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