Students and teachers from Cookstown and Dungannon on pilgrimage in Medjugorje. Reports of apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje could be recognised by the Vatican as early as this year according to an archbishop appointed by the Pope.
Archbishop Henryk Hoser was given the task to study the pastoral care given to the town’s residents and pilgrims who arrive in their millions each year to climb Mt Podbrdro, where the apparitions are said to have occurred.
Arcbishop Hoser said that “from a pastoral point of view, there is a very positive result”.
“My mission was not to make a judgement on Medjugorje, but to evaluate whether the pastoral ministry was proper and consistent with the doctrine and teaching of the Church; and effective and well organised. I concluded that this is the case,” the archbishop told the Catholic Information Agency in Poland.
Character
The site has the same character as holy places of pilgrimage such as Lourdes, Lisieux, Czestochowa and Fatima according to the archbishop, who said the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has provided all the documentation surrounding the alleged apparitions to the Secretary of State.
Archbishop Hoser said that there has been “every indication” that the apparition will be approved, saying: “Specifically, I think it’s possible to recognise the authenticity of the first [seven] apparitions as proposed by the Ruini commission,” Hoser said. “Besides, it is difficult to get another verdict, because it’s difficult to believe that six seers will lie for 36 years. What they say has been consistent. They are not mentally incompetent. A strong argument for the authenticity of the apparitions is their faithfulness to the doctrine of the Church.”
He encouraged believers to go to Medjugorje, calling it “the pilgrimage of spiritual change, conversion and strengthening of faith”.
The alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary occurred for the first time on June 24, 1981, according to six boys and girls.