If God really wishes to teach people through sending visions of Mary to them, he would have a standard procedure up and running. The procedure would be that the apparition teaches the visionaries, then the visionaries write down the message and a vision confirms that the message has been written down properly. To believe in any of the alleged apparitions is simply to impute incompetence to God.
Many foolish people believe that the Virgin Mary has been appearing in Medjugorje
since 1981. A big book called Words
from Heaven quotes the messages and comments on them. It says that the Virgin said in 1982 (15),
and it interprets her as saying, that there will be no more apparitions on
the earth after Medjugorje (16). This
is repeated on page 41. The last
apparitions claim is a good advertisement for Medjugorje and has contributed
immensely to its phenomenal success as a spiritual
Her first sign will be given
at the end of the apparitions (102).
Ivan wanted to know when that would be and she said that the
visionaries, her angels, were impatient.
The sign must then be something nice like a miracle sign for she did
not criticise them for seeking it. In
1981, the Virgin said that she appears to others occasionally and briefly
(105). The comment on this is that she
must mean other visions in
She says that all people with
different beliefs are equal but their religions are not the same for they
disobey the commandments of God and reject them (105). This implies that the Catholic Church does
the most obeying! Religions often are
saintly for they are liberal in morality so it is not hard for them to obey
God according to their best light. The
“Virgin” denies this. The visionaries
should be sued for incitement to hatred.
Remember, Church and state have to be totally separate so a person
cannot be allowed to do things like that even if they say an apparition said
it for the state must live as if apparitions and miracles and Gods are not
true.
The vision told the children it would be good if they become priests and nuns but only if they want it and they are free to decide (117). Becoming a priest or nun would be serving God best and doing a lot of praying. Mary is saying God does not mind if they don’t do what is best. And she would say that celebrating Mass is the supreme good work! If morality is not what is best there is no morality. Also what happened to the Catholic doctrine of the call? According to this doctrine, God chooses you to be a priest and a nun and your life will be defective and will fail to fulfil his plan if you refuse the call. The Bible says that no man takes the honour of the priesthood to himself but needs to be called by God.
The Lady is right that faith
is the foundation from which all your thoughts and actions flow but she
incorrectly says you cannot force a person to believe. God can “force” a person to believe by
changing thoughts and desires to cause the person to freely change which she
can do (119).
The Virgin denies
reincarnation in a message given in 1982.
She says that the body that decays never rises again but man receives
a changed body (131). This is a denial
of the doctrine that Jesus was raised bodily and this bodily resurrection was
why his tomb was empty. It denies that
the Virgin rose from the dead in her human body. They get new bodies. Or perhaps the Virgin decayed in the grave
and was given the new body at the instant of her death. Catholics say that
On July 23 1982 the Virgin
told Vicka that that her apparitions would be the last on earth (130) and
even went as far as to tell the children that she cannot help the world
without them (page 235). The real
Virgin would not give the visionaries an excuse for being proud and thinking
they are indispensable.
On July 12 she said that
there would be no third world war completely contradicting the worldwide war
predicted by Christ and the book of Revelation that will come before the
reign of God is visibly established (130).
If some maniacal dictator wanted to wage war against his neighbouring
countries and did not want a world war though it could happen if he attacked,
this message would give him the courage to declare war and cause a world
war.
The Virgin admitted that
Jesus prefers people to pray to him without doing it through a saint and then
she asked for prayers to herself (134).
She denies that doing what is best alone is what is moral and she
hints that she is an antichrist.
The Virgin once apologised
for having to say that Satan existed (139).
Really! The Virgin Mary
apologising for doing her duty!
Mirjana had just seen a vision of the Devil so what had the vision to
apologise for?
Marija was told by the Virgin
that she approved of the heretical and fanciful revelation, Poem of the
Man-God (141). The Church
allegedly stated through Cardinal Ratzinger that the Poem could be
read as long as it was not believed to be supernatural in origin. But this is dishonest for the book claims
to be revelation from God and Deuteronomy 18 says that a prophet who makes an
error should not be listened to AT ALL!
Mary must know better than God for even Catholics scholars admit that
the Poem of the Man-God makes errors!
Did Ratzinger read the whole book which is long and understand that it
was good enough reading? Probably
not. If the book is heresy no Church
decree could make it right to read it.
Catholics universally do
prayer and penance to get the souls of their loved ones out of the agony of
Purgatory and into Heaven around All Soul’s day and they gain indulgences for
them as well which cancel the penalty that confines them in Purgatory. The statement of the Virgin that most souls
get out of Purgatory not on All Souls day the day of special prayer and
penance for them but Christmas (144) is unbelievable. All Souls should be the time when they are
focused on the most. And Easter is
more important than Christmas.
The failure of the Virgin’s
signs to come to pass though she said they would soon proves the fraud. She told Marija to tell a priest to warn
the bishop and the pope very soon about these things in 1983. So soon means soon.
The Lady did not like pilgrims taking
pictures in the apparition room but wanted them to pray for special grace
during the vision (153). That is in
case one of them would take a photo that would refute the alleged
synchronicity and trances of the visionaries.
Taking pictures could be a prayer and there is nothing wrong then with
offering this up to God as an action prayer and no harm in snapping people just
looking at a wall. She orders the pilgrims
to believe she is appearing when they are to be more interested in the
present moment than in taking pictures that inspire them to pray often in the
future. She unrealistically wants the
priests of Medjugorje to pray four hours a day (155). She must mean that they do this apart from
their ordinary prayerful duties which take a lot of time.
A picture on page 46 of the Catholic Truth
Society booklet, Medjugorje, clearly shows the visionaries facing the
same direction but looking in different angles. The emotions on some of the faces are
different. With one visionary smiling
and the rest being sour-faced it is clear that their apparitions are probably
fabrications.
At Mary’s two thousandth birthday
party in 1984 she said that she never cried with sorrow as much as she cried
that evening with joy ALL HER LIFE (Words from Heaven, 157). Shouldn’t the resurrection of her son and
her reunion with him in heaven have been the happiest days of her life? It is selfish of her to like her birthday
party so much.
The Lady said that nobody on
earth received as much grace as the visionaries and their brothers and
sisters (168). This implies that these
people will find it easier to become saints.
This runs down anybody in the world who might be a real saint. That statement ruins the claim of the
apparition to cherish humility in people and shows that the visionaries are
being arrogant when they would even repeat a message like that.
The Virgin made an excuse that she was
appearing so much to the children because she wanted to help them live the
messages (238). Is she more concerned
about them than the people she appeared to briefly? Could she not help them without
appearing? And she would not be
appearing if she was not making progress with them so they are letting the
world know by revealing this message that the Virgin is well pleased with
them which completely contradicts the command of Christ in the Sermon on the
Mount that forbids people to show others that they are good.
She says that if we pray for
the souls in Purgatory we will gain many new people to intercede for us
(238). Do they not pray for us until
we get them out? Impossible! The souls couldn’t care less about us
according to her and they are in Purgatory to learn to love perfectly! They are just there to be tortured.
The Virgin said in 1989 that
she cannot give new messages if the children do not live the messages she
gave (300). This is the children
letting us know that they live the messages – boasting. And why can’t the Lady give messages even
if they just reject them so that the devotees might benefit from them? The visionaries are her favourites. She often said that God has no favourites
so who sent her?
It is interesting that a
magical blessing that would chiefly work for conversion can only work best if
you receive the power to give it at the site of the apparitions (330). Good for tourism that! The Lady should care more about the love in
people’s hearts than about them physically going to Medjugorje.
Page 331 would make you faint
for the Virgin Mary, who the Church says never sinned and cannot sin for she
is with God and too happy to sin, is said to have prayed the Our Father with
its plea to be pardoned for ones sins in 1988! It is said she said it for us and did not
mean herself to be included. But us in that prayer means I and you so even if she said she
did not include herself, and she never said that, I wouldn’t believe
her.
On
Many Atheists would take
issue with the March 1995 message that there is no peace where people say no
prayers and that there is no love when faith is absent (278). People who believe in nothing and not even
in reason can still love. The context
is about peace in families and in hearts.
She said that we cannot love
others if we don’t love God first (278).
But we can when we are more sure others exist
than we are that God exists. She
denies what we all know to be the most sure.
She puts God first. Are there
no courses in philosophy in Heaven?
At the end of nearly every
message the Virgin thanks the children for having responded to her previous
calls. The Blessed Virgin does not owe
us a debt of thanks for the Christian religion states that all our responses
to God are gifts from God and to God alone belongs
the thanks and the praise. It is all
God’s work. God does not say thanks
for God gives you the rewards and blessings you deserve. That is much better for you will feel smug
when congratulated by a heavenly visitor but if the visitor shows it in
action and gives you blessings that will prevent you becoming
self-conceited. God’s gifts always
make you humbler.
And besides, the Church never
recognises apparitions as authentic when the messages glorify the seer or
seers. The Virgin is telling the
children that they have responded well to her previous messages when she
thanks them. She often asks them to
love God above all things and in the next message she thanks them for their
responding to it. She is declaring
them virtuous and saintly while even the most ardent supporters of Medjugorje
admit that the visionaries have told lies and did wrong things and may be too
fond of material pleasures.
Fr Tomislav Vlasic wrote a
booklet called Our Lady, Queen of Peace, Queen of
Apostles, in which Mary says that fasting on bread and water is essential
and that eating fish instead of meat is not fasting (7). She contradicts Catholic tradition in
this. She is heretically declaring
herself superior to the magisterium of the Church which is above apparitions. But she is right all the same.
She said that a visible
miracle would be left as a sign for the Atheists on the hill of the first
vision (10). The sign would be given
to convert them but Jelena, who is not one of the six but an approved seer
who hears voices and who had the sanction of the Virgin in her appearances to
her said that when the sign comes it would be too late for unbelievers to
repent and be converted (page 340-341, Words from Heaven). The Virgin said that the world had to be
told to hurry up and repent before God starts taking revenge. This is a prophecy that the whole world
would be able to hear this message but it hasn’t happened.
Vlasic speaks of the word
MIR, peace being written in the sky and about the different visions people
saw on
And they are right.
BOOKS CONSULTED
“I BEG YOU:
LISTEN TO MY MESSAGES AND LIVE THEM,” Padraic Dunne, published privately,
Drogheda,
BIBLICAL
EXEGESIS AND CHURCH DOCTRINE, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press,
LOOKING FOR A MIRACLE, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books,
MEDJUGORJE, David Baldwin, Catholic Truth Society,
MEDJUGORJE HERALD, Vol 13, No 2, Feb 1999,
MEDJUGORJE, A TIME FOR TRUTH AND A TIME FOR ACTION, Denis Nolan
MEDJUGORJE, FACTS DOCUMENTS THEOLOGY, Fr Michael O Carroll, Veritas,
OUR LADY QUEEN OF PEACE, Tomislav Vlasic OFM, published by Peter Batty,
POWERS OF DARKNESS, POWERS OF LIGHT, John Cornwell, Penguin,
QUEEN OF PEACE (Newspaper), Fall, 1995,
SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL STUDIES ON THE APPARITIONS AT MEDJUGORJE Rene
Laurentin and Henri Joyeux, Veritas, Dublin, 1987.
THE APPARITIONS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY TODAY, Rene Laurentin,
Veritas,
THE HIDDEN SIDE OF MEDJUGORJE, Fr Ivo Sivric, Ed. Psilog, Saint
Francios Du Lac, Quebec, 1989.
THE THUNDER OF JUSTICE, Ted and Maureen Flynn, MAXCOL,
UNDERSTANDING MEDJUGORJE, HEAVENLY VISIONS OR RELIGIOUS ILLUSION? Donal
Anthony Foley, Theotokos Books,
VISIONS OF THE CHILDREN, Janice T Connell, St Martin’s Press,
WORDS FROM HEAVEN, Anonymous, Caritas of
The following books are available from Militia Immaculatae Trust,
CRITERIA FOR DISCERNING APPARITIONS REGARDING THE EVENTS OF MEDJUGORJE
by Monsignor Peric.
MEDJUGORJE – AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS, Michael Davies, Remnant Press,
MEDJUGORJE THE UNTOLD STORY, E Michael Jones Fidelity Press,
MEDJUGORJE, Bishop Zanic, Mostar, 1990.
THE
THE MEDJUGORJE DECEPTION, E Michael Jones, Fidelity Press,
TWENTY QUESTIONS ABOUT MEDJUGORJE, Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. Pangaeus
Press, Dallas, 1999.
THE WEB
CHRISTIAN REFUTATION OF MEDJUGORJE
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0079a.html
CRITIQUE: POEM OF THE MAN-GOD
http://members.lycos.co.uk/jloughnan/critique.htm
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES DONE ON THE VISIONARIES OF MEDJUGORJE – 1998
SCIENTIFIC STUDY ON THE VISIONARIES
www.childrenofmedjugorje.com/medj/research.htm
THE WANDERER by Paul Likoudis, 1998
www.unitypublishing.com/wanderer.html
Unity Publishing has pictures allegedly proving that the messages from
Mary are being made up by the priests and that the visions are hoaxes. Ivan was snapped acting as if he was
guarding the door while the priest and a visionary were inventing the
message. This is however is a pro-Catholic site.
AN OVERVIEW OF THE MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC TESTING OF VISIONARY
http://members.aol.com/bbu84/biblicalstupidity/science.htm#10
DISCERNMENT AND SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF VISIONARIES FROM THE MEDJUGORJE
STAR
http://members.aol.com/bbu84/biblicalstupidity/study.htm#11
Videos
VISIONS ON DEMAND, Network 5 International, 1997
DIVINE OR DECEIVED? COVER-UP, Network 5 International, 1998
Contact:
Network 5 International
L69 3EE
UNDERSTANDING MEDJUGORJE, HEAVENLY VISIONS OR RELIGIOUS ILLUSION? Donal
Anthony Foley, Theotokos Books,
To Order Understanding Medjugorje visit http://www.theotokos.org.uk or write
to Theotokos Books, PO Box, 8570,