I am writing in response to the article written by Max Farrugia entitled “The Message of Medjugorje” (TMIS, 31 August).

To begin with, I would like to say a little about who I am. I am a high school teacher and a convert to Catholicism who has been blissfully enjoying the Catholic life for 11 years. I came to the Church by way of mystical phenomena such as Marian apparitions. In fact, the first pilgrimage to a place of purported apparitions that I went on was Medjugorje and I believed in it. A few years later, I attended a college that supported Medjugorje and received my Bachelors and Masters degrees in Theology. I also studied Mariology under a prominent Mariologist (and supporter of Medjugorje) at both undergraduate and graduate level.

By the time my undergraduate studies ended, I had concluded for myself that Medjugorje was not supernatural in origin (“constat de non supernaturalitater”, in proper theological terms). The reasons for my decision would detract from the purpose of this response. What I would like to discuss is Max Farrugia’s article. I disagree with numerous things in his article and which I would like to discuss.

The impetus for Farrugia’s article was a British tabloid’s report on a recent interview given by a retired Italian Bishop and exorcist Andrea Gemma. Farrugia took issue with the tabloid’s reporting of the Bishop’s interview, as the tabloid was incorrect. The tabloid did indeed horribly mangle the story and I reported this on my blog. I knew the interview’s contents and identified the tabloid’s false reporting from the start because I had already placed the original Italian interview accompanied by a rough translation on my blog “Desiderium.”

Farrugia’s article makes a number of questionable statements. The first statement is, “In fact, a recent decision by the Vatican to remove Medjugorje from the jurisdiction of a negative-leaning national bishops’ commission was seen as the most important positive development since 1986 (when the Bishop of Mostar tried to reject it his authority to rule on it was similarly removed).” Farrugia’s insertion of the word “negative” comes across as if he was saying that the Vatican has removed the jurisdiction of the Episcopal conference of Bosnia-Herzegovina because the Vatican supports Medjugorje and the conference does not. Can Farrugia provide certifiable evidence for this perceived support?

The second part of the above statement is the claim that the Bishop of Mostar has been stripped of his authority to render a judgment on the supernatural character of Medjugorje. This has been claimed for many years. The Church is governed by public statements and documents and no one has been able to produce a letter with a protocol number that verifies the claim that the Bishop’s authority has been removed. What I have seen however are two important and very relevant documents that go against this claim.

The first document is a letter written by Bishop Peric himself that I have in my private files. He answered the claim at hand saying, “The authority of the Bishop of Mostar has not been impaired in any way.” The second document I have seen is the 1978 document of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the norms for evaluating alleged apparitions. This document says that if such discernment was to go to the local Episcopal conference or the Vatican, the local ordinary remains involved in the investigation.

The next statement of Farrugia was as follows, “Still, there were articles, and e-mails based on purported, and still unconfirmed, statements by the 77-year-old Bishop Andrea Gemma of Italy, a retired bishop and exorcist who, it was claimed, told an Italian magazine that Medjugorje is a sham that will soon be ruled against by Rome.” I could be mistaken but the way I read Farrugia’s statement is that he casts doubt on the authenticity of the Bishop’s interview.

I do not know why Farrugia would call into question the authenticity of Bishop Gemma’s statement that the Vatican was soon going to expose the deceit behind Medjugorje. The Bishop did indeed make the remark in a publication entitled Petrus. Later in his article, Farrugia speaks of the Bishop’s interview as if there was no question of its authenticity. If Farrugia would correct my understanding, I would greatly appreciate it.

After saying the above, Farrugia then remarks the following, “But the bishop is not a Vatican spokesman – and never was, despite the headline and the flurry of e-mails quoting the British tabloid, which in the tradition of British journalism, often prints headlines without first finding the facts to support them. It is not the first time that our island suffered bad publicity in articles published by the second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun.”

While it is true that Bishop Gemma was not acting as a Vatican spokesman, it occurs to me that there is an important piece of the story that is being left out of the discussion. Gemma is a Bishop. Bishops, as a rule, remain in contact with the Vatican. Bishop Gemma also happens to be an Italian Bishop with close geographical and cultural proximity to the Vatican. Bishop Gemma mentions in the original Italian article that he has worked with the Bishop of Mostar-Duvno and spoken with him on the subject of Medjugorje. All things considered, it can be argued that Bishop Gemma is informed of things of which we are not aware.

A little further down, Farrugia quotes from Tracy Wilkerson’s book The Vatican’s Exorcists. He quotes, “With regard to Bishop Gemma, this book says: ‘Gemma, seventy-four, speaks at times with a slow dramatic flair, repeating his words for emphasis.’ It added that he was a featured speaker at a meeting of exorcists ‘where he regaled the priests with his stories, his eagerness to knock down the mystique around diabolical possession, and his penchant for the closest thing to irreverence that a bishop can muster when talking about Church hierarchy’.”

After several visits to Italy, one of which was fairly long, I know that Italians do have a flair for the dramatic. It strikes me as being queer for Farrugia to point out how Bishop Gemma repeats his words for emphasis. I do the same when I am teaching my students. Furthermore, I have a copy of Mrs Wilkerson’s book and found it to be written in an unorthodox fashion on the subject of exorcism so I would take the last quote with a grain of salt.

Further down, Farrugia says the following, “Bishop Gemma went on to say that the Church already has spoken through the Bishop of Mostar – whose authority, in fact had been stripped. The idea that he speaks for the Church is another inaccuracy in the Petrus interview by Bishop Gemma himself, who also erroneously stated that pilgrimages are not allowed there (despite official Vatican statements to the contrary; it has been twice stated through its press office that while official pilgrimages are not allowed until there is Church approval, unofficial ones are allowed, including those with priests. The Cardinal of Sarajevo, who is the country’s highest ecclesiastic authority, has repeated this).”

There are a number of things I would like to point out in the above text. First, I would like to reiterate the need for a Vatican letter with a protocol number on it that declared the Bishop was divested of his authority in the matter of judging Medjugorje’s supernatural character. The second thing I’d like to comment on is Farrugia’s remark on the Bishop speaking for the Church. According to our divine and Catholic faith, the Bishop is the Church in that Diocese. When he speaks, the Church speaks. He is the sign of unity in his Diocese. This was the point from which Bishop Gemma was coming in his original interview.

The last thing I would like to point out in the above quote concerns pilgrimages to Medjugorje. If one reads the 1991 Zadar declaration (which right now is the ruling document on Medjugorje), allowing pilgrimages rested upon one fact – the faithful going to Medjugorje can not have the intention of proving Medjugorje true, i.e., presuming a supernatural character. Catholics are permitted to go to Medjugorje so long as it is not understood as an authentication of the alleged events that are still under Church investigation. Even supporters of Medjugorje accept this interpretation.i

It would be extremely hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt that all who go to Medjugorje on pilgrimage do not already think and believe it to be supernatural in origin. This is why we should pause and reflect upon what Bishop Gemma said in the original Italian interview. Remembering the fact that he is a Bishop trained in theology and philosophy and has a lot of pastoral experience, we should read his remarks in a greater context. It is true that Bishop Gemma remarked that people are not supposed to be going to Medjugorje. However, perhaps he meant this to be taken as coming from what the 1991 Zadar statement actually said and intended as stated above.

Farrugia comments further, “While John Paul II was highly favourable toward the apparitions, even encouraging pilgrimages, and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger rescued the place from local condemnation; it is not clear how Benedict will act now that he is pontiff.” There are a few things in this sentence that need to be brought out. The first is the remark about John Paul II. In his interview Bishop Gemma leaves open the possibility that John Paul II remarked about Medjugorje. Gemma does, however, also make the important distinction between private remarks and acts of the Magisterium.

Bishop Gemma correctly identifies any such alleged private remarks as not an act of the Magisterium. John Paul II’s private opinion was just that—private. He was not speaking authoritatively and could have been wrong. Furthermore, there is a letter that is available on the Internet dated in 1998 from Cardinal Ratzinger. Ratzinger writes that any statement attributed to the Holy Father or to himself (Ratzinger) on Medjugorje is completely false – “frei erfunden”.

The next aspect of the above quote concerns the actions of Ratzinger both as Cardinal and Pope. Farrugia paints Ratzinger as a quasi-“saviour” of Medjugorje when he employs the term “rescued”. This gives the impression that Ratzinger and/or Rome is favourable to Medjugorje. This perceived “favour” is and cannot be denied a part of Medjugorje propaganda (“Rome supports us”) and the undertone contains a tongue-in-cheek demonisation of the Bishop of Mostar. Such is not Catholic and I am forced to ask if demonising a Bishop is the “fruit” of Medjugorje.

The last element I wish to point out in the above quote is Farrugia’s remark on how Ratzinger will act as Pope. Every five years, Bishops go to Rome on their ad limina visit. Bishop Peric’s last visit for this purpose was in February 2006. A month after Peric returned to his diocese, an interview about the visit was published in the diocesan newspaper. Among other things, the interviewer asked Peric if he had spoken with the Pope about Medjugorje. Peric responded that they did and proceeded to tell the interviewer about the contents of the discussion.

Peric quotes the Holy Father as telling him, “We at the Congregation always asked ourselves: how can any believer accept as authentic, apparitions that occur every day and for so many years? Are they still occurring every day?” This does not sound like a very approving comment on Medjugorje’s claims. Regretfully, the quote met with little or bad press and in one case was deliberately censored. The quote does not equate a judgment for or against Medjugorje but it does tell us something of what is in the mind of Pope Benedict XVI.

Sadly, many people began to take issue with the above point expressed by the Pontiff (though he was not the first to express it). The recently approved apparitions in Laus, France went on for 54 years. Medjugorje supporters took advantage of the approval to claim that the criticism of Medjugorje’s duration (27 years) was now defunct – even one of the alleged seers of Medjugorje, Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo, remarked on the duration criticism in relation to Laus. What Medjugorje’s supporters did not realise, however, was that the exact criticism was on Our Lady allegedly appearing every day for 27 years. Our Lady appeared periodically to the visionary of Laus for 54 years. Thus the original criticism remains in its full integrity.

Later in the same meeting, the Pope remarked to Peric, “We at the Congregation felt that priests should be of service to those faithful who seek Confession and Holy Communion, leaving out the question of the authenticity of the apparitions.” The Pope was simply admitting a fact—there are numerous people who go to Medjugorje and their spiritual needs must be met. Allowing people to receive the Sacraments in Medjugorje was not declaring a supernatural character to the alleged apparitions, yet many seem to think it does.

The last thing that I wish to point out in Farrugia’s article is the following text, “(Medjugorje) is a new experience of faith and prayer. It is for this reason that Our Lady wanted our prayer partnership and the Visitation to be a way for us to gather together and live the messages of Medjugorje.” This is an incorrect theological statement. The purpose of any legitimate private revelation is to focus on the Deposit of Faith, i.e., the public revelation of God transmitted through Scripture and Tradition.

If Our Lady was indeed appearing at Medjugorje, her purpose could not be for us to gather together and live the messages of Medjugorje. Her purpose would be to spur us on to living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a technical distinction but one that must be made; claiming the alleged messages of Medjugorje as synonymous or harmonious with the Gospel is as yet undecided by authority.

When all is said and done, it is my humble opinion that Max Farrugia took advantage (willingly or unwillingly) of some bad reporting on Medjugorje in order to capitalise on the situation and cast Medjugorje into a favourable light. Upon further thought, however, it can be plainly seen that Max Farrugia is simply toeing the party line when it comes to the Medjugorje propaganda machine with all its incumbent inaccuracies and emotionally charged rhetoric. It is my sincere hope that my response is read with respect and a mind towards the fact that if Medjugorje was a legitimate place of apparitions, it must withstand all scrutiny.



Mr Symonds lives in Cullman, Alabama, USA.