Vatican probes claims of apparitions at Medjugorje

(March 18, 2010) The Vatican has opened an investigation into reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the small town of Medjugorje in southern Bosnia which have drawn more than 30 million pilgrims. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's top doctrinal body, has named an international commission of inquiry of some 20 cardinals, bishops, theologians and experts, headed by Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former Vicar of Rome diocese, the Vatican said on Wednesday. Since six children first reported visions of the Virgin Mary on a hillside near Medjugorje in 1981 - reminiscent of famous apparitions in the French town of Lourdes and Fatima in Portugal - Catholics have debated whether the visions were a modern-day miracle, wishful thinking or an elaborate fraud. Unlike Fatima or Lourdes, the Vatican has not officially recognised the apparitions in the small town, some 100 km southwest of Sarajevo, and claims about it are controversial. Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar, the nearest city in Bosnia, warned Catholics last year against uncritical belief in the Medjugorje sightings and issued a series of restrictions on the parish. Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi explained on Wednesday that since the then bishops’ conference of former Yugoslavia, which no longer exists, came to no conclusion with regard to the question of the supernatural nature of the phenomena, the bishops of Bosnia and Herzegovina requested that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican to take up the matter.