Sat, May 27, 2017 page7

• FEATURE: Bosnian town defends reported sightings of Virgin

  • AFP, MEDJUGORJE, Bosnia and Herzegovina
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  Pope Francis is dismissive of claims that the Virgin Mary appears daily in Medjugorje, but Danielle Pitau is convinced that her pilgrimage to the small Bosnian town cured her of cancer.

  “Whoever tells me that nothing happens in Medjugorje, I tell them to come here and try it,” the 72-year-old Belgian woman said.

  She told reporters that “a warmth did not stop rising” inside her stomach on her first visit to the town 11 years ago, which followed surgery on a bladder tumor and a pessimistic diagnosis from doctors.

  

  A member of the clergy stands outside Saint Jacob’s Church in Medjugorje, Bosnia, on May 30, 2015.

  Photo: AFP

  In June 1981, six Bosnian teenagers said they had witnessed the appearance of the Virgin in the southern town near the Croatian border.

  She continues to “appear” to three of them daily and to the other three once a year.

  With some of them now living between Medjugorje, Italy and the US, they proclaim themselves “seers” and say the Virgin is transmitting them messages, which they publish for the edification of believers.

  In a rare interview with local media, one of the self-declared seers, Vicka Ivankovic-Mijatovic, described Mary’s visitations, which occur “every day at 6:40pm.”

  “Before her arrival, a light appears three times. This is the sign that she is coming,” Ivankovic-Mijatovic said.

  The Virgin “has a gray dress, a white veil, a crown of stars, blue eyes, black hair, pinkish cheeks. She is floating on a gray cloud and does not step on the ground,” she said.

  In early March, Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo, another of the six “seers,” transmitted a message from the Virgin calling on people to “live with love for the word of [her] son, so that the world can be different.”

  Every year, about 2.5 million pilgrims visit Medjugorje, said Polish archbishop Henryk Hoser.

  Many of those arrive in June to mark the 1981 visions.

  In February, Hoser was sent by the Vatican to analyze their “needs” and “acquire a deeper knowledge of the pastoral situation.”

  Home to about 2,300 people, who are mostly ethnic Croat Roman Catholics, the town is nestled among hills, including the mount on which the Virgin is said to appear.

  Pilgrims arrive by the coach-load and linger in front of the twin-towered Saint Jacob’s Church, while others wander between religious souvenir shops, guesthouses, hotels and restaurants.

  Some climb the rocky hill known for the apparitions, from which a white stone statue of the Virgin looks over the town.

  Visions have also been reported in other locations.

  However, in the nearby town of Mostar, Bishop Ratko Peric said Medjugorje’s fame was based on a falsehood.

  “These are not authentic appearances of the Virgin Mary,” he said in February, dismissing the 47,000 reported apparitions since June 1981.

  The Vatican, which is not opposed to the pilgrimages, has not revealed the conclusion of an inquiry conducted from 2010 to 2014 into the Medjugorje sightings.

  However, recent irony-tinged declarations from Pope Francis suggest the probe threw up doubts over the issue.

  The pontiff earlier this month said that the woman the seers say they see “is not the mother of Jesus.”

  “It is obvious. Who thinks the Virgin would say: ‘Come to this place tomorrow at this time and I’ll give a message to a seer?’” the pontiff said.

  However he was more circumspect about the 1981 visions, which he did not immediately reject.

  “On the original apparitions, the ones the children had, the inquiry says, more or less, that investigations need to continue,” he said.

  The Pope’s comments were not well received in Medjugorje, where one local priest, who asked to remain anonymous, said they “create trouble.”

  “He should have looked deeply into his soul to know whether such a declaration would do good or bad,” said another Bosnian believer, who also refused to give his name.

  As June is the month when many believers visit Medjugorje, it is still too early to assess the effect of the Pope’s skepticism.
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