posted on Medjugorje Web.   Here are the latest messages:

July 25, 2009 Medjugorje message of Our Lady to Marija: “Dear Children! May this time   be a time of prayer for you.   Thank you for having responded to my call.”

Our Lady Queen of Peace of Medjugorje’s August 2, 2009 Message To Mirjana Soldso Given on the Day for Non-Believers: “Dear Children, I am coming, with my Motherly love, to point out the way by which you are to set out, in order that you may be all the more like my Son; and by that, closer to and more pleasing to God. Do not refuse my love. Do not renounce salvation and eternal life for the sake of transience and frivolity of this life. I am coming to lead you and, as a mother, to caution you. Come with me.”

In 1984 Vlasic wrote to Pope John Paul II to say that he was the one “who through divine providence guides the seers of Medjugorje.”

Retired Bishop Pavao Zanic of Mostar-Duvno did not believe the claims of the visionaries and accused Vlasic of creating the phenomenon. The current head of the diocese, Bishop Ratko Peric, said the church “has not accepted, either as supernatural or as Marian, any of the apparitions.”

“As the local bishop, I maintain that regarding the events of Medjugorje, on the basis of the investigations and experience gained thus far throughout these last 25 years, the church has not confirmed a single apparition as authentically being the Madonna,” he said. He then called on the alleged visionaries and “those persons behind the messages to demonstrate ecclesiastical obedience and to cease with these public manifestations and messages in this parish.”

“In this fashion they shall show their necessary adherence to the church, by placing neither private apparitions nor private sayings before the official position of the church,” he said. “Our faith is a serious matter,” he added. “The church is also a serious and responsible institution.”

 November 1523: Inquisitor Mariana in Belmonte, Spain orders the punishment of a woman, Francisca la Brava, who claimed she spoke with  Our Lady and received tokens from her.

“It is true that I saw Her,” Francisca la Brava said, “and it happened this way;” I got out of bed to urinate, and as it was at night and dark I could not find the door, and so I said, “Help me Our Lady” and “Why can’t I find this door?” And that Our Lady replied saying, “She is helping you,” and “I am Our Lady who sustains you on the face of the earth.” And that She put Her arm on my neck, and as I was naked, Our Lady put the skirt of her dress over my belly and said, “Do not fear, daughter.”

And Francisca la Brava said to her, “Protect me, Our Lady, if it is a devil who has come to deceive me,” and She repeated, “Do not fear, for I am Our Lady.” And Francisca said to Her, “Mother of God, they will not believe that it is you, even though I say I have seen you.” And Our Lady told her, “Then take this candle and a piece of silk and a magnet.”

 Five weeks after the alleged apparitions the Inquisitor rendered a decision: “By rights we could have treated her more rigorously, for the above matter was very public and scandalous for the Christian faithful, since she attracted them and induced them to believe in what she said and made known, when it was all vanity and frivolity.”

“But in deference to certain just reasons that move us to mitigate the rigor of the sentence we decree as a punishment to Francisca la Brava and an example to others not to attempt similar things that we condemn her to be put on an ass and given one hundred lashes in public through the accustomed streets of Belmonte naked from the waist up. And that from now on she not say or affirm in public or secretly by word or insinuation the things she said in her confessions or else she will be prosecuted as an impenitent and one who does not believe in or agree with what is in our holy Catholic faith.” inquisition1851whipping-e

 

 

 

 

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4 Responses to “Marian Fraud Spans The Centuries”

  1. khughes1963 Says:

    The best study I read on the history of Marian apparitions was David Blackbourn’s book Marpingen, about claimed Marian apparitions in a German town in the Saar region in the 19th century. The institutional Church never endorsed these apparitions as it did the ones at La Salette and Lourdes. What is valuable in the book is Blackbourn’s placing these and other apparition claims in their rather distinct historical and social contexts. For example, Portugal in 1917 (Fatima) was a country undergoing great political change from a monarchy (overthrown in 1910) to a dictatorship. Marpingen occurred in the context of the German Catholics’ response to Otto von Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, in which a heavy-handed Prussian Lutheran government was placing great restrictions on the strongly Catholic religion and culture of Western and Southern Germany. As I understand Blackbourn’s thesis, the apparitions reflect various political, social and religious conflicts occurring at the time of the claimed apparitions.

  2. Póló Says:

    Leaving apparitions aside, and I am supposed to be related to one of the people who saw Our Lady at Knock in the late 19th century, I would draw your attention to the link below for a bit of light relief à l’Irlandaise:
    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0828/1224253403734_pf.html

    It opens a huge can of theological worms. Enjoy.

  3. Karen Says:

    Dear KHughes – thank you very much for the book referral. I think there is some truth to visions, apparitions, at least partly embodying the current times.

    Dear Polo – I went to Knock during a visit to Ireland in April 2008. Scoffer than I am, I thought it would be a total waste of time. It ended up the highlight of the trip. I was moved by the people, the place, the stream of history, the portion of the stone wall where people can place their hands to pray and ask for help. I did. I felt something particularly moving about the idea of symbols or messengers of divinity just there to BE with people…to comfort…to support..not there to lecture or scold. Lucky you. Take care, Karen

  4. Michael Lovett Says:

    You will find this interesting:

    As the Vatican continues its international Commission investigating the ongoing apparitions of Medjugorje, under
    the leadership of Cardinal Camillo Ruini and the CIDE, the Holy See should not ignore an important, but little
    known, fact about these Marian apparitions.
    They were confirmed as being authentic by the main visionary of Fatima, Sister Lucia dos Santos, who not,only
    confirmed but also reported experiencing apparitions of Our Lady of Medjugorje in the convent.
    According to Sister Lucia’s own nephew, Father Salinho, a Salesian priest who lives in Portugal, Sister Lucia
    continued receiving visions of the Virgin Mary long after 1917, and some of these apparitions of the Virgin spoke
    to Sister Lucia of the Madonna’s continued work in Medjugorje. This report of Father Salinho’s was documented
    by the French author Sister Emmanuel Maillard in her book “Medjugorje, Triumph of the Heart!” (Queenship,
    2004), a revised edition of Sister Emmanuel’s earlier popular work, “Medjugorje: the 90s”.
    Pope John Paul 11 met with Sister Emmanuel, was given a copy of her earlier book, and therefore this knowledge
    between Fatima’s main visionary and the apparitions in Medjugorje may not have been foreign to theVatican.
    This is a very important revelation, for one of the things that the Church looks for, in evaluating apparitions, is
    coherence between Mary’s apparitions.
    Fatima and Medjugorje already have an immense amount in common; from the miracle of the dancing sun that has
    been recorded at each location – once in Fatima and numerous times in Medjugorje to references to Mary’s
    Immaculate Heart in the devotion of both Fatima and Medjugorje, to the spiritual program of daily prayer Mass,
    fasting, and especially the Rosary penance for the salvation of sinners at each site; to incredibly similar depictions
    of visions of the afterlife, particularly of hell, which were given to both the Fatima and Medjugorje seers by their
    apparition. The coherence is evident. Now there is even a report from a Catholic priest and a family member of
    Fatima’s main visionary, that Sister Lucia herself experienced apparitions of Our Lady speaking about her work in
    Medjugorje; and, therefore, Sister Lucia reportedly confirmed the apparitions of Medjugorje through her own
    private revelations of theVirgin.
    This revelation also places doubt onto many theories that Medjugorje critics have advocated. Donal Anthony
    Foley, the British author who in his book, “Understanding Medjugorje”, lionizes the apparitions of Fatinia while
    (quite literally) demonizing the apparitions of Medjugorje, portraying the two apparition sites as having nothing in
    common. Well, if critics believe in the authenticity of Sister Lucia’s visions, then it becomes difficult to doubt that
    the Madonna is not appearing in Medjugorje since Sister Lucia herself confirmed this very fact, after being told so
    by her apparitional experience of the Virgin Mary. This report by Sister Lucia’s nephew has, unfortunately, not
    been circulated widely. But it shows that Pope John Paul 11 was not alone in the conviction that Medjugorje
    completes Fatima, and that the two sites share the same spiritual source: the Mother of God.
    Interestingly, from Monsignor Slawomir Oder’s recent book on Pope John Paul ll, “Why He Is a Saint?” we
    received confirmation that the Pope considered Medjugorje the fulfillment of Fatima, explaining in 1984:
    “Medjugorje is the continuation of Fatima, it’s the completion of Fatima.” Now we see that this conviction of the
    Pope’s was not simply a personal opinion, for even Fatima’s own visionary, Lucia dos Santos, proclaimed the
    same, that tle same Virgin who appeared to her in Fatima continued appearing to her in the convent, and told Sister
    Lucia of her – the Virgin’s – continual work in Medjugorje.
    It is noteworthy, in stressing this connection, that Sister Lucia and Pope John Paul 11 maintained a lifelong friendship.
    One wonders whether they ever discussed together Our Lady’s presence in Medjugorje, as both held the conviction
    that the Virgin of Fatima continued her work in the Bosnian village.Though we could never know for sure, since
    both parties have passed away, this would not be an impossibility, since John Paul 11 proclaimed that Medjugorje
    is the continuation and completion of Fatima in 1984, while he met with Sister Lucia only two years earlier, when
    the pope was in Fatima on May 13, 1982, to thank the Virgin for saying his life from an assassination attempt. This
    was the same day that Our Lady of Medjugorje told the visionaries in Yugoslavia: “His enemies tried to kill him,
    but I have protected him.”
    What is interesting about Lucia’s visionary experiences of the Madonna is the fact that they did not end while
    she was a little girl. It is true that the last apparition in the Cova da Iria fields nearby Fatima, resulting in the
    miracle of the dancing sun that was witnessed by an estimated 70,000 people, did conclude on October 13,
    1917. However, even after the conclusion of these public apparitions, Sister Lucia continued receiving private
    revelations of the Virgin Mary as a nun in her cell. The same Virgin Mary that came to her as a little girl in
    Fatima continued appearing to Lucia as a grown woman in the convent. The apparitions lasted late into Lucia’s
    life, even after the Madonna reportedly began appearing in Medjugorje to six Croatian youths in 1981.
    Lucia dos Santos was the only remaining visionary of Fatima who lived through the twentieth century and into the
    twentyfirst. Shortly after the apparitions of Fatima began to three shepherd children in 1917, two of the children,
    Jacinta and Francisco Marto, brother and sister, passed away. Francisco died of bronchial pneumonia in 1919,
    while Jacinta developed a serious case of pleurisy and died in a Lisbon hospital a year later. Francisco was two
    months away from turning eleven, and jacinta was only a month away from celebrating her tenth birthday. It was
    Lucia who lived onto old age.
    She became a cloistered nun, making her perpetual vows on October 3, 1934, under the name Sister Maria das
    Dores, Mary of Sorrows, at the Institute of the Sisters of St. Dorothy in the convent. of Tuy, Spain. Later Lucia
    would return to Portugal and become a Discalced Carmelite on May 31, 1949, taking the name “Sister Maria Lucia
    of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart” at the Carmelite convent of St. Teresa in Coirnbra. Sister Lucia died in the
    convent at the age of 97 on February 13, 2005.

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