VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican will soon decide on the validity of miraculous apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, a Bosnian town, Pope Francis said on his return from the country’s capital.
The Vatican’s evaluation of the claims is nearing completion, Francis told journalists aboard the papal plane on Saturday (June 6), according to Vatican Radio. The pope’s comments came at the end of his day trip to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The upcoming decision comes 34 years after a group of six young people in Medjugorje claimed the Virgin Mary had appeared to them. The six said they ran to their local priest and described seeing a woman in a long, flowing dress and veil who told them she was the Virgin Mary.
Since the 1981 reported apparitions, pilgrims have flocked to the southern town in droves — it now attracts more than a million visitors a year — even as the Vatican refrained from confirming the miraculous event.
The country’s bishops have stated the supposed miraculous event was nothing of the sort.
“On the basis of the research that has been done, it is not possible to state that there were apparitions or supernatural revelations,” they said in 1991.
The group continued to insist the Virgin Mary appeared to them, bringing a message of peace. One member of the group, Ivan Dragicevic, was due to speak in St. Louis earlier this year but the local archdiocese canceled the event.
Francis’ announcement follows the creation of a high-level commission in 2010 by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to investigate the events in Medjugorje and issue a ruling.
YS/AMB END SCAMMELL