Well, we had a great show planned last night with Gerald Hunt and Father Stephen Imbarrato and a message from Mate Z. who lives in Bosnia-Hercegovina near Medjugorje but the blogtalkradio switchboard failed us again. So, we will summarize here and move on.
Yesterday, the Vatican released a document and had a 2 hour press conference primarily aimed at Medjugorje, in light of the new norms on Private Revelations.
In the prelude to the meat of the program, there was a review of decisions made on other alleged Marian events including a reaffirmation of the condemnation of the Amsterdam events. Earlier in the week there was a communique that even discussed the possibility of excommunication for people still promoting this fraudulent event.
Then the program turned to Medjugorje and the Vatican did pretty much what I predicted. They declined to overturn the verdict of 22 Bishops of jurisdiction and declare the Medjugorje events supernatural. In other words, Medjugorje is still not approved and, frankly, never will be.
I had hoped- but doubted- that the Vatican would give a forceful condemnation in this area but they declined to do so. I was disappointed by this decision but not surprised.
What they did was leave the supernatural question alone and allow Medjugorje to remain a place of devotion and prayer and pilgrimage. They declared that the messages were mostly positive and that we were free to simply ignore "specific details" like the false Medjugorje statement that Our Lady's birthday is August 5th and not the date we all know it is- September 8th.
A Nihil Obstat is not an approval of Medjugorje nor an affirmation of supernaturality. It is only a statement that devotion to this place does no harm. The note stated that opponents and proponents were basically free to believe whatever they wish in this matter.
My position, as always, is to respect the prudential judgement of the Vatican to set this matter aside while at the same time reaffirming the clear and undeniable truth that the Mother of Jesus has never appeared in Medjugorje even once.
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