English bishop requests Extraordinary Synod on life, ministry of clergy

Naples Archbishop Domenico Battaglia kisses the reliquary containing the blood of St. Januarius on May 4, 2024. / Credit: Chiesa di Napoli

ACI Prensa Staff, May 6, 2024 / 16:48 pm (CNA).
The miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Janua… […]

Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, May 12, 2019 / 07:46 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has given the green light for Catholics to organize pilgrimages to Medjugorje, a site of alleged Marian apparitions, though the Church has not yet given a verdict on the apparitions’ authenticity.

The pope’s authorization of pilgrimages to the site is not to be understood as an “authentication” of the alleged apparitions, “which still require an examination by the Church,” papal spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said in a statement May 12.

He added that anyone leading pilgrimages to the site should avoid creating “confusion or ambiguity under the doctrinal aspect,” including priests who intend to celebrate Mass there.

The provision was made as an acknowledgment of the “abundant fruits of grace” that have come from Medjugorje and to promote those “good fruits.” It is also part of the “particular pastoral attention” of Pope Francis to the place, Gisotti said.

The announcement of the papal authorization was made May 12 by the Vatican’s apostolic visitor to the site, Archbishop Henryk Hoser, and Archbishop Luigi Pezzuto, apostolic nuncio to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Hoser, retired archbishop of Warsaw-Prague, was appointed apostolic visitor to Medjugorje by Pope Francis in May 2018. His directive, which is of an undetermined length, is to oversee the pastoral needs at the site of the alleged Marian apparitions.

Hoser’s appointment as apostolic visitor followed his service as papal envoy to the site in 2017.

In January 2014, a Vatican commission concluded a nearly four-year-long investigation on the doctrinal and disciplinary aspects of the Medjugorje apparitions, and submitted a document to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

When the congregation has analyzed the commission’s findings, it will finalize a document on the site, which will be submitted to the pope, who will make a final decision.

The alleged apparitions began June 24, 1981, when six children in Medjugorje, a town in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, began to experience phenomena which they have claimed to be apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

According to these six “seers,” the apparitions contained a message of peace for the world, a call to conversion, prayer and fasting, as well as certain secrets surrounding events to be fulfilled in the future.

These apparitions are said to have continued almost daily since their first occurrence, with three of the original six children – who are now young adults – continuing to receive apparitions every afternoon because not all the “secrets” intended for them have been revealed.

Since their beginning, the alleged apparitions have been a source of both controversy and conversion, with many flocking to the city for pilgrimage and prayer, and some claiming to have experienced miracles at the site, while many others claim the visions are non-credible.

Pope Francis visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in June 2015 but declined to stop in Medjugorje during his trip. During his return flight to Rome, he indicated that the process of investigation in the apparitions was nearly complete.

On the return flight from a visit to the Marian shrine of Fatima in May 2017, the pope spoke about the final document of the Medjugorje commission, sometimes referred to as the “Ruini report,” after the head of the commission, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, calling it “very, very good,” and noting a distinction between the first Marian apparitions at Medjugorje and the later ones.

“The first apparitions, which were to children, the report more or less says that these need to continue being studied,” he said, but as for “presumed current apparitions, the report has its doubts,” the pope said.

On multiple occasions, the pope has said he is suspicious of the ongoing apparitions, “I prefer the Madonna as Mother, our Mother, and not a woman who’s the head of an office, who every day sends a message at a certain hour. This is not the Mother of Jesus.”

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Madrid, Spain, Nov 17, 2017 / 12:15 am (ACI Prensa).- Fr. Joseph of Jesus is a Chinese priest, faithful to the Catholic Church. Life is not easy for Catholics in China. Those who adhere to Rome are persecuted by the Chinese government, which only grants freedom of worship to those belonging to the state-controlled Patriotic Church.

Fr. Joseph recently shared his story on the “In the Footsteps of the Nazarene” program by the EUK Mamie Foundation, run by the Home of the Mother of Youth congregation of religious sisters.

His back faces the camera in the interview, and the precise details of his life in China, as well as his precise location – he is currently in Europe – are withheld for security reasons.

Fr. Joseph described what it was like growing up in a Catholic family in China. He is the third of five children, despite the rigid one-child policy instituted by the Chinese government.

“From time to time when the police would come into town, my parents had to go into hiding, away from us,” he said. “My older brother took care of us, we also had to hide everything we had in the house, because if the government discovered there was more than one child, they could take everything away from us.”

“Because they had more than one child, some Catholic parents had their houses destroyed and they were left with nothing,” the priest said.

“It was a test of faith, because as a child you don’t understand why it is that because you’re Catholic you have to live on less food and be separated from your parents,” he said.

However, he still persevered in his faith. His brother is also a Catholic priest.

The Catholic faith was maintained through “the domestic Church,” with families praying Lauds or Vespers secretly, and especially the Rosary.

“The Rosary is what gave us the strength for years because we didn’t have the sacraments or priests; but the faithful prayed every day at least one Rosary in the early morning and another one at night,” and at the end they said a “prayer to Our Lady of Fatima who gave us the strength to live as true Christians,” he recounted.

At age 15, Fr. Joseph felt that he was being called to the priesthood.

“I was thinking that in China there are a lot of people who don’t know Christ and the Catholic Church because we Christians are a minority,” he said. “So I thought that when I finished my studies I would go to the seminary and become a priest. That moment changed my life because I saw what the Lord wanted for me.”

He was inspired in his decision by the local pastor in the area, a dedicated priest responsible for 60 villages, who would celebrate Mass in the five largest villages, traveling from one to the next by bicycle.

“He’s an example of faithfulness to Christ and the Church because he didn’t want to be part of the official Chinese church and consequently he had to spend some time in prison or under house arrest,” Fr. Joseph said.

However, the priest accepted the sufferings that came to him, Fr. Joseph said, adding that at more than 80 years of age, that priest still wakes up at 3:30 every morning to pray and celebrate Mass.

“His exemplary life was decisive for me in finding my vocation. He is a priest for everyone, with such exemplary dedication.”

For more than 60 years, Catholics have faced persecution in China. The government-endorsed church, known as the “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” is loyal to Chinese communist authorities, who claim the right to decide whom to appoint as bishops, an authority that the Catholic Church reserves to the Pope.

Catholics who choose to remain loyal to Rome, particularly to the Pope’s juridical authority to appoint bishops autonomously, make up the “underground Church,” with its own bishops, priests, and lay faithful.

“There are…30 bishops of the underground Church who are not recognized by the state and so they cannot freely exercise their ministry,” Fr. Joseph said. “They are under house arrest and under surveillance, there are people who monitor their visits, whom they meet and their topics of conversation. Priestly ordinations are done in secret with no else knowing about it.”

Being part of the Catholic Patriotic Association would make life easier – with public Masses, a regular schedule, and the right to worship freely. But Fr. Joseph chooses to remain loyal to Rome despite the hardships.

“Fundamentally it’s not the same because the Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic,” he said. “The Patriotic Church is independent from Rome and I can’t accept that, because of my faith.”

Challenges abound, but the life of underground Christians in China is a witness of faith, Fr. Joseph said.

He asked for prayers that Chinese Christians may remain faithful, because “they teach us that the faith is much more precious than life, and that in living the faith we encounter Christ. We have to bear witness to those around us so those who don’t know the faith can find it.”

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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